Spokane7
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September 10, 2010 in Opinion, Letters
Iraq toll apportioned
The butcher’s bill for the Iraq war (Associated Press, Aug. 31):
Confirmed U.S. military deaths as of Aug 31, 2010: 4,416.
Iraqi deaths since the 2003 invasion: 97,461.
U.S. cost for the Iraq war: $743.4 billion since 2003. Congressional Budget Office’s 10-year projection: $244 billion to $588 billion.
War lasts 2003 to 2010, seven years.
The Bush right must answer here, yet for nothing close to Democrat cost/casualty predictions during the war: Millions dead! Decades of fighting! Trillions in cost! they cried, often. “Unwinnable!” (Barney Frank), “The war is lost!” (Harry Reid), “The Iraq war can’t be won.” (Sen. Obama), ad nauseam.
All the deaths have their own ratio of tragedy, and it remains to a new generation of historians with no political axes to grind as to whether the war was well advised.
Regardless, had the cut-and-run American left not held out years of continual hope that Democrats would force an American surrender if the insurgency just blew up one more crowd of civilians or another squad of coalition soldiers, then the Iraq war would surely have been much shorter and cheaper, and the military and civilian death rates correspondingly lower. Here, the Democrat left must answer to history.
William Slusher
Okanogan
Trudy Rubin: Egyptians say no to Islamists 
Arch_Druid on September 10 at 8:45 a.m.
I’d first like to know what William Slusher’s definition of a “winnable war” is? My definition of one is as follows: after the enemy has conceded defeat then the victor sits down with the former opponents and signs a peace treaty between them. Since that never happened during all of 6 years while GW was in office, then the Iraq war by definition was never winnable. The enemy never conceded defeat despite American superiority in fire power. And GW declared the war over in May of 2003 without making any diplomatic moves toward securing the peace.
To downplay the costs of the war in $$$ and total lives lost in order to politically hang GW’s ego driven invasion on the necks of the Democrats like an albatross, is to ignore relevant facts. It was GW who thought that a war could be won on a timetable. Not possible. It was GOP apologists who thought we would only be there in a combat mode for a matter of months. Didn’t happen. We went from merely ousting Saddam Hussein to deciding that we could nation build a democracy. The gvt remained unstable as did the rest of the country. Just in time, we could hand a superficial sovereignty back to the Iraqi people while continuing to keep them dependent. GW promised, that the moment the Iraqi people stepped up we would step down. Didn’t happen. The Democrats tried to force a clear diplomatic or military closure on a war that by the time they were assuming a bare majority in Congress and more and more people were turning against the war itself; they were accused of “cut and run” by a party that demonstrated no clear resolve about how to handle the situation in Iraq themselves. Unless it was to exploit it politically on the home front. The Iraqi people could begin paying for the costs of the war once the oil fields were up and running. For what it is worth, the American taxpayer now shoulder’s most of the burden because of the previous president’s mismanagement.
The GOP didn’t want a timetable for withdrawal as that would signal to the enemy that we had become “cowards.” With no clear directive as to how we could “win this” and establish peace between peoples now engaged in a civil war. The GOP downplayed the type of difficulty this nation had to successfully deal with Iraq because the likes of Dick Cheney downplayed the actual strengths of the enemy. Even in the face of a factual civil war, the GOP denied that it existed. If a party decides to play a war toward partisan political advantage and thus creates an increasing cost in blood and treasure in that benighted country, then the burden of history must entirely fall on them. Sorry Slusher, but 200 words of trying to excuse attacking the Dems while not telling the truth won’t get you anywhere.
williamslusher on September 11 at 5:11 p.m.
Arch_Druid attempts the ole Tallahassee two-step shuffle to shift the subject, as well he might be expected to do. Understandable - albeit shameful - Arch’s classic liberal reticence to account for how the defeatist American left prolonged the war with trendy, partisan pop-treason, and thus horribly compounded the cost in both money and lives.
Little wonder this, since Thomas Ricks of the Washington post writes that in America’s all-volunteer modern military, conservatives outnumber liberals 23 to 1. 23 … to 1. It would appear that the modern American Dem/lib’s anthem is “Suck, don’t serve.”
Arch’s standard loser-lefty boiler plate excuses notwithstanding, history has shown that the Bushies did exactly what they said they’d do, they took out Saddam, permitted a freely elected Iraqi government, and pulled out on a Bush timetable, all in less time, for less money and at less tragic cost in lives than the legions of Dem/lib chicken-littles cried incessantly throughout the war.
www.williamslusher.com
BobW on September 14 at 8:35 a.m.
Mr. Slusher’s takes two indefensible positions.
First, he bases the cost of the Iraq War on the apparent assumption that it is over. With 50,000 troops still there, one of whom was killed this week, that sounds like another “Mission Accomplished”.
Second, and more importantly, he assumes the war was necessary. It’s possible that the long perspective of history will somehow agree with Mr. Slusher, but the short-term view is far from supportive. We were told the war was to take out WMD, we were told that al Qaeda was working with Saddam Hussein, we were told that Iraq was trying to buy nuclear material, we were told that Iraq needed democracy and, finally, we were told that Saddam Hussein was violating the UN Oil for Food Program. That last one is really a joke since we pushed the UN aside in order to attack Iraq. As it turned out, the only apparent reason for the war is that President Bush wanted it, the pretext was simply fabricated.
Call me a “cut-and-run” American if you must, Mr. Slusher, but I find that preferable to supporting an unnecessary, unwarranted and unjust war.
BobW on September 14 at 9:21 a.m.
One more thought for Mr. Slusher. Some volunteer for military service out of patriotism and some out of necessity. For one reason or another, the poor are disproportionately politically conservative, especially the southern poor. They join, more out of necessity than choice.