Tuesday, January 16, 2007

Cost of Iraq war reaching historic proportions

Even if we get out of Iraq soon, we will still be 'in' it, as in 'in the red' for decades into the future.

Iraq war may become the most expensive of all time (and that is even adjusted for inflation.)

Washington | By the time the Vietnam War ended in 1975, it had become America's longest war, shadowed the legacies of four presidents, killed 58,000 Americans along with many thousands more Vietnamese and cost the U.S. more than $660 billion in today's dollars.

By the time the bill for World War II passed the $600 billion mark, in mid-1943, the United States had driven German forces out of North Africa, devastated the Japanese fleet in the Battle of Midway and launched the vast offensives that would liberate Europe and the South Pacific.

The Iraq war is far smaller and narrower than those conflicts, and it has not extended beyond the tenure of a single president. But its cost is beginning to reach historic proportions, and the budgetary "burn rate" for Iraq might be greater than in some periods in past wars.


Well, what do you expect when you waste billions on no-bid contracts which auditors later find were full of overcharges and other waste? And don't forget back in 2005, when Senator Byron Dorgan (D-ND) embarrassed the White House with the revelation that after the fall of Baghdad we had people driving around Baghdad in a pickup truck with bags of hundred dollar bills which they handed out freely.

And this is supposed to be the party of fiscal responsibility!?!

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Bush's plan to fight Global Warming: send 16,000 troops to the sun.

Eli Blake said...

That's about right.

Something I saw the other day on a T-shirt:

WARNING: I drive like George W. Bush.

The steering wheel won't turn or let me change direction

and

I only know how to ACCELERATE!