This total is based on estimates from the Congressional Budget Office http://www.costofwar.com/ Comparison to the cost of: Pre-School Kids Health Public Education College Scholarships Energy Independence Public Housing Click on your state/city to get specific numbers War affects everyone, not just those directly involved in the fighting. This webpage is a simple attempt to demonstrate one of the more quantifiable effects of war: the financial burden it places on our tax dollars.
America's rebuilding of Iraq is in chaos, say British By Peter Foster in Baghdad (Filed: 17/06/2003) The American-led reconstruction effort in Iraq is "in chaos" and suffering from "a complete absence of strategic direction", a very senior British official in Baghdad has told The Telegraph. The comments paint a grim picture of American incompetence and mismanagement as the Coalition Provisional Authority struggles to run post-Saddam Iraq. "This is the single most chaotic organisation I have ever worked for," the official said yesterday. The source revealed that Paul Bremer, the US administrator in Iraq, had "fewer than 600" staff under his control to run a country the size of France in which the civil infrastructure was on the point of collapse. "The operation is chronically under-resourced and suffers from an almost complete absence of strategic direction," he added. Similar frustrations have been voiced privately in London, where British ministers are said to be fed up with being "taken for granted". As revealed in The Telegraph yesterday, Tony Blair appointed Sir Jeremy Greenstock, Britain's best-known diplomat, as his special envoy in Baghdad in an attempt to put some political muscle into the administration. Officials said a crippling problem is the fact that the US has transposed Washington's inter-departmental fighting to Baghdad. For instance, the payment of salaries has been slowed down by Washington's inability to decide which currency to use - US dollars, the former regime's "Saddam dinars" or the so-called "Swiss dinars" used in the Kurdish areas. In Baghdad the senior British official said the chaos at the heart of the coalition was seriously hampering its ability to deliver vital services to the Iraqi people, such as salaries, electricity and security. "We are facing an almost complete inability to engage with what needs to be done and to bring to bear sufficient resources to make a difference," he said. The official added that a dangerous gulf was opening up between the expectations of the Iraqi people and what the coalition was realistically able to deliver. The growing dissatisfaction among ordinary Iraqis - intensified by the temper-fraying heat of a Baghdad summer - is easily discernible on the streets of the capital. As 10 local builders used shovels and wheelbarrows to repair the Baghdad police station, residents outside demanded to know when they would see more Iraqi police on the streets. Some April salaries remain unpaid and the electricity supply remains extremely unreliable. The heavy-handed presence of American soldiers and, perhaps more importantly, the lack of any visible Iraqi partnership in Government is further fuelling resentment. The official, who was involved in the planning for post-war Iraq from its conception, said Washington had been seriously caught out by the discovery that Iraq was no longer a functioning country. "The original post-war plan was to solve the humanitarian crisis - should it have arisen, which it did not - and then use the existing Iraqi ministries and officials to get the country running again as quickly as possible." In the event the coalition arrived in Baghdad to find the ministries looted and destroyed and Iraqi civil servants "unable to make decisions themselves" after years of living in a police state. "They demand written authority to do the tiniest thing, as a consequence of living under Saddam," he said. Within weeks it became obvious that the operation would take years not months. Joseph Collins, head of stability operations at the US Defence Department, conceded to Congressmen last week that bringing order to Iraq had proved "tougher and more complex" than had been expected. The situation was not irretrievable, the British official said, before warning that the coalition could face serious difficulties and even unrest if it was unable to raise its game in the coming months. "This is a difficult period, particularly with the extreme temperatures," he concluded, "It could be said that we are currently sowing the seeds of a better Iraq, but if we don't have anything to harvest by the autumn, we could face the consequences."
List of U.S. Soldiers Killed in Iraq The Associated Press June 10, 2003 The number of coalition troops killed since the beginning of the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq has reached 205, a U.S. military spokesman said Tuesday. Of those, 135 were killed in hostile activities and 70 by friendly fire or other accidents, Col. Rick Thomas said. Those killed in action included 56 U.S. Marines, 59 U.S. Army soldiers, a U.S. Navy sailor and 19 British servicemen. Here is a partial list of U.S. casualties, provided by relatives or military officials. DEATHS: June 8 Army Sgt. Michael E. Dooley, 23, of Pulaski, Va., was killed in an ambush on an American checkpoint in western Iraq. Dooley served in the 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment out of Fort Carson near Colorado Springs, Colo. June 7 Army Pvt. Jesse M. Halling, 19, of Indianapolis, Ind., was killed in Tikrit, Iraq. Halling was assigned to 401st Military Police Company at Fort Hood, Texas. A rocket grenade and small arms fire hit a military police station in Iraq, killing Halling, the Department of Defense said. June 5 Army Pfc. Branden Oberleitner, killed in Fallujah, Iraq, when he and other soldiers were fired on by a rifle-propelled grenade. June 3 Sgt. Atanacio Haromarin, 27, of Baldwin Park, Calif., a member of the Army's 4th Infantry Division was killed near Balad, Iraq, when he and other soldiers came under attack while manning a checkpoint. Haromarin was assigned to Battery C, 3rd Battalion, 16th Field Artillery Regiment at Fort Hood............. More complete list/article at http://new.blackvoices.com/news/ny-casualties,0,6680915.story?coll=bv-news-black-headlines Surely foxnause will not report this, so I don't expect Keymar and Co to acknowledge. Keymar, AAAinthebeltway, and the rest pro-war cheerleaders. As true patriotic American you had claimed to be, please do this: Take all your rhetoric bs, all your defending of OilShrubMafia & Co make a nice long essay, and try to explain it to the mothers, fathers, sister sand brothers why did their loved ones have to die. I bet you'll find a way to spin this too. Truly sad times
You really don't know very much about the world, do you? Surely, the opinions of individual soldiers and their families vary, but I strongly suspect that quite a few from either group would welcome the opportunity to punch a guy like you in the nose.
Another brilliant response from Keymar. Wait! and look at the source! FOX NEWS !!! wowowowow no problemo really! Post all the news sources you can master. The more the better. Let's see, first you spin the facts, then you spin opinions next you stoop to insults and now infer physical violence. (according to your suspicion ofc) If you are a citizen, you are a true disgrace to this nation and what it stands for. Do you read the topic of the thread? Cost of war.! Go set up a thread like " Benefits of this war and why our solders blood is good for the Oil companies".. you know all your bs rhetoric and the know it all self serving, self righteous egotistical crap. I don't wish this to you or anyone else, but maybe you should have lost a family member either in Iraq or Vietnam. But again, it's obvious that your appreciation of our soldiers lives is bellow zero! Ok ok ok... let's keep this thread back to the COST OF WAR.. we have had enough flaming in so many other threads. Let's try to keep it civil. Onward.
Yeah it's getting expensive. Up to 65 plus billion so far and growing. And what happened to the the supplemental 75 billion requested by GW and promptly approved? Well, follow the money trail: WASHINGTON, DC -- Funding for the war on Iraq, while requiring massive cuts in social spending for health, education, services, and welfare and reduction of veterans benefits, is becoming a huge windfall for favored corporations, say members of the Green Party of the United States. "This $100-billion war is proving a cash cow for corporations, especially those with connections to the White House, Congress, and the Pentagon, while U.S. troops and Iraqi civilians and soldiers face death and injury," said Tom Bolema, Town Councilperson (Green) of Juniper Hills, California. "European governments are furious that the administration plans to award the major contracts, worth somewhere between $20 billion and $100 billion, to U.S. corporations, without any competitive bidding process." "The Bush Administration has already awarded Halliburton subsidiary Kellogg Brown & Root a Pentagon contract to rebuild Iraqi oil fields," said Jake Schneider, treasurer of the Green Party of the United States. "USAID awarded a $4.8 million contract to Stevedoring Services of America to manage the Umm Qasr port. Companies like the Bechtel Group, Fluor Corporation, Parsons Group and defense contractors Carlyle Group and Global Crossing are expected to make millions off the war. Humanitarian relief, including assistance in Iraq's water shortage, is proving a distant second in priority behind military deals and control over Iraqi oil." The nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics documents that Halliburton (for which Vice President Cheney served as CEO from 1995 to 2000), Bechtel, Fluor, and Parsons contributed a combined $2.64 million to political campaigns between 1999 and 2002, with 68 percent of those dollars given to Republicans. "Bechtel is asserting the right, granted through the IMF and World Bank, to take private control over municipal public water supplies in Bolivia, most controversially in Cochabamba," said Mark Dunlea, chair of the Green Party of New York State. "Will Bechtel use its current connections and postwar influence to take over Iraqi resources?" Other recent revelations: *** According to the Sustainable Energy and Economy Network and the Institute for Policy Studies, current Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and then Secretary of State George Shultz, acting on behalf of Bechtel, began negotiating a deal with Saddam in 1983 to open up the Aqaba pipeline through Iraq. Saddam's rejection resulted in the first rift in U.S.-Iraq relations. *** An investigation by the Center for Public Integrity revealed that nine members of the Pentagon's Defense Policy Board have ties to major defense contractors. (The exposure of Richard Perle's conflicts of interest connections with Global Crossing led to Perle's resignation as board chair last week, but Perle will retain a seat on the board.) *** Massive new powers for Vice President Cheney to classify U.S. documents will ensure less oversight and accountability, shielding contractors and government officials with conflicts of interest from public scrutiny. "These deals reveal that the major motivation for the invasion has less to do with concern for liberation, an already dubious promise under prolonged U.S. occupation, than with giving the U.S. corporate and political control over Iraq and its resources," said Ben Manski, Wisconsin and national party co-chair. "It's a situation comparable to Enron's looting of Croatia when the Clinton Administration awarded it a contract to help rebuild that nation after the conflict in the former Yugoslavia in the early 1990s. What we're seeing now is Enron politics at its worst." MORE INFORMATION The Green Party of the United States http://www.gp.org/ National office: 1314 18th Street, NW Washington, DC 20036 202-296-7755, 866-41GREEN "Contracts doled out to rebuild Iraq are questioned" Seattle Post-Intelligencer, March 27, 2003 http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/114656_rebuild28.shtml War! ahhh... such a great part of the perfect business model! Be proud!