Facts At A Glance

Robert Borosage — Thu, 16 Nov 2006 10:31:56 -0500

The cost of the Iraq War is more than $430 billion and counting. The average weekly cost runs nearly $2 billion, making it the most expensive war, per-week, since World War II.
In 2004, the number of "significant" international terrorist attacks across the world reached 655, more than three times the previous record of 175 in 2003. It's not true that we're fighting them there to keep from fighting them here; they are striking across the world.
A February 2007, bipartisan survey of America's leading foreign policy experts reported that the world is becoming more dangerous for Americans, and that the Iraq War is the principal reason. Seventy-five percent of the experts said that the United States is losing the war on terror, and 81% said that the world is becoming more dangerous for Americans.
Occupation of Iraq helped spawn a new generation of Islamic radicals, and the overall terrorist threat has grown since the September 11 attacks.
The Army is falling off its recruitment goals, even as it offers $10,000 cash bonuses and $70,000 college scholarships. Recruits ranked as "high quality" dropped to 47% in 2006. Fewer new recruits have high school diplomas and more have criminal histories.

The Conservative Failure

Bill Scher — Thu, 16 Nov 2006 10:28:25 -0500

President Bush says that 9/11 changed everything and gave him a new mission. The administration announced a new national security strategy of military unilateralism and proclaimed a doctrine of preventive war. From now on, the United States would attack "before the threat has formed." The thousands of stateless terrorists, with their grim, extremist ideology, were inflated to a global threat equivalent to communism at the height of the Cold War. The test case of this doctrine was Iraq—even though Saddam Hussein had nothing to do with 9/11 and was himself a target of bin Laden. Iraq was weak and strategically located. In a "shock and awe" display of overwhelming force, the United States would topple the dictator and quickly make way for a democratic, secular government that would be a catalytic force for political change in the region.

This doctrine—elaborated even before September 11, 2001 by the neoconservative ideologues that populated the Bush national security team—got it wrong. Schooled in the Cold War, Bush's men—Cheney, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, even Powell—focused on rogue states instead of the actual threat posed by decentralized, stateless terrorists. They assumed that military power was the answer and scorned the alliances, intelligence cooperation, political diplomatic initiatives and economic assistance vital to stopping terrorists and isolating them from the larger circles of Muslims. At home, the president's political advisors turned the war on terror into a partisan club—rolling out the Iraq vote in time for the off-year election. And rather than calling on the nation to sacrifice, the president pushed more tax breaks for the wealthy, while literally calling on Americans to go shopping.

In campaigning as a wartime president, Bush simply failed to address broader real security needs. He displayed remarkable passivity on the question of loose nukes and proliferation. He failed to move toward energy independence, and offered no leadership in correcting the unsustainable global trading imbalances that threaten worldwide depression. Global warming was met with purblind denial, and the threat of global pandemics received only belated recognition.

The Iraq Debacle

The centerpiece of the Bush doctrine—and the expression of its failure—was the invasion of Iraq. Everything the administration told us about the war turned out to be wrong. There were no weapons of mass destruction. Hussein was not allied to al Qaeda. We were not greeted as liberators. Iraqi oil would not pay for the reconstruction. The administration invaded without a plan for the occupation, scorning military advice that more troops on the ground were vital to securing the peace.

There are now no good options in Iraq. If we stay, we sacrifice more lives and billions of dollars more in occupying a country in the midst of sectarian civil war—with the most likely outcome a sectarian Shiite government allied with the mullahs in Iran. If we leave, the ensuing violence could create a failed state in the midst of the Persian Gulf.

Fact Sheets & Briefs

Facts At A Glance

The Conservative Failure

The Iraq Debacle