That's a "T" - two of 'em

That’s two with a “T” trillion dollars. A Columbia University Nobel Prize Laureate in economics and a Harvard professor have done an analysis of the long term costs of the Iraq War and come up with a figure of close to two trillion dollars for this misbegotten experiment of imposing democracy on a tribal nation far, far away. Even conservative thinkers are piling on Bush for this one. Just think, this tab will have to be paid by our children and grandchildren. Now there's the great legacy of the Bush administration.

Before even one soldier or marine stepped onto the beach, Larry Lindsey was banished to the world beyond the White House for even hinting the effort might cost up to two hundred billion dollars, that’s billion with a “B”. The maximum amount that administration officials could talk about prior to the invasion without having to face the world from a cubicle in the private sector was seventy billion dollars. Each month, the military chews up 4.5 billion in direct costs alone and that adds up to a quarter of a trillion spent and we're nowhere near getting out.

Going on three years into the conflict, we’re still unable to assure soldiers and marines patrolling bomb laden streets that they are wearing the latest in body armor which costs the princely sum of $285 per combatant. As a result of this and a lot more, the indirect costs of the war in terms of disability and death benefits for those killed and wounded continues to skyrocket without even considering the human cost.

All of the pre invasion baloney about Iraq’s oil covering the cost of the conflict smells as bad as if we’d hung that processed meat out to rot in the hot desert sun. Iraqi oil production stands at about half of pre war levels, and, even if it didn’t, it couldn’t come close to covering the cost of even the direct costs of the war.

But the Iraqis should be grateful. We’ve delivered them a democratic government. In 230 years, they’ll be thanking Allah that America came and made them a free and united country.

We’re staying till we win! Damn it, we won! Let’s get the hell out of Dodge!

Blog on,

Wild Bill