692 people are dead and over $100 billion has been spent thanks to the George W. Bush ‘ Co. led invasion of Iraq. For the steep costs of this war, little has been yielded in results.
Zero weapons of mass destruction (WMD) have been found. There is no connection between 9/11 and Iraq. Oil output in Iraq is below prewar levels (part of why it costs so much these days). Yes, Saddam Hussein is gone. Hurrah!
As for the total outlook of the war in Iraq after one year, the American people have gained nothing and sacrificed much.
The shortcomings of the war have become a major topic thanks to former top Bush counterterrorism advisor Richard C. Clarke just-published book “Against All Enemies: an Insider’s Look at the War on Terrorism” in which he writes, “the tragedy here is that Americans went to their death in Iraq thinking that they were avenging Sept. 11, when Iraq had nothing to do with Sept. 11. I think for a commander in chief and a vice president to allow that to happen is unconscionable.”
David Kay, the former head of the U.S. led team directed to ferret out WMDs has publicly stated that they simply are nowhere to be found. He candidly noted, “the large stockpile of actual weapons, chemical and biological weapons simply have not been found yet.”
So, the American people were sold a (rather pricy) bill of goods. Whoops! Sorry about all the money and death, but we just can’t find the damn things. (As if to add insult to injury, the recent White House TV and Radio Correspondents Dinner showed a “election year slide-show” which included, among other distasteful things, a shot of Bush looking under furniture and narrating how the WMDs had to be around here somewhere.)
“The president’s rationale for going to war was based on faulty intelligence and on President Bush’s desire to get somebody who ‘tried to kill my daddy.’ The U.S. should never again enter into such a war on such a flimsy basis,” said Fairfield Politics Professor John Orman.
Democracy will not be coming to Iraq for a long time, even with the planned summer transfer of sovereignty to the Iraqi people. The power fight between formerly oppressed majority Shiites Muslims and the previously powerful minority Sunnis is already raging.
“The idea that we are just going to turn Iraq over in June is a sham-being as we will have over 100,000 troops there,” said Fairfield Politics Professor Donald Greenberg.
Make no mistake, the world is better without Saddam Hussein. But, for every dictator killed there are two more ravaging their countries. The United States cannot expect to rebuild the world one nation at a time.
We the people were misled into war. We are all paying for this mistake. Some paid with their lives. We, the youth of America will be footing an enormous monetary cost for decades to come. The war in Iraq was not worth it before and it simply is not worth it now.
John Lennon said, “War is over (If you want it.)” It is time to put an end to this war, the sooner the better.
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