Blood and Money

We have over 2800 killed and 20,000 wounded in Iraq. That doesn't seem to be enough to move Bush to change his idiotic strategy. Now that the costs have continued to spiral out of control maybe that is something he can understand. Iraq and Your Wallet October 24, 2006 Op-Ed Columnist By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF For every additional second we stay in Iraq, we taxpayers will end up paying an additional $6,300. So aside from the rising body counts and all the other good reasons to adopt a timetable for withdrawal from Iraq, here’s another: We are spending vast sums there that would be better spent rescuing the American health care system, developing alternative forms of energy and making a serious effort to reduce global poverty. In the run-up to the Iraq war, Donald Rumsfeld estimated that the overall cost would be under $50 billion. Paul Wolfowitz argued that Iraq could use its oil to “finance its own reconstruction.” But now several careful studies have attempted to tote up various costs, and they suggest that the tab will be more than $1 trillion — perhaps more than $2 trillion. The higher sum would amount to $6,600 per American man, woman and child. Donkey O D has the entire article Iraq: A Spike in Death Toll Researcher Glenn Kutler analyses the rise in U.S. and Iraqi fatalities during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan. Video at Newsweek U.S. Deaths Confirmed By The DoD: 2790 Reported U.S. Deaths Pending DoD Confirmation: 13 Total 2803 DoD Confirmation List Latest Coalition Fatality: Oct 24, 2006 From Iraq Coalition Casualties