davidswanson's blog

If you support the ongoing occupation of Iraq, I'm sure you have your reasons and that they're based in hard scientific calculations. But please indulge me for a moment and help me do this little math problem:

All the benefits we've gotten out of invading and occupying Iraq (whatever they may be)…

Actually, let me stop right there. The benefits you have in mind for this calculation should not include the increased price of gas, the killed and wounded U.S. servicemen and women, or the creation of a breeding ground for terrorists in Iraq (that the invasion and occupation of Iraq have made us less safe is the consensus opinion of U.S. intelligence agencies, supported as well by a conservative British think tank). Oh, and please don't factor in the Iraqis' gratitude, since the majority of them believe the invasion and occupation have made them worse off, and they want the U.S. to leave.

As I was saying, all the benefits we've gotten out of invading and occupying Iraq (whatever in the world they may be) have come at a certain financial cost. U.S. taxpayers have shelled out $450 billion thus far. The Congressional Budget Office expects costs to end up over a trillion. And those calculations do not include the costs of providing health care for veterans and rebuilding the military, or the effects on the economy of removing workers to make them soldiers, of increasing the price of oil, of failing to spend the war money on domestic projects (such as infrastructure), etc. Columbia University economist Joseph E. Stiglitz and Harvard lecturer Linda Bilmes estimate a total cost of at least $2 trillion.