Year Six of the Six-Week-War

By BlackJack

As we prepare to enter the sixth year of the “War in Iraq” one thing has become abundantly clear – we’ve been hoodwinked. Putting aside partisan political talking points, not much has gone well for the Bush Administration these past 6 years and, in turn, for our great nation.

We are no longer at war in Iraq. President Bush was at least half-correct when he declared “Mission Accomplished” on May 1, 2003- at that point we’d reached the end of the Administrations script for the war and began the “What Now?” phase. The war has become an occupation and occupations aren’t winnable. We need only ask the French and the British how well their occupations have turned out.

On October 7, 2003, then-Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld said about the impending war, “It could last six days, six weeks. I doubt six months." On March 16, 2003 Vice President Dick Cheney stated “my belief is we will, in fact, be greeted as liberators… I think it will go relatively quickly… (in) weeks rather than months." It has, in fact, been just weeks – 312 of them so far.

In the days leading up to the war, members of the administration told us the war would cost the American taxpayers between $50 billion to $60 billion. Paul Wolfowitz said public estimates of up to $95 billion were much too high. As of this writing we’ve spent in excess of $503,300,000,000.00 on our post-preemptive war occupation.

What has been the true cost of this occupation? Besides the nearly-4000 American service members who’ve given their lives, and the untold thousands of Iraqi citizens we’ve “liberated” of their mortality, we’ve paid dearly for this war in global credibility and trust. The shining light of freedom has become the dim glow of torture and failed policy.

We’ve made the world a more dangerous place and we’re passing the cost down to future generations. My unborn grandchildren’s tax-tables will need to be adjusted to pay for our current budget blunders. With banks collapsing, mortgage foreclosures, and $100-plus barrels of oil, our government is sending us all an “economic stimulus” check with money we had to borrow from our economic rivals. Why do we need to stimulate China’s economy?

Now, as we enter year 6 of the “Six Week War”, let’s come together as a nation and call on Bush to do something right before he leaves office and end this unaffordable occupation. We won the war. Let’s really support the troops and bring them home to their families, celebrate them as heroes and ask them to forgive us for leaving them in harms way for so long without a plan or reason.