Iraq War Not Worth It: Too Much Blood and Treasure for No Guarantee of Stability (ContributorNetwork)

COMMENTARY | According to CNN, the U.S. military intervention in Iraq, which began in 2003, has cost the nation almost 4,500 dead soldiers. Additionally, more than 32,000 U.S. soldiers have been wounded and the financial cost of the 8 1/2-year conflict, as alleged by the Christian Science Monitor, may total up to more money than it cost our nation to fight in World War II.

World War II cost the United States around $3.6 trillion, adjusted for inflation, while the total costs of the Iraq War may amount to more than $4 trillion. Much of this tab goes to cover expenses related to healing and recuperating injured and traumatized soldiers, replacing ruined weapons and equipment, and giving assistance to our allies, some of whom have been less than cost-effective.

So we've lost 4,500 troops, have to help another 32,000 as best we can, and have spent a tremendous amount of money, some of which we could scarcely afford as the recent recession rocked our national economy to its core. What have we gained from this lengthy conflict, which also killed hundreds of thousands of innocent Iraqi civilians?

Sadly, the United States has won precious little of what it sought prior to the spring 2003 invasion of Iraq: Aside from toppling Saddam Hussein's brutal regime, we have not made ourselves safer from foreign terrorist threats. We have not made the Middle East a safer, more stable region. We have not improved our respectability, prestige, or even intimidation factor among the international community.

If anything, our intervention in Iraq, made costly because we originally underestimated how many troops it would take to hold and secure the vast nation and provide security (according to an article in the National Security Archive), allowing an insurgency to erupt that continues to wreak havoc even today. We tried to fight a war on the cheap by sending in 130,000 troops instead of the 400,000 proposed by Marine General Anthony Zinni in 1999, whose ideas were mirrored in 2003 by General Eric Shinseki, the top-ranking Army officer, in a USA Today article.

By not properly securing Iraq in the beginning we doomed ourselves to a long, expensive, traumatizing war that has helped our enemies more than ourselves. Radical Islamic groups, various terrorist organizations, and hard-liners within Iran and Pakistan have been bolstered by the American mismanagement of the Iraq War. These groups can point to the chaos within Iraq and, regardless of who is genuinely at fault, blame the United States.

Worst of all, Iraq's security is still not guaranteed: When the last American troops pull out by the end of the year, it is unknown whether Iraq's temporary [relative] stability will last ... or crumble.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/iraq/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ac/20111216/pl_ac/10682311_iraq_war_not_worth_it_too_much_blood_and_treasure_for_no_guarantee_of_stability

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