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              Five Years Since Mission Accomplished
Friday, May 2nd, 2008
The Military Commitment: No End in Sight “I believe that we can win an overwhelming victory in a very short period of time.” – John McCain, 9/29/02 “The idea that it’s going to be a long, long, long battle of some kind I think is belied by the fact of what happened in 1990. Five days or five weeks or five months, but it certainly isn’t going to last any longer than that . . . It won’t be a World War III.” - Donald Rumsfeld, 11/15/02 “It’s hard to conceive that it would take more forces to provide stability in post-Saddam Iraq than it would take to conduct the war itself and to secure the surrender of Saddam’s security forces and his army. Hard to imagine.” - Paul Wolfowitz, 3/27/03 The Iraq War has lasted longer than World War II. It has been 61 months since military operations in Iraq began. As of May 1, 2008 American troops have been in Iraq for 1,870 days, 267 weeks. World War II lasted 45 months.
Costs are Rising“Well, the Office of Management and Budget has come up come up with a number that’s something under $50 billion for the cost.” - Donald Rumsfeld, 1/19/03 The direct cost of the war in Iraq is more than 10 times what the Bush Administration said it would be. Roughly $525 billion have been allocated to fight the war in Iraq, with no end in sight. Once the fiscal year 2008 funding process is complete, the cost will go above $600 billion. [Brookings Institution, 3/10/08] Even the White House’s most realistic analysis was far lower than the actual costs of the war. White House Economic Adviser Lawrence Lindsay’s aggressive pre-war estimate stated that the war would cost $100 billion to $200 billion. He was asked to resign. [MSNBC, 3/17/06] The war has cost the overall economy $1.3 trillion ($16,500 per family of four) thus far and Nobel Prize winning economist Joseph Stiglitz estimates that it could rise to $3 trillion ($35,000 per family of four). The cost of war estimate from Stiglitz, unlike conventional estimates, calculates the value of losses in military readiness, increased recruitment costs, the cost of medical treatment for returning veterans, and other impacts on the economy. [Congressional Joint Economic Committee, 2/28/2008] Violence Continues Unabated“The level of activity that we see today from a military standpoint, I think, will clearly decline. I think they’re in the last throes, if you will, of the insurgency.” - Vice President Cheney, 06/20/05 “Overall, I think a year from now, we will have made a fair amount of progress if we stay the course.” - John McCain, 12/05
Civilian casualties appear to be well over 200,000 – roughly one percent of Iraq’s population. The World Health Organization (WHO) concludes that 150,000 Iraqi civilians were killed between April 2003 and the summer of 2006. Trend lines from other data suggest that today’s casualty figure is well over 200,000 people and more than one percent of Iraq’s total pre-war population. [New England Journal of Medicine, 1/31/08. Financial Times, 1/10/2008 . Brookings Institution, 4/21/08]
Little Progress on Politics and Reconstruction“The bulk of the funds for Iraq’s reconstruction will come from Iraqis” – Donald Rumsfeld, 10/03
Five years later, Iraqi oil production remains below prewar levels. Despite the assertion that Iraqi oil production would pay for the war, production is at 2.23 million barrels per day compared to 2.5 before the war. [Brookings Institution, 4/21/08] Baghdad is getting only 9.7 hours of electricity per day – a fraction of what it was getting before the war. Without a steady supply of power businesses have suffered. The original goal was to increase nationwide electrical output to 6,000 megawatts per day by mid-2004. Instead electricity is currently at 4,100. “Last July and August, massive blackouts stretched across parts of Baghdad. This summer could be worse because drought has cut in half power generated by hydroelectric plants. Add war, attacks on transmission lines, antiquated equipment, overdue maintenance and local corruption or bureaucracy and reliable electricity remains out of reach for most Iraqis.” [Brookings Institution, 4/21/08. USA Today, 4/27/08]
Military Strain“As you know, you go to war with the Army you have. Not the Army you might want or wish to have at a later time.” – Donald Rumsfeld, 12/04/04 “I don’t think Americans are concerned if we’re there for 100 years or 1,000 years or 10,000 years.” – John McCain, 1/6/08 Army Chief of Staff: Iraq is hurting the Army’s ability to sustain itself and plan for future incidents around the world. Gen. George Casey stated that “The cumulative effects of the last six-plus years at war have left our Army out of balance, consumed by the current fight and unable to do the things we know we need to do to properly sustain our all-volunteer force and restore our flexibility for an uncertain future.” [Reuters, 2/26/08] The U.S. military is overstretched, understaffed and under-equipped. “It will take years for the Army and Marine Corps to recover from what some officials privately have called a “death spiral,” in which the ever more rapid pace of war-zone rotations has consumed 40 percent of their total gear, wearied troops and left no time to train to fight anything other than the insurgencies now at hand.” “The combat readiness of the total Army (active units, the National Guard, and the Army Reserve) is in tatters… The simple fact is that the United States currently does not have enough troops who are ready and available for potential contingency missions in places like Iran, North Korea, Pakistan, or anywhere else.” [Lawrence Korb, Testimony Before House Armed Services Committee, 7/27/07 . Washington Post, 3/19/07 ] The Real Costs of the Iraq War
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It has been five years since the President declared victory in the battle for Iraq. Since that day, more than 3,900 American troops have been killed – bringing the total to more than 4,000. There are still 150,000 American troops in Iraq, just as in May 2003 – but the number of soldiers from other countries fighting alongside them has fallen by more than half, to just 9,800. Under the strain of repeated deployments, two-thirds of Army brigades are rated “not combat ready.” The cost to the American economy has reached $1.3 trillion ($16,500 per family of four) and in the end will likely rise to $3 trillion ($35,000 per family of four). Iraqi civilian casualties are in the hundreds of thousands, and four and a half million Iraqis have been forced from their homes. The Iraqi economy is stagnant with oil production and electricity below prewar levels.
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