From the surge to the splurge: The unending war in Iraq

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http://media.www.thetriangle.org/media/storage/paper689/news/2008/03/14/EdOp/From-The.Surge.To.The.Splurge.The.Unending.War.In.Iraq-3269707-page2.shtml


<snip>The splurge in dollars is equally impressive. The initial cost estimate of the war was $50 billion - more or less analogous to the cost of what used to be the annual two-week vacation in a family's budget. (Americans no longer take two-week vacations.)

When Larry Lindsey, one of Bush's advisors, incautiously suggested that the actual price tag might be $200 billion, he was immediately sacked.

Nobel laureate economist Joseph Stiglitz now estimates the likely cost of the war at between $1.7 and $2.7 trillion, not counting more than $800 billion in debt service. Of course, we're still counting.

So, what are we getting for our blood and money? I mean, outside of shame, dishonor, and the abiding contempt of the civilized world?

Iraq's so-called government is a leisure class living on the bounty of the American taxpayers. Tens of billions of dollars have literally disappeared down the rat holes created by our corrrupt and corrupting war. A long-delayed plan to hold elections in Iraq's provinces, where lawless militias and fanatical mullahs hold sway, was derailed as soon as it was approved. Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki has just finished hosting an elaborate love-fest for our "Public Enemy No. 1," Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, smiling like Sunday while the world's favorite Holocaust denier suggested that American troops pull out of Iraq.

What? How can Maliki, whose personal security we guarantee every day, get away with that?

Easy, if you're the puppet who's learned how to pull his master's strings. Maliki knows that no matter what he or anyone else does, Bush is committed to maintaining the maximum possible American force presence in Iraq until he leaves office. There was no drawdown in 2007; there will be none, as Bush has recently assured us, in 2008. Iraq's young democracy will be given all the time it needs to rake in all the cash we are willing to pour into it, and to stockpile as many weapons as it will need for the bang-up civil war that will be its grand finale.