Cost of War 3 Trillion as Public Looses interest

Public looses interest in War as violence increases in Iraq and the Middle East commander who disagrees with Bush Administration policy abruptly quits. Meanwhile experts conservatively predict Bush's war will cost the US 3 trillion - much of the cost coming after Bush's departure from office.



US public losing interest in Iraq as news coverage wanes: report

WASHINGTON (AFP) — A sharp fall in US media coverage of the Iraq war has left Americans less interested in and knowledgeable about the conflict, a report by the independent Pew Research Center showed Wednesday.

"The drop in awareness comes as press attention to the war has waned," the report said.

A scant three percent of news stories in February were devoted to the Iraq war, compared with around 15 percent in July last year, and the US public has not perceived the war, which began nearly five years ago, as a top news story since October, the report noted.

Meanwhile, 28 percent of 1,003 adults polled last month for Pew correctly estimated the number of US military fatalities in Iraq at around 4,000, compared with 54 percent who got the figure right seven months ago, the report said.

More than one-third -- 35 percent -- estimated that 3,000 had been killed, 11 percent put the toll at 2,000 deaths, and just under a quarter said the number of fatalities was closer to 5,000.

The Department of Defense confirmed the deaths of 3,974 US military personnel in Iraq as of Monday, according to Pew.

"As news coverage of the war has diminished, so too has public interest in news about Iraq," the report said.

And with the waning interest in news about Iraq, there has been a "significant increase in the number of Americans who believe that military progress is being made in Iraq," it said, citing another poll.

http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5h8-0YfL2kZoE1y5a6ZxjET9mk3bg



Iraq Violence Sees Spike

BAGHDAD (AP) — Violence appeared to be on the rise in Iraq after a day that saw at least 42 people die — numbers that cast doubt on the easing of sectarian violence following a surge of U.S. forces to the country last year.

An Iraqi official confirmed the grisliest attack of Tuesday when 16 passengers on a bus in southern Iraq were killed by a roadside bomb. The U.S. military, however, claimed no one died in the attack, which was targeting a passing military convoy. The reason for the discrepancy was not immediately clear.

At least 26 people were killed Tuesday in other violence around the country.

Last Thursday, two massive bombs killed 68 people in Baghdad's Karradah neighborhood, while on March 3, two car bombs killed 24 people in the capital.

Military spokesman Rear Adm. Gregory Smith said Sunday that recent violence should not be taken as evidence of "an increase or a trend of an increase."

http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5gkx-3oYeFwuWKCusr2jrojs98w8wD8VBRGHG0



The top US military commander running the wars in both Afghanistan and Iraq quit abruptly yesterday

The Bush administration today moved to downplay divisions within the Pentagon over its Iraq war strategy exposed by the sudden departure of its Middle East commander Admiral William Fallon.Admiral William Fallon resigned yesterday after Esquire magazine described him as a lonely crusader blocking the hawks in the Bush administration from ordering military strikes to shut down Iran's nuclear programme.

The White House today denied that Fallon was forced out because he was pressing the
administration to draw down US troop levels in Iraq and encourage more diplomacy with Iran.

Fallon's exit arrives at a time when the Pentagon is engaged in intense debate over its Iraq war strategy - especially troop levels - in the remaining months of Bush's presidency. General David Petraeus, the commander of US forces in Iraq, is due to present his next report on the progress of the war to Congress.

The army chief of staff, George Casey, Fallon and other senior military officials have been pressing for more rapid withdrawals of US troops in Iraq because they fear long deployments are degrading the military.

In the Esquire article, Fallon had criticised the administration's preoccupation with Iraq, saying "our nation can't afford to be mesmerized by one problem".

However, Bush wants to maintain what was originally described as a temporary "surge" of forces in Iraq. Petraeus, now considered as a possible successor to Fallon, has talked about a "pause" in withdrawals for four to six weeks.

The admiral's departure after just a year in the job brought renewed charges from Democrats in Congress that the White House was stifling dissent from uniformed military professionals.

It also revived speculation that the White House continues to consider military action against Tehran -- months after intelligence agencies reached a consensus that its nuclear programme was on hold.

Today, Hillary Clinton called on the armed services committee to investigate whether Fallon had been pushed out for opposing military action against Iran. John Kerry has echoed her views, and two senior members of Congress had pressed the Pentagon to allow Fallon to testify on the Iraq war before his resignation.

"I am profoundly concerned that Admiral Fallon has decided to take this measure, and I'm hoping that we can hear from him in a more specific way in the future," Democratic senator James Webb said yesterday.

Whether or not Congress summons Fallon to address his departure, he is likely to face the issue publicly in the coming days, said Lawrence Korb, a Reagan-era Pentagon official who now serves at the Centre for American Progress.

"I think you will see him appear before Congress to talk about his views on the whole Middle East and the challenges affecting the US, and the circumstances of his leaving would come up," Korb said.

Fallon will be temporary replaced at US central command by his deputy, Lieutenant General

Before Bush ordered the military "surge" in Iraq last year, one of Fallon's superiors testified before Congress that Dempsey did not think adding more troops would help the US succeed in Iraq


http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/mar/12/usa6



The 3 Trillion Dollar War

With the fifth anniversary of the start of the Iraq war just days away. Ahead of that
anniversary, two prominent US economists have come up with a new estimate on the cost to the economy of the wars in both Iraq and Afghanistan. That figure is $US3 trillion ($3.22 trillion).

At the same time, a parliamentary committee in the UK has estimated that Britain's
expenditure on military operations on the same fronts will almost double this year.
Former World Bank chief economist Joseph Stiglitz and a professor of Public Finance at Harvard University, Linda Bilmes, have written a book with that figure in mind: The Three Trillion Dollar War: The True Cost of the Iraq Conflict.



The authors say the $600 billion spent so far on the war is only the tip of the iceberg.Professor Bilmes told ABC Radio National's Breakfast program yesterday that the authors' estimate took into account a number of long-term indirect costs of the conflict.

"It's the cost of providing medical care to the veterans, the cost of providing disability compensation to the veterans, the cost of replacing the military equipment and weaponry that's been used up," she said.

"And the cost of essentially resetting the military personnel to their pre-war state of readiness, and then there is the cost of paying the interest on the money that we borrowed to fight the war so far, so all those numbers are not included in the top line result."

"We have tried to be very, very conservative. Extremely conservative. We could have called this book the $4 trillion or the $5 trillion war but we tried to be as conservative as possible because, frankly, we didn't want to quibble with anyone about the particular details," she said.

"We were trying to just get a sort of realistic sense of how much it was costing."

http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2008/03/12/2187215.htm?section=world

Bush Wants $50 Billion More for Iraq War

Bush Wants $50 Billion More for Iraq War
Planned Request Signals Confidence That Congress Won't Prevail on Pullout

President Bush: Fund my fiasco

President Bush plans to ask Congress next month for up to $50 billion in additional funding for the war in Iraq, a White House official said yesterday, a move that appears to reflect increasing administration confidence that it can fend off congressional calls for a rapid drawdown of U.S. forces.

We're simply bankrupting ourselves over Iraq.

The request -- which would come on top of about $460 billion in the fiscal 2008 defense budget and $147 billion in a pending supplemental bill to fund the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq -- is expected to be announced after congressional hearings scheduled for mid-September featuring the two top U.S. officials in Iraq. Army Gen. David H. Petraeus and Ambassador Ryan C. Crocker will assess the state of the war and the effect of the new strategy the U.S. military has pursued this year.

Yes the toothless congress will Air Freight the $$$$$ to Halliburton ASAP

The request is being prepared now in the belief that Congress will be unlikely to balk so soon after hearing the two officials argue that there are promising developments in Iraq but that they need more time to solidify the progress they have made, a congressional aide said.

Most of the additional funding in a revised supplemental bill would pay for the current counteroffensive in Iraq, which has expanded the U.S. force there by about 28,000 troops, to about 160,000. The cost of the buildup was not included in the proposed 2008 budget because Pentagon officials said they did not know how long the troop increase would last. The decision to seek about $50 billion more appears to reflect the view in the administration that the counteroffensive will last into the spring of 2008 and will not be shortened by Congress.

Some consideration is being given to trimming the new request by a few billion dollars, the White House official said. But, he added, "this is pretty close to a done deal." Almost all the spending is relatively noncontroversial, he added, with the vast majority of it necessary just to keep the U.S. military operating in Iraq. The official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he is not authorized to talk to reporters, said that the supplemental requests are likely to be "rolled together" and considered as one package.

The revised supplemental would total about $200 billion, indicating that the cost of the war in Iraq now exceeds $3 billion a week. The bill also covers the far smaller costs of the war in Afghanistan. The Pentagon said recently that the cost of the Iraq war has surpassed $330 billion, while the war in Afghanistan has cost $78 billion.

"We have said previously that after General Petraeus reports, we will be evaluating what adjustments may need to be made to our pending [fiscal 2008] supplemental request, which was sent up in February with the rest of the budget," White House spokesman Gordon Johndroe said last night. "I'm going to decline to speculate on this, as General Petraeus has not testified. Nor have any decisions been made at this stage about whether, when or what specific changes could be made."

A House Appropriations Committee aide said that an additional White House spending request has been anticipated but that it was expected to be far smaller, perhaps about $30 billion. "We haven't seen the details, but we'll give it the scrutiny it deserves," said Jim Manley, a spokesman for Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.). "It's long past time for giving blank checks to the administration."

Despite widespread media anticipation of next month's Iraq hearings, Pentagon insiders say they do not expect them to result in any major changes in military strategy. The sessions are expected to occur the week of Sept. 10, with Petraeus and Crocker appearing before a total of four committees in the House and Senate.

"I don't see any surprises" coming out of the hearings, said an officer on the staff of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. He said he expects Petraeus and Crocker to focus on tactical security gains in and around Baghdad in recent months and on shifts in tribal allegiances in favor of U.S. forces, and to argue that those improvements may open a window for greater political reconciliation in Iraq over the next six or seven months.

In any event, this officer said, he expects the current counteroffensive to be maintained into next April. "The surge was designed to last for a year," he said. "I don't think they'll change that."

In a speech yesterday to the convention of the American Legion in Reno, Nev., Bush gave an optimistic assessment of recent events in the war, now in its fifth year. "There are unmistakable signs that our strategy is achieving the objectives we set out," he said. "The momentum is now on our side."

2 Year Anniversary of Katrina, and this Criminal Dares to ask for $50B for W A R!

What the money we're spending could be doing instead.... Updated at 1:44 PM

http://nationalpriorities.org/index.php?option=com_cont...

The War In Iraq Costs SO FAR...

$456,172,238,408

Instead, we could have insured
273,157,028
children for one year.

Instead, we could have built
4,107,403
additional housing units.


Instead, we could have hired
7,905,524
additional public school teachers for one year.

Instead, we could have paid for
60,420,205
children to attend a year of Head Start.


Instead, we could have provided
22,114,244
students four-year scholarships at public universities.

SO FAR, and the counter is running with $4,100 for every American household;
$1,500 for every American;
$3,400 for every taxpayer;
$11 million per hour and;
$275 million per day.

Think what that amount of money could have done if we'd invested it in alternative energy sources. At $4,100 per household, we could have made solar, wind, or other natural and renewable sources of energy available to each home in America, making oil and coal nearly obsolete in the heating and cooling of our homes. If we'd spent that on our auto industries and created more fuel efficient, cleaner, or even electric transportation, think what that could do for our dependence on oil and the unstable countries we do business with.

Gen. Pace was pushed out -Democrats thought him incompetent

Defense Secretary Robert Gates went on an unannounced visit to Bagdhad today. Speaking to reporters on the flight to Baghdad, Gates said the military wasn't trying to paint an overly optimistic picture of how the war is going. "It's a very mixed picture," he said. (1)

When Gates arrived he would learn that five more soldiers had just died.

Gates last week made the decision not to seek the reappointment of Gen. Peter Pace as chairman of the joint chiefs of staff. Gates appears to have feared that Pace's long involvement in the Iraq War and his relatively subservient attitude to former SecDef Donald Rumsfeld would turn his reconfirmation hearing into a circus. (2)


Dermocratic Leaders Did Not Approve of Pace

This view of Pace as part of the problem was held by Democratic Leader Harry Reid:
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid confirmed Thursday that he told liberal bloggers last week that he thinks outgoing Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Peter Pace is "incompetent." (1)

Reid Also Doesn't Think Petraeus is Competent

Reid also disparaged Army Gen. David Petraeus, head of Multinational Forces in Iraq."When I was in Iraq, he was responsible for training the Iraqi troops. He told us it was going great. As we've looked back, it didn't go so well," Reid said. "I was a little disappointed, to say the least, today reading USA Today newspaper, where he's saying things are going fine, kids are playing soccer. The truth is, you look at another newspaper and look at a different page of USA Today, the bloodiest three months of the war has been since the surge took place," Reid said.




Tony Snow Calls for an Apology from Reid

Tony Snow told reporters that he hoped what he had read about Reid is "not true, because in a time of war, for a leader of a party that says its supports the military, it seems outrageous to be issuing slanders toward the chairman of the Joint Chiefs and also the man that is responsible for the bulk of military operations in Iraq.

"Indeed, Senator Reid has at some point declared the war lost and also has declared the surge a failure, even though it has not yet been fully enacted," Snow said, adding that Reid should apologize.


Pace Comments on the Situation- He Was Forced Out- He Did Not And Would Not Resign or Retire



WASHINGTON — In his first public comments on the Bush administration's surprise decision to replace him as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Marine Gen. Peter Pace disclosed that he had turned down an offer to voluntarily retire rather than be forced out.

To quit in wartime, he said, would be letting down the troops.

Pace, responding to a question from the audience after he spoke at the Joint Forces Staff College in Norfolk, Va., on Thursday evening, said he first heard that his expected nomination for a second two-year term was in jeopardy in mid-May. Defense Secretary Robert Gates on June 8 announced Pace was being replaced.

"One thing that was discussed was whether or not I should just voluntarily retire and take the issue off the table," Pace said, according to a transcript released Friday by his office at the Pentagon.

"I said I could not do that for one very fundamental reason," which is that no soldier or Marine in Iraq should "think _ ever _ that his chairman, whoever that person is, could have stayed in the battle and voluntarily walked off the battlefield.

"That is unacceptable as a leadership thing, in my mind," he added.



Pace, whose current term ends Oct. 1, said he intended to remain on the job until then. Navy Adm. Michael Mullen has been announced as President Bush's choice to succeed Pace, who is the first Marine ever to hold the military's top post.

The decision to drop Pace has fed the political debate in Washington over the Iraq war. On Thursday, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid caused a stir when he said Pace had failed in his job of providing Congress a candid assessment on the war. Democrats typically have shied from stinging comments about military officers, instead focusing criticism on Bush and administration policies in Iraq.

Asked for comment on Reid's statement, a spokeswoman for Pace, Marine Col. Katie Haddock, said Pace "is focused on his duties as chairman and is not going to respond to press reports on who's saying what. He will let 40 years of service speak for itself."

A Vietnam veteran, Pace indicated in his Norfolk comments that his experience in that war colored his decision not to quit voluntarily.



"The other piece for me personally was that some 40 years ago I left some guys on the battlefield in Vietnam who lost their lives following 2nd Lt. Pace," he said. "And I promised myself then that I will serve this country until I was no longer needed _ that it's not my decision. I need to be told that I'm done.

"I've been told I'm done.

"I will run through the finish line on 1 October, and when I run through the finish line I will have met the mission I set for myself," he said.




Pace was vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs during the run-up to the Iraq war and during the early years of a conflict that has dragged on far longer than the administration foresaw. In October 2005 he succeeded Air Force Gen. Richard Myers as Joint Chiefs chairman, and until recently had largely been spared the war-related criticism that senior civilian officials attracted.

The decision to sideline Pace came as a surprise, since Gates had previously indicated privately that he intended to recommend that the president re-nominate him. In his remarks in Norfolk, Pace confirmed that Gates had told him he preferred to keep him as chairman but in mid-May began to see signs of opposition on Capitol Hill.

When he announced the decision last Friday, Gates said that after consulting with members of the Senate he concluded that sticking with Pace would risk a Senate confirmation struggle focusing on the Iraq War.

"It would be a backward-looking and very contentious process," Gates said. At the same time, he made clear he had made his decision with reluctance, saying he wished it had not been necessary.

"I am no stranger to contentious confirmations, and I do not shrink from them," Gates said. "However, I have decided that at this moment in our history, the nation, our men and women in uniform and General Pace himself would not be well served by a divisive ordeal. ..."



In his remarks in Norfolk, Pace said Gates had accurately portrayed what transpired.

"He brought me in the office and sat me down and said `Pete, this is what's happening. I want to re-nominate you. I want you to know that this is what I'm beginning to hear, this is what I'm going to go do, this is how I'm going to go do it.'"

"He went out and did exactly what he said on television, and exactly what he's been saying in his interviews, which is he went out and pulsed various members of Congress and he heard back from them the things that he said that he heard," Pace said.

At that point, Pace said, he assured Gates that he was willing to go through even a contentious confirmation process.

"I also told him that what he needed to do, in my opinion, was what was best for the institution, and whatever he and the president decided was going to be best for the institution was what Pete Pace was going to do," he said. "Oh and by the way, I can read the Constitution, which says the president gets to nominate and the Senate gets to confirm, or not, and neither one of those two things is going to happen, therefore I'm not staying." (5)

posted by Paul Grant (follower of Basho)

1. Huffington Post http://www.huffingtonpost.com/huff-wires/20070615/iraq/

3. Informed Comment http://www.juancole.com/2007/06/more-than-80-killed-mcclatchy-reviews.html

4. Fox News http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,282632,00.html

5. Huffington Post http://www.huffingtonpost.com/huff-wires/20070615/us-iraq/
------------------------------------------

House votes against troop surge in Iraq & Tim Ryans speach

In this post we have the Washington post on the House of Representatives Historic nonbinding but symbolic vote of NON CONFIDENCE in the President's plan forward in Iraq.

And, my favorite speech from the debate from Tim Ryans (D). Who points out that sending in these troops would mean sending in men and woman who would not have the equipment necessary to do their job. He points out that the administration has a poor record for carrying for our troops.



House votes against troop surge in Iraq
By Jon Ward
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
Published February 17, 2007


The Democratic-led House yesterday voted against President Bush's plan to send more troops to Iraq, a nonbinding but symbolic action that Republicans said is defeatist and a step backward in the war on terrorism.

"Today we have had an historic victory for the American people," said House Speaker , who voted against the war in 2002.

The 97-word resolution, which opposes sending 21,500 more troops to Iraq, passed 246-182. The vote was preceded by 44 hours and 55 minutes of debate over four days. Seventeen Republicans voted for the measure, and two Democrats voted against it.

The president's spokesman said the resolution won't change Mr. Bush's plan, adding that early signs of its success would leave those who voted for the resolution having to explain themselves later.

"Members of Congress have taken their own gamble here. They're gambling on failure -- some members, at least," White House press secretary Tony Snow said.

The White House is downplaying yesterday's House vote -- and one planned for today in the Senate on another Iraq war resolution -- arguing that the more important votes were last month's Senate confirmation of Army Gen. David H. Petraeus to command U.S. forces in Iraq and an upcoming vote on an emergency spending bill to fund the war on terrorism.
Meanwhile, House Republican leaders are vowing to defeat Democratic plans to begin slowly choking off funding for the war. Democrats intend to introduce legislation next month that they hope will limit the president's use of money in the supplemental war-funding request.

House Minority Whip Roy Blunt, Missouri Republican, said the resolution "is clearly the first step toward defunding the troops and the war against Islamic totalitarianism."

Rep. John P. Murtha, Pennsylvania Democrat, said Thursday that he hopes to require certification for adequate training and equipment for any deployed troops, and to place caps on how long those troops can serve and be enlisted.

"They won't be able to do the deployment," said Mr. Murtha, who voted in favor of authorizing the war.

House Minority Leader John A. Boehner, Ohio Republican, denounced the plan "to eliminate funding for our troops that are in harm's way."

Democrats insist the best way to "support the troops" is to take them out of what they say is a civil war in Iraq.

Rep. Henry A. Waxman, California Democrat, who voted for the war, said it "has weakened our fight against al Qaeda. In fact the war has enhanced the group's recruitment."

Republicans insist that Iraq is a hard but necessary fight against terrorists and insurgents backed by Iran and Syria, and that the conflict is part of the country's broader fight against terrorism.

The four-day debate, in which 392 of 434 House lawmakers participated, came to a dramatic conclusion yesterday afternoon.

Republicans sent Rep. Sam Johnson of Texas, a prisoner of war in Vietnam for almost seven years, to the House floor as their last speaker.

"Let my body serve as a brutal reminder that we must not repeat the mistakes of the past," said Mr. Johnson, 76. "We must not cut off funding for the troops."

Republicans gave Mr. Johnson a two-minute standing ovation and were joined by the smattering of Democrats in the chamber.

Rep. Ike Skelton of Missouri closed the debate for the Democrats. Mr. Skelton, who voted to authorize the war, said that sending more troops "will embroil [them] more deeply in a sectarian conflict [that] cannot be won militarily."

Immediately after the resolution passed, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, Nevada Democrat, sent out a release that said the Senate "must join the House and vote on the escalation."

Mr. Reid has taken the unusual step of bringing senators in for a weekend vote today on closing off amendments to an anti-surge resolution identical to the House bill.

Democrats say Republicans are avoiding an up-or-down vote on the surge, but Republicans say they want to vote on alternative resolutions, one of which would guarantee no funding cuts for the military.

"Senate Republicans want a vote in support of funding for the troops," said Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, Kentucky Republican, who said he expects to defeat Mr. Reid's attempt to stifle debate on other resolutions.

• Stephen Dinan contributed to this article.


Congressman Tim Ryan (D-OH) delivers his speech on the Iraq War Resolution during Thursday's debate on the floor of the house.