Saturday, January 21

DOLLARS AND SENSE: THE COSTS OF THE IRAQ WAR

This is an argument that Dems need to make forcefully, and repeatedly, during the 2006 Congressional election cycle:

Even more fundamentally, there is the question of whether we needed to spend the money at all. Thinking back to the months before the war, there were few reasons to invade quickly, and many to go slow. The Bush policy of threatened force had pressured Iraq into allowing the U.N. inspectors back into the country. The inspectors said they required a few months to complete their work. Several of our closest allies, including France and Germany, were urging the U.S. to await the outcome of the inspections. There were, as we now know, conflicting intelligence reports.

Had we waited, the value of the information we would have learned from the inspectors would arguably have saved the nation at least $1 trillion — enough money to fix Social Security for the next 75 years twice over.


Americans, even Republicans, don't like to see their hard-earned tax dollars as recklessly wasted as they have been under the Bush administration.

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