Iraq - $1 TRILLION DOLLARS

[Korben Dallas 0]

a cool mil a day, every day to pay for 2,737 years

 

The Price Is Wrong

Depending on which administration official you, um, believed, the Iraq War was going to cost anywhere from $200 million to zero. But it’s going to fly over $1 trillion.

By Matthew Yglesias

Issue Date: 07.05.06

 

 

On September 11, 2001, the United States was hit by devastating terrorist attacks perpetrated by a transnational terrorist network. Less than a year later, it was apparent that the Bush administration wanted to invade Iraq, allegedly as part of the response. Famously, selling this agenda involved a highly deceptive effort to link the two issues. Iraq was said to have an advanced nuclear weapons program and to be likely to provide the fruits of its research to al-Qaeda.

 

All this we know. Less well remembered nowadays, though -- in fact, almost never discussed in the major media -- was another implicit prong of the argument: that invading Iraq would be cheap and easy, leaving plenty of resources for other purposes. When White House economic adviser Lawrence Lindsey stumbled off message in September 2002 with his prediction that war could cost $100 billion to $200 billion, the administration flew into crisis mode. Budget Director Mitch Daniels was trotted out to label the estimate “very, very high.” Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz opined -- in testimony to Congress, no less -- that reconstruction would cost virtually nothing in light of Iraq’s promising oil revenues. Daniels proffered an estimate in the $50 billion to $60 billion range, substantially less than the $80 billion inflation-adjusted cost of the Persian Gulf War. Lindsey, famously, was soon after fired -- for his troublesome cost estimates and, reportedly, the President’s annoyance at his poor personal fitness habits.

 

 

By April 2006, a Congressional Research Service (CRS) inquiry concluded that Lindsey’s estimate was, indeed, way off -- but in the other direction. Around $261 billion had already been spent. Given the human stakes, it may seem crass to worry overly much about the dollar cost of a military conflict. But the fact that a CRS report is needed at all, as opposed to the straightforward accounting that either the White House or the Pentagon could surely provide were they so inclined, points to the basic reality that the war’s proponents are continuing the prewar pattern of covering up the costs. And with good reason: They’re enormous. Scandalously enormous.

 

The same CRS report indicated that before it ends, the war will likely cost somewhat more than the $549 billion spent (adjusted for inflation) in the much more lethal Vietnam War. But even this figure will likely prove to be off by hundreds of billions of dollars because it accounts only for funds directly appropriated for war fighting. As Linda Bilmes, a leading Harvard budgetary expert, and Nobel Prize–winning economist Joseph Stiglitz point out in their January 2006 paper, “The Economic Costs of the Iraq War,” the spending captured by the CRS, even in strict budgetary terms, is “only the tip of a very deep iceberg.”

 

Wartime appropriations do not, for example, include the cost of disability payments to veterans wounded in the war, payments that will continue throughout their life spans. Nor do they cover the costs of medical treatment for those seriously injured in the war, or even such basic war-related costs as the replacement of equipment and munitions expended in the conflict or the need to transport soldiers back to their home bases when they rotate out of country. The war has also substantially increased the military’s overall recruiting costs, reflected in bigger bonuses and additional recruiters. What’s more, by combining the war with aggressive tax cutting, the administration has ensured that the operation is paid for entirely by borrowing money on which interest will need to be paid. The shocking truth, according to Bilmes and Stiglitz, is that if one applies the Congressional Budget Office’s basic assumptions about the duration of the conflict (“a small but continuous presence”), it will cost nearly a staggering $1.27 trillion dollars before all is said and done.

 

The number is so high as to defy human comprehension. All the numbers ending in “-illion” sound the same. But a trillion is what you get if you spend a million dollars a day … for a million days. That’s 2,737 years -- a cool mil a day, every day, in other words, until the Year of Our Lord 4743. Or, working backward, from the time when Homer wrote the Iliad up to now. The $270 billion in rounding error is worth another 750 years at the million-a-day rate. That takes us up to the year 5493 -- or back to when Moses fled Egypt.

 

Anyway you slice it, it’s a lot of money. More than enough to fund any sort of “too expensive” pie-in-the-sky liberal domestic scheme. Universal preschool, for example, clocks in at about $35 billion annually -- cheap enough to get 37 years’ worth. But Bush never said invading Iraq would educate our children or fight domestic poverty, so let’s not even get into that, for now. What the President did promise was the following: that regime change would curb nuclear proliferation, weaken al-Qaeda, and create a shining beacon of democracy. What happened? We eliminated a nuclear program that didn’t exist, encouraged Iran and North Korea to speed theirs along, offered terrorists a gigantic recruiting opportunity and training ground, and turned Iraq into a venue for chaos and civil war plagued by death squads and offering local despots a handy cautionary tale about the dangers of liberalization.

 

For $1.27 trillion, we have our hands full in a quagmire; the world hating us; worldwide acts of terrorism on the sharp rise; and much more. We could have done better. Much better. You might even say a trillion times better. Economists use the term “opportunity cost” to refer to the cost of an endeavor in terms of the opportunities that endeavor foreclosed. Iraq foreclosed advancing important humanitarian goals, killing and capturing terrorists more effectively, eliminating nuclear threats, and securing the homeland among other goals. Here are 11 ways it could have been different -- and still could be, come January 20, 2009.

 

1. Military Transformation

 

The American military is, by global standards, enormous and remains without a doubt the world’s top fighting force. Nevertheless, it’s still mainly geared for Cold War–era threats and countering conventional foes. The new world has less need for heavy weapons, but more need for special forces to hunt down and eliminate small groups of radicals and various types of boots on the ground to help bring stability to chaotic areas. Echoing John Kerry’s presidential campaign, the Center for American Progress’s liberal alternative to the official Quadrennial Defense Review (QDR) proposed increasing the authorized strength of the U.S. Army substantially. The idea is to add 50,000 special-operations forces to fight the new kind of battles, plus 26,000 soldiers for two new peacekeeping divisions, and 10,000 additional civil affairs and military police officers. That way, if the United States ever did come across a legitimate reason to mount an Iraq-scale stabilization we might have the chance to do it properly. The price tag over the life of a QDR is $60 billion.

 

2. Nuclear Materials

 

The threat of nuclear terrorism was the most potent argument raised in favor of the Iraq War, and understandably so. Conventional terrorist attacks, though tragic, can’t fundamentally threaten the United States in the way our great adversaries of the past did. A single nuclear detonation in an American city would, however, be a catastrophe in terms of its death toll and the inevitable crackdown on civil liberties. The American way of life as we understand it would never be the same. There were, of course, no nuclear weapons in Iraq and no program to make them. But there is plenty of fissile material in the former Soviet Union. The good news is that our government has programs in place to remove them that have been rated highly effective. The bad news is that they’re working slowly. The 2001 Baker-Cutler Commission on the subject estimated that $30 billion over 10 years would get the job of destroying much of it and securing the rest done expeditiously.

 

3. The Other War

 

Remember Afghanistan? The place where the old regime actually was harboring al-Qaeda, and we really were welcomed as liberators? We never quite finished off the enemy there, and recent weeks have seen the highest level of violence since 2001. We desperately need to shore up popular support for Hamid Karzai’s government. Today, there is a gap between estimates of what’s needed to rebuild the country and what the international community has pledged in aid. About $8.6 billion over the next seven years would close it. Meanwhile, the country’s main economic activity is growing opium for sale to the world’s heroin dealers. The total value of the crop over five years is about $11 billion. If we were prepared to spend that much, we could follow a Center for American Progress proposal to pay Afghan farmers to not grow the stuff, taking the crops off the world market and giving the farmers breathing room to make the transition to cultivating something else.

 

4. International Security

 

Conservatives often deride the United Nations as ineffectual. The reality, however, is that U.N. peacekeeping has a very good track record (better, certainly, than the track record of unilateral American-sponsored regime change) in those instances where an appropriate level of resources has been available. A Center for Defense Information task force has proposed that we pony up an additional $5 billion over 10 years in financial support for these missions to make them more robust. The same task force also recommended that we sponsor the creation of a 5,000-strong standing international civilian police force under U.N. auspices that could act quickly in global trouble spots while the world’s governments think out longer-term solutions. The American share of the bill would be about $2 billion over 10 years.

 

5. Transportation Security

 

On 9-11, the terrorists hijacked airplanes, and since that time a great deal has been done to make it harder to do exactly the same thing again. Nothing, however, requires terrorists to focus exclusively on airplanes as possible targets. Indeed, more recent attacks in London and Madrid have both come against rail transportation targets. The American Public Transportation Association estimates that fully securing American public transportation would cost $5.2 billion in one-time capital improvements and $800 million annually in new money for personnel, training, and technical support. The additional money would put security cameras in trains and train stations currently lacking them, place automatic vehicle locator systems in buses so emergency responders can find them in case of a problem, develop systems to detect hazardous chemicals, hire more security guards, and improve communications systems. The most recent federal budget boosted public transportation security spending, but it’s still at around half the needed level -- even though public transportation has about 16 times the passenger load of air travel and the attacks in Europe show terrorists are just as happy to strike trains as planes.

 

6. Ports Security

 

News a while back that a state-owned firm from the United Arab Emirates may operate several American ports provoked instant outrage around the country. But keeping ports out of foreign hands is a small issue compared to the generally lax state of security at America’s shipping facilities. The GreenLane Maritime Cargo Security Act, introduced by a bipartisan group of senators, is considered the gold standard in terms of preventing the smuggling of nuclear materials or other dangerous weapons through America’s container ports. The legislation is languishing in Congress because deficit-conscious legislators propose to finance it through a roughly $20-per-container fee, which, naturally, the relevant businesses don’t want to pay. The Gordian knot could be cut by letting taxpayers pick up the $1.5 billion annual bill (call it $15 billion over 10 years) to buy radiation detectors, establish a multitiered system of container security standards, boost grants to local port authorities, improve the U.S. Customs Service’s existing Automated Targeting System, create a uniform data system for export and import information, and establish joint operating centers to facilitate day-to-day management of port security issues.

 

7. Airplanes Again

 

Much has been done to improve the security on America’s commercial passenger jets. Much less has been done regarding cargo that’s often carried in these very same planes. An estimated 55,000 tons of freight is shipped around the United States each day, with Congressional Research Service indicating that about a quarter of domestic shipping and almost half of international shipping is done on passenger planes. Legislation introduced by two congressmen, Republican Chris Shays and Democrat Ed Markey, would require 100 percent screening of all air cargo. David Wirsing, executive director of the Airforwarders Association, an airfreight industry group, noted in opposition to the bill that it would require “a cost of over $700 million in the first year alone.” But this is actually a rather modest sum of money in the grand scheme of America’s $450 billion and rising annual security budget. More genuinely extravagant would be equipping commercial airliners with defenses against the approximately 100,000 shoulder-launched missiles floating around the world at a price of $10 billion.

 

8. Emergency Response

 

More troops could improve America’s security situation in a variety of ways. But terrorism isn’t only -- or even primarily -- a task for soldiers. Civilian emergency responders -- cops, firemen, emergency medical technicians -- do much of the heavy lifting. A total of $5 billion would double the Assistance to Firefighters Grant Program, and $14 billion would fully fund the Community Oriented Policing Services Program, both for 10 years. Both programs offer financial assistance to state and local governments in maintaining adequate emergency response manpower. Meanwhile, as things stand, emergency response radio systems are still largely non-interoperable, a situation that had tragic consequences for New York City’s police and firefighters on 9-11. Just $350 million could resolve the problem.

 

9. Public Diplomacy

 

Everyone acknowledges that fighting Islamic extremism has a large diplomatic component, oriented toward the hearts-and-minds question. A panel appointed by the Bush administration proposed a $12 billion increase in funding for public diplomacy over 10 years to help improve America’s standing in the world, but it never happened. Throwing money at the problem won’t solve anything on its own, but it would help. Extra cash could be used to upgrade the language skills of America’s diplomats (according to the Government Accountability Office, 30 percent of language-designated public diplomacy positions in the Muslim world are filled with officers who lack the required linguistic ability), conduct audience research and segment target audiences as seen in the private sector, open more consulates in Muslim countries, and improve the quality and quantity of broadcasts in Arabic, Farsi, and other languages widely spoken in the Muslim world.

 

10. Development Assistance

 

OK, so far, assuming all nine of the above are funded fully, we’ve spent $228.65 billion, leaving around $1 trillion still unallocated. Where else should we spend it? Well, the war has also been justified on humanitarian grounds as a means of helping the Iraqi people and ameliorating political conditions throughout the Muslim world. In practice, however, starting wars (as opposed to, say, curing diseases) is a highly inefficient method of helping suffering people, and the war has devastated America’s moral standing worldwide. Development assistance could massively improve it.

 

The World Health Organization (WHO) estimates, for example, that a onetime expenditure of less than $500 million would allow the WHO to bring about a 90 percent reduction in measles deaths. This would save hundreds of thousands of lives over a period of years for less than what Congress appropriates per week for Iraq. Measles, as it happens, isn’t a major problem in Arab countries, but Muslim Nigeria, Pakistan, Indonesia, and Bangladesh combine with India to account for almost 80 percent of the world’s measles deaths.

 

Indeed, useful foreign-aid programs are generally so cheap that listing them one by one would take forever. Fortunately, there’s a convenient aggregate at hand. Over the past several years the United Nations, in consultation with leading experts and potential donor governments, has formulated an ambitious foreign-aid program known as the Millennium Development Goals. Like most developed countries, the United States has agreed in principle to boost spending up to the levels called for in the goals but hasn’t actually appropriated the money.

 

The goals, among other things, promise to reduce by half the proportion of people living on less than a dollar per day, reduce by half the proportion of people who suffer from hunger, ensure that all children complete a course of primary education, eliminate gender disparities in education, reduce the child mortality rate by two-thirds, reduce the maternal mortality rate by three-quarters, and reduce by half the proportion of people without sustainable access to safe drinking water. All this can be done by approximately 2015, according to the U.N., if the rich countries of the world increase their level of foreign aid to the promised level of 0.7 percent of GDP and reform current giving to conform to the targets. The total price tag for the United States would be about $1.04 trillion, which would represent a boost over current levels of about $650 billion.

 

11. Climate Change

 

In a May 10 Washington Post op-ed piece, University of Chicago law professor Cass Sunstein argued that “the economic burden of the Iraq War is on the verge of exceeding the total anticipated burden of the Kyoto Protocol.” Sunstein’s argument, predictably, came under attack from the right, but in fact he seriously understated his case. The estimated $325 billion cost of Kyoto refers not to direct budgetary costs -- most academic studies have concluded that these would be extremely small. Instead, the figure refers to indirect costs to economic growth. This is a large price to pay, but as with the rest it’s significantly less than the economic impact of the war. On top of the $1.27 trillion in direct expenditures, however, Bilmes and Stiglitz also anticipate an additional trillion or so in indirect reduced economic growth. Without the invasion, in other words, we could have both gotten a jump on the emerging challenge of global warming and enjoyed higher levels of overall prosperity than we’re seeing today.

 

 

* * *

Had we followed the course suggested above, the world would not only be a better place and the United States a more secure country; we would be in an infinitely better position to push the agenda of regional political transformation in the Middle East that now stands as the ostensible rationale for the Iraq venture. Beyond the mess in Iraq itself, our efforts at political reform have been persistently undermined by the United States’ massive unpopularity in the Muslim world. A despised foreign power has little ability to influence events in a constructive direction, and at the moment the tendency is for political liberalization to merely boost the position of radical parties like Hamas in Palestine or the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt. In the bargain, we would be saving around $400 billion -- hardly chump change -- that could be directed to domestic priorities.

 

Anti-Americanism has abated somewhat recently from its post–Iraq invasion peak, but it still remains incredibly strong in almost every Muslim country. The main exception is Indonesia, where the 2005 Pew Research Center survey of Islamic opinion registered an enormous 23 point jump in pro-American sentiments, a phenomenon virtually all observers attribute to our relatively generous response to the December 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami that devastated the country. The lesson is clear -- when the United States directs its counterterrorism efforts to genuine self-defense, and channels its idealistic impulses into uncontroversial popular causes rather than as add-on rationales for war-waging, world opinion looks more kindly on the United States. That gives us much more ability to do everything from pressing for political reform to trying to assemble a diplomatic coalition to block Iran’s nuclear ambitions. Instead, America stands not only remarkably undefended against the possibility of terrorist attack, but also isolated on the world stage.

 

 

 

 

What’s done, of course, is done and can’t be undone. We can’t unfight the war. The country can, however, still change course in a variety of ways. Some of these goals -- securing loose nuclear material comes to mind -- are sufficiently important that it makes sense to brush budgetary constraints aside. For others, like cargo inspections, it’s worth doing the political heavy lifting necessary to get them financed by user fees if it’s not possible to find the money in the general budget.

 

Budgetary offsets outside of Iraq could also do a great deal to help put us on the right track. The military spending priorities reflected in the most recent Quadrennial Defense Review are badly outdated, reflecting an orientation toward a no-longer-extant Soviet threat or a merely hypothetical Chinese one rather than America’s actual defense needs. Not coincidentally, these priorities also reflect the defense industry’s preference for hardware over manpower. Eliminating unneeded weapons systems like the F/A-22 Raptor plane, the Virginia Class submarine, the DD(X) destroyer, and the V-22 Osprey helicopter could generate more than enough funds to finance needed increases in special forces and peacekeeping missions. Cutting back on ballistic missile defense and America’s overly large nuclear arsenal -- still, 15 years after the Soviet Union’s collapse, a stunning 4,500 weapons, far more than are needed to hit any conceivable set of military targets -- might finance increased expenditures on homeland-security needs. On the foreign-aid front, much good could be done by simply reorienting current spending, much of which is not seriously targeted at helping the world’s neediest, and incremental progress toward the Millennium Goals would do enormous good even if we don’t reach the targets in a timely manner.

 

When you’re in a hole it’s always a good idea to stop digging. The total bill for the Iraq War isn’t yet a fixed quantity -- it’s still going on. Stiglitz and Bilmes assume, following the Congressional Budget Office, the existence of a small-but-continuous American military presence in Iraq through 2015. This estimate could, of course, prove mistaken (in either direction). But the sooner we get out of Iraq, the faster we’ll be able to start directing our resources to more productive uses. Conversely, things could get much worse if, as some suggest, we launch a new war with Iran. To be sure, today’s talk is of targeted airstrikes rather than full-scale war, but talk before the invasion of Iraq was of a $50 billion to $80 billion cakewalk, not a $1.27 trillion debacle. The odds of the Bush administration suddenly deciding to change course are low, but with the GOP on the ropes politically, Democrats have the chance to outline a serious alternative agenda if they care to seize it. The country can ill afford to continue down its current path.

 

Posted in the American Prospect for July

[Toro 1]

What's your point?

 

:alsoIreadnothing:

[wiffleball 4,654]

Looks to be a good article. Here's the thesis for those too ADD to read the whole thing:

 

Anyway you slice it, it’s a lot of money. More than enough to fund any sort of “too expensive” pie-in-the-sky liberal domestic scheme. Universal preschool, for example, clocks in at about $35 billion annually -- cheap enough to get 37 years’ worth. But Bush never said invading Iraq would educate our children or fight domestic poverty, so let’s not even get into that, for now. What the President did promise was the following: that regime change would curb nuclear proliferation, weaken al-Qaeda, and create a shining beacon of democracy. What happened? We eliminated a nuclear program that didn’t exist, encouraged Iran and North Korea to speed theirs along, offered terrorists a gigantic recruiting opportunity and training ground, and turned Iraq into a venue for chaos and civil war plagued by death squads and offering local despots a handy cautionary tale about the dangers of liberalization.

[Korben Dallas 0]

What's your point?

 

:alsoIreadnothing:

 

 

That while we bicker over things like global warming and cut veterans benefits, or schooling. All those could have been substantially altered by the funding we will have put into a war built on falsehoods.

 

That's it. Just a reminder that our President is the worst in history.

[TD Ryan2 314]

Anyway you slice it, it’s a lot of money. More than enough to fund any sort of “too expensive” pie-in-the-sky liberal domestic scheme. Universal preschool, for example, clocks in at about $35 billion annually -- cheap enough to get 37 years’ worth.

 

I'd be interested to see a list of "Things We could Have Spent the Money On instead of Iraq".

 

I'm guessing that everyone would have healthcare and an education... we'd be like Switzerland except with a few ugly citizens in tow (edjr).

[Toro 1]

That's it. Just a reminder that our President is the worst in history.

 

:moonlandingwords:

[TD Ryan2 314]

I'd be interested to see a list of "Things We could Have Spent the Money On instead of Iraq".

 

or rather, Things We Could Have Spent the Money On if Iraq stayed within Budget.

[Korben Dallas 0]

I'd be interested to see a list of "Things We could Have Spent the Money On instead of Iraq".

 

I'm guessing that everyone would have healthcare and an education... we'd be like Switzerland except with a few ugly citizens in tow (edjr).

 

 

It's in the article above. Except, not the stupid one that says we could give every american college money. Matt actually breaks out the 1.27 Trillion into some spending that I think both GOP's and dem's could agree upon. Mostly surrounding security.

[Bert 1,096]

our President is the worst in history.

 

Bad yes. Worst nah. He still has a ways to go to top Jimmy and Hoover.

[Red White and Blue 0]

I honestly don't think the Bush administration knew the war would be this expensive - maybe they downplayed the cost but not by this much. I think they honestly believed Chalabi's pillowtalk and expected this to be a cheap, six-month war that would boost Bush's approval ratings. Oops! So they focked up a little. The bigger deal IMO is that we're still trying to fight the war on the cheap even though it's not working. I think we should significantly up our troop levels and pin that place down, but I believe Bush doesn't want those kind of immediate casualties or costs on his watch, especially now that public support has turned so hard against him, so he's going to coast for the next two years and pass the problem off to our next president. Great stuff.

[Korben Dallas 0]

Bad yes. Worst nah. He still has a ways to go to top Jimmy and Hoover.

 

He blew past Carter before the last election. Carter was a superstar comparitively. Carter got run for things that Bush does every day before breakfast. Hoover? ehhh...why Hoover? I was thinking Buchanan and Taft for the real bottom of corruption-laden dirtbags, of which Bush is an equal or much superior.

[Snuff 10]

Great! Another Bush thread!

Boo-hoo.

[Korben Dallas 0]

Great! Another Bush thread!

Boo-hoo.

Nope, just an interesting article.

 

Get out if you don't want to read it.

[Bert 1,096]

He blew past Carter before the last election. Carter was a superstar comparitively. Carter got run for things that Bush does every day before breakfast. Hoover? ehhh...why Hoover? I was thinking Buchanan and Taft for the real bottom of corruption-laden dirtbags, of which Bush is an equal or much superior.

 

When I see, "America held hostage day 404" on the news with the President almost crying about continuing to negotiate for the hostages release then he'll blow past jimmy. You are probably correct about Taft and Buchanan I havn't read enough about them to say for sure.

[wiffleball 4,654]

In terms of:

 

1) Destabizing an already volatile and nationally important region.

2) Enhancing terrorist recruitment.

 

 

I'd have to say this is our most unsuccessful war. Vietnam sure hasn't turned out to be a problem that I'm aware of. Korea? You could make an argument there. But I can't think of another US military action that had the negative strategic effects that we're seeing in Iraq.

[torridjoe 0]

When I see, "America held hostage day 404" on the news with the President almost crying about continuing to negotiate for the hostages release then he'll blow past jimmy. You are probably correct about Taft and Buchanan I havn't read enough about them to say for sure.

 

Let's see: American hostages killed--zero.

American soldiers killed in Iraq--2,500 and counting.

 

Tough calculation there.

[Snuff 10]

Nope, just an interesting article.

 

Get out if you don't want to read it.

 

[wiffleball 4,654]

Let's see: American hostages killed--zero.

American soldiers killed in Iraq--2,500 and counting.

 

Tough calculation there.

 

 

ya might want to remember a little thing called "Desert One".

 

...their widows sure do...

[torridjoe 0]

ya might want to remember a little thing called "Desert One".

 

...their widows sure do...

 

no hostages were killed in Desert One. But if you prefer, we'll change that tally to 8.

[wiffleball 4,654]

no hostages were killed in Desert One. But if you prefer, we'll change that tally to 8.

 

I'm not really sure why you'd be mixing metrics - comparing hostages to soldiers, so I gave you the benefit of the doubt that you were focusing on overall American deaths.

[torridjoe 0]

I'm not really sure why you'd be mixing metrics - comparing hostages to soldiers, so I gave you the benefit of the doubt that you were focusing on overall American deaths.

 

it was mixing metrics in the first place to compare a rescue attempt to resolve an unforseen situation, with a war that was intentionally planned despite grave (and accurate) warnings about the likely result.

 

Are you suggesting that attempting a rescue was a mistake?

[Bert 1,096]

Let's see: American hostages killed--zero.

American soldiers killed in Iraq--2,500 and counting.

 

Tough calculation there.

 

Last time I checked you and I pay soldiers to fight and die.

 

But since this is your metric for ranking presidents please tell me how many soldiers died in the Lincoln, FDR, Wilson, Truman, Eisenhower, Nixon, JFK, Johnson, Clinton and Regan administrations.

[wiffleball 4,654]

it was mixing metrics in the first place to compare a rescue attempt to resolve an unforseen situation, with a war that was intentionally planned despite grave (and accurate) warnings about the likely result.

 

Are you suggesting that attempting a rescue was a mistake?

 

1) See, it can't be "in the FIRST place" when your comment preceeded mine. You can say "too", but not the other....

 

2) So you think some of the soldiers that died in Iraq DIDN'T die in unforseen situations? 'Cause if those fockers are DELIBERATELY getting blowed up just to make George W look bad, then they're just lilly-livered poosay liberals.

[De Novo 0]

I honestly don't think the Bush administration knew the war would be this expensive - maybe they downplayed the cost but not by this much. I think they honestly believed Chalabi's pillowtalk and expected this to be a cheap, six-month war that would boost Bush's approval ratings. Oops! So they focked up a little. The bigger deal IMO is that we're still trying to fight the war on the cheap even though it's not working. I think we should significantly up our troop levels and pin that place down, but I believe Bush doesn't want those kind of immediate casualties or costs on his watch, especially now that public support has turned so hard against him, so he's going to coast for the next two years and pass the problem off to our next president. Great stuff.

 

Why did Bush fire the guy who went against Bush's standard line w.r.t. the budget? Somebody said, "Nah, this is gonna cost 100 to 200 Billion" and then was fired. I think everyone knew. I'm not sure if it's better to be dishonest or competely ignorant of what the response would be...

[torridjoe 0]

1) See, it can't be "in the FIRST place" when your comment preceeded mine. You can say "too", but not the other....

 

2) So you think some of the soldiers that died in Iraq DIDN'T die in unforseen situations? 'Cause if those fockers are DELIBERATELY getting blowed up just to make George W look bad, then they're just lilly-livered poosay liberals.

 

my comment referred to Bert, not you. And he was the one who presented the metric, that somehow Carter was worse for failing to rescue hostages, than Bush is for sending soldiers off to die to rescue no one.

 

I have no idea what point you are making in #2. The hostage taking was unforseen. The war was not.

[Snuff 10]

The hostage taking was unforseen.

 

Like Katrina was?

[wiffleball 4,654]

Why did Bush fire the guy who went against Bush's standard line w.r.t. the budget? Somebody said, "Nah, this is gonna cost 100 to 200 Billion" and then was fired. I think everyone knew. I'm not sure if it's better to be dishonest or competely ignorant of what the response would be...

 

I think there's a middle ground with this and most of the Bush administration's thoughts and actions: I don't believe they're entirely stupid, I also don't believe they're entirely corrupt. I think "denial" is a more apt description of their condition. They are ideologists who believe (a little too) firmly in the ideals set forth by Wolfowitz, Rummy and Cheney in PNAC's mission statement years before they came to power. The problem with just about all idealists is that they put idealism over reality.

[torridjoe 0]

Last time I checked you and I pay soldiers to fight and die.

 

But since this is your metric for ranking presidents please tell me how many soldiers died in the Lincoln, FDR, Wilson, Truman, Eisenhower, Nixon, JFK, Johnson, Clinton and Regan administrations.

 

 

It's not my metric for ranking Presidents at all. I don't know what your metric happens to be, but whatever it is, it's a sad case to make that Carter's Presidency is worse on the basis of a reactive action that got a few folks killed, than one where tens of thousands have been killed to support a proactive action.

 

Like Katrina was?

 

Not at all like Katrina, which WAS forseen, and was in fact warned about with high extremely high probability two days before it hit--and was considered the second most likely disaster to hit the US.

[Snuff 10]

It's not my metric for ranking Presidents at all. I don't know what your metric happens to be, but whatever it is, it's a sad case to make that Carter's Presidency is worse on the basis of a reactive action that got a few folks killed, than one where tens of thousands have been killed to support a proactive action.

Not at all like Katrina, which WAS forseen, and was in fact warned about with high extremely high probability two days before it hit--and was considered the second most likely disaster to hit the US.

 

So, two whole days to fix the levees huh?

[Korben Dallas 0]

Responsive Wars

Lincoln - abunch

FDR -less than Lincoln, but in Europe

Truman- than than could have. Good man.

Wilson- stinking mustard gas

 

Cold War

JFK - less than Iraq

Johnson - Gulf of Tonkin-massive increase

Eisenhower

Nixon

 

Total for Vietnam Total: 58,156 33000+ in Korea.

 

Clinton maybe 50

"Regan" was an interior minister, maybe you mean Reagan?

[Bert 1,096]

It's not my metric for ranking Presidents at all. I don't know what your metric happens to be, but whatever it is, it's a sad case to make that Carter's Presidency is worse on the basis of a reactive action that got a few folks killed, than one where tens of thousands have been killed to support a proactive action.

Not at all like Katrina, which WAS forseen, and was in fact warned about with high extremely high probability two days before it hit--and was considered the second most likely disaster to hit the US.

 

That wasn't the only reason it just happens to be the most high profile. How could we forget the misery index and the gasoline shortages.

[torridjoe 0]

So, two whole days to fix the levees huh?

 

try several years. Instead of ramping up levee reinforcement funding, this president cut it by 40% in one year.

 

That wasn't the only reason it just happens to be the most high profile. How could we forget the misery index and the gasoline shortages.

 

Those are legitimate grounds for consideration, sure. Those would be much higher on my list than an effort to rescue Americans, which try I as I might doesn't seem like a bad thing.

[wiffleball 4,654]

my comment referred to Bert, not you. And he was the one who presented the metric, that somehow Carter was worse for failing to rescue hostages, than Bush is for sending soldiers off to die to rescue no one.

 

I have no idea what point you are making in #2. The hostage taking was unforseen. The war was not.

 

 

I thought our soldiers were rescuing the innocent iraqis from the baathists, terrorists and other ists who were murdering them in cold blood? Those guys are a whole lot more violent to a much bigger population - including American military and civilians than Tehran was to the 53 hostages that they never hurt.

 

And yes, Carter was warned about the propspect of failure - including the loss of hostage lives - before he launched Desert One. Saying the hostage taking is unexpected is irrelevant to the specific - and deliberate act of launching D1.

 

Playing this little farse through: 8 lives to save 56 when none had been killed, or spending 2500 lives to protect 25 million when thousands already have been killed by sectarian and terrorist violence.... - I mean, just doing the "math" you talked about....

[Snuff 10]

try several years. Instead of ramping up levee reinforcement funding, this president cut it by 40% in one year.

 

This isn't even fun anymore.

[torridjoe 0]

This isn't even fun anymore.

 

it's tiring to beat your head against the facts, isn't it? Maybe you should lie down.

[Snuff 10]

it's tiring to beat your head against the facts, isn't it? Maybe you should lie down.

 

No, my head hurts from all the friggin beer last night. Right now, I am just placing bets amongst myself on when and where you will use certain "facts" to back up your claims, all the while dismissing them when others bring them up to back them up. In other words, your SOP. Round and round we go!!!!!!!!!

[Uh-huh 0]

I just want to know where's my cut of the trillion bucks.

[gocolts 300]

What's your point?

 

:alsoIreadnothing:

Nobody does.

 

That is Kornholed in Dallas' schtick or gimmick if you will.

 

Post as much drivel as possible.

 

It makes him think he is above the rest of us.He knows nobody is going to read all that gibberish.It is getting down right silly.WAFT

[Uh-huh 0]

It makes him think he is above the rest of us.He knows nobody is going to read all that gibberish.It is getting down right silly.WAFT

 

Have a slight inferiority complex? Don't feel bad. Most right-wingers do.

[D_House 0]

what is WAFT?