Did the U.S. Withdraw from Iraq Too Soon? >
The War in Iraq Was a Mistake From the Beginning
The Iraq War cost the United States 4,421 lives and $806 billion
January 23, 2012
About Dennis Kucinich:
Dennis Kucinich is a member of the United States House of Representatives, serving Ohio's 10th district.
The end of the war in Iraq is eight years, nine months too late and counting. Long after our last tanks, troops, State Department personnel, and military contractors leave Iraq, the costs of this war of choice will continue to be felt for decades.
The costs of the war are devastating: 4,421 dead American volunteer troops with 31,921 more wounded, including 986 amputees. Nearly 169,000 veterans are graded as "60 percent disabled" or higher by the Department of Veterans Affairs. One in five veterans suffers from post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) or depression, depriving sufferers of sleep, stability, careers, families, and sometimes, lives. There are hundreds of thousands of cases of traumatic brain injury.
[Iran Threatens U.S., Persian Gulf Cities with Missile Attacks.]
The effects of each of these deaths and injuries ripple in every direction. Financial strain from loss of a breadwinner or heightened care-giving needs can rip families apart. PTSD and accompanying lack of sleep make it hard to get and keep a job. According to the National Center for Posttraumatic Stress Disorder, children with an active-duty parent on long-term deployment are more likely to be diagnosed with a mental health problem than children whose parents were not deployed. Today, 20 percent of the homeless population consists of veterans. Studies have demonstrated that women who served in the military are more likely than their non-serving counterparts to experience homelessness in their lifetimes. In April of last year, the VA received a record 14,000 calls in a single month to its suicide prevention hotline. The divorce rate among military families has increased. Thousands of troops have returned with life-changing injuries. Still other health effects will not manifest for years; we now know that veterans of the first Gulf War are getting Lou Gehrig's disease at twice the rate of their non-deployed peers.
Over 1 million innocent Iraqis died in the war, according to an acclaimed peer-reviewed study in the Lancet.
[See pictures of soldiers returning home from Iraq.]
The Congressional Research Service estimates that the Iraq War has cost the United States $806 billion so far. Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz and Linda Bilmes put that number closer to $5 trillion, using accounting that includes veterans' care. The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the Bush tax cuts, and the recession are the primary reasons our country's debt is so high. That debt has been used as an excuse to attack funding for Medicare, Social Security, unemployment insurance, basic food assistance for low-income expecting mothers, job training programs, heating assistance for low-income seniors, education, and, yes, veterans benefits.
[Mort Zuckerman: Barack Obama's Middle East Miscalculation.]
The Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation estimates that the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan cost the average American family of four almost $13,000 in 2010 alone. In my hometown of Cleveland, Ohio, taxpayers have contributed $518.4 million to the Department of Defense in this fiscal year alone, according to the National Priorities Project. That could pay the salaries for 7,654 elementary school teachers or 9,792 firefighters for one year, or pay for 64,317 military veterans receiving medical care for one year in Cleveland.
The war was supposed to last only a few months. Nearly nine years later, it still isn't over, as weapons are now wielded by a different agency and private contractors. Because there has been no accountability for the lies that killed millions, it is now easier than ever for America to start wars for spurious reasons. The war in Iraq should never have happened.
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- Other Arguments
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#15527
Yes — The U.S. must pressure Iraq to avoid a new sectarian civil war
ROBERT ZARATE, Policy Director of the Foreign Policy Initiative
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#29068
No — The war should never have been launched--so it can't be ended soon enough
PHYLLIS BENNIS, Director of the New Internationalism Project at the Institute for Policy Studies
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#33928
No — The United States should never have invaded in the first place
CHRISTOPHER PREBLE, Vice President for Foreign Policy Studies at the Cato Institute
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#42518
No — Mission to promote "democracy" in Iraq was an unobtainable objective
DANIEL J. GALLINGTON, Senior Policy and Program Adviser at the George C. Marshall Institute
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#53934
No — The withdrawal demonstrated to the people of Iraq and their neighbors that democracy works
LAWRENCE J. KORB, Senior Fellow at the Center for American Progress
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#63026
Yes — Iraq's fragile coalition government has begun to come apart at the ethnic and sectarian seams
ILAN BERMAN, Vice President of the American Foreign Policy Council
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#73433
Yes — Iraq might take 15 or 20 years to become a functioning democracy
MICHELE DUNNE, Director of the Atlantic Council's Rafik Hariri Center for the Middle East
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#73231
Yes — The real winner in the Middle East will be Iran
HELLE DALE, Senior Fellow in Public Diplomacy Studies at the Heritage Foundation
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#93031
Yes — Pulling the covers over our eyes and leaving the region is not a thought-through strategy
THOMAS HENRIKSEN, Senior Fellow at Stanford University's Hoover Institution and at the U.S. Joint Special Operations University
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#103035
Yes — The president, in his own words, wanted to fulfill a campaign promise
DANIELLE PLETKA, Vice President for Foreign and Defense Policy Studies at the American Enterprise Institute
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#11819
No — Arms sales to Iraq also will provide a continuing source of connectivity
DANIEL GOURÉ, Vice President at the Lexington Institute
