Taxpayers in Albuquerque, New Mexico will pay $383.9 million for the cost of the Iraq War through 2007. For the same amount of money, the following could have been provided:
113,120 People with Health Care OR
600,489 Homes with Renewable Electricity OR
10,193 Public Safety Officers OR
7,857 Music and Arts Teachers OR
97,985 Scholarships for University Students OR
47 New Elementary Schools OR
3,917 Affordable Housing Units OR
150,241 Children with Health Care OR
54,841 Head Start Places for Children OR
8,201 Elementary School Teachers OR
7,524 Port Container Inspectors
You may check out your town here.
Remember: Iraq posed no immediate threat to the United States; it had no weapons of mass destruction; it had a (very repressive and brutal, absolutely) secular regime that wanted nothing to do with al Qaeda; it had no connection with 9/11/2001 (the hijackers were mostly Saudi); the White House lied and distorted to gin up this war; this was a preemptive war, something universally condemned by both international law and traditional just war theories; this overthrow of Saddam and establishment of permanent US bases was part of the plan of PNAC (Project for a New American Century) well before 9/11 and Cheney, Rumsfeld, et al. were part of this "think tank"; the invasion and occupation of Iraq has enriched companies like Halliburton, Bechtel, etc. in no-bid contracts while Iraq still does not have constant and reliable water and electricity after all this time; there was no plan at the time of invasion for providing order and security once we got there nor for withdrawal. Just sayin'.
--the BB
