I ran this editorial in the The State out of Columbia, SC. You can access it at my
http://www.hamlettpost.com">website.
The Minnesota bridge collapse is another casualty of the war in Iraq. We are spending our national income at a rate of $4,700 per second building Iraq’s infrastructure, bestowing record profits upon private contractors and leaving our own infrastructure crumbling, a disaster that my generation is willing to fix if only we can leave Iraq.
The war in Iraq will cost the United States more than $1 trillion, according to a recently released Congressional Budget Office report. All that and most Iraqis don’t even want us in their country. “Leave so we can kill each other in peace” really does seem to be the general attitude, as noted by a recent editorial cartoon.
The Iraqis aren’t even using the reconstruction projects we’re building them by the thousands. The Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction released a report last Friday that of the 2,797 projects we’ve built so far, Iraq’s government has only taken possession of 435, not to mention media reports detailing numerous cases of shoddy craftsmanship and outright fraud.
Rather than wasting $4,700 per second on Iraq, we can invest it far more wisely on our own homeland, starting with the interstate highway system, a vital economic asset. As we saw last week, the lack of maintenance on highway infrastructure has fatal consequences. Sadly, the bridge in Minneapolis was not an isolated problem. The American Society of Civil Engineers gave the Bush administration a “D” in infrastructure maintenance in its latest report issued in 2005. Bridges, dams, roads and sewage systems were listed as the most critical deficiencies.
Investing in real homeland security is also critical to our future, instead of flushing money down our pipe dream in Iraq. Congress has yet to fund the recommendations of the 9/11 Commission because of their cost, about $10 billion, or roughly equivalent to what we spent on Iraq during the month of July.
Among the unfunded recommendations: better baggage screening at airports, container screening at our seaports and a worldwide effort to combat proliferation of nuclear material.
We could also use the money to fight our real enemies. The Taliban has made significant gains in Afghanistan while we’ve been distracted with Iraq. The Taliban have a safe haven just inside Pakistan, a convenient place to retrain and rearm their army of terrorists bent on destroying us.
Education is another national priority vital to our economy. Most Americans — along with unanimous support from the founding fathers — agree that education is the bedrock of a strong, democratic and free society. Currently, the United States ranks 38th in the world on education spending, just below Iran.
Universal health care — or universal health insurance, depending on your political persuasion — is not even beyond our reach. Most Americans support this initiative, which would cost $100 billion, one-tenth the cost of the Iraq folly.
How many more steam pipes in New York, levees in New Orleans or bridges around the country must fail? How high must the illiteracy rate among high school seniors rise? How many more terrorist havens must be established abroad before we demand that our government take action?
The bridge disaster in Minneapolis directly relates to our misplaced national priorities, spending a trillion dollars on Iraqis who don’t like us and don’t want our rebuilding projects. We need to realign our priorities, and my generation will gladly bear the burden of rebuilding our damaged democracy for the future, if only we can extricate ourselves from the Iraq malfeasance.
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