Blog - Three Years in Iraq: A "Reckless Gamble" Indeed

Three Years in Iraq: A "Reckless Gamble" Indeed

March 20, 2006

Prior to invading Iraq, President Bush said, "Saddam Hussein's regime is a grave and gathering danger. To suggest otherwise is to hope against the evidence, to assume this regime's good faith is to bet the lives of millions and the peace of the world in a reckless gamble." We now mark the third anniversary of this war of choice, and it is clear that President Bush, not the critics, relied on "hope against the evidence" to "bet the lives of millions" in a "reckless gamble."

Betting the lives of millions?

According to Pentagon figures this month (March), 2,310 U.S. troops have died in Iraq since the launch of the invasion. Another 17,124 American troops have been wounded. Of those, 9,212 were returned to duty within 72 hours. The rest had more serious wounds, returning home with shrapnel in their bodies or without an arm, a leg, a hand or a foot.
A London-based human rights group called Iraq Body Count recently estimated that at least 33,638 Iraqi civilians have been killed as a result of the war, killed by insurgent attacks or operations by U.S. and coalition forces.

Hoping against the evidence?

It has now been determined that nearly all of the assertions made by this Administration about the connections between Saddam Hussein and Al Qaeda were incorrect and the ‘solid evidence' presented to the United Nations and the U.S Congress was not solid at all.

While senior Bush officials claimed that the war effort would be self-financing and paid for through Iraqi oil revenues, the reality is that the American taxpayer - you - have spent $250 billion on military operations and reconstruction efforts in Iraq. The costs keep mounting at the rate of about $4-6 billion a month, according to the Congressional Research Service.

Reckless Gamble?

The Iraq war has cost America much of its credibility abroad. After working with the UN to get effective inspections back into Iraq, we turned around and derided UN weapons inspectors and laughed at their conclusion that there were no weapons-of-mass-destruction in Iraq to justify invasion. While the rest of the world was saying "wait a minute", the US refused to credit the intelligence garnered by 250 inspectors on the ground in Iraq searching every site identified by the CIA. "

We have eroded our national credibility and dropped the ball on fighting the war on terror. We are nickel-and-diming our homeland defenses - with unscreened containers in our ports and cargo on our planes, an under-funded legal immigration system that has been overwhelmed by illegal immigration, al Qaeda targets such as LNG facilities or chemical plants sited in densely-populated areas - that cost money to fix or mitigate.

As we look back at the war and look ahead, I am concerned at the erosion of public trust in government that as ensued from this Administration's willingness to keep the truth from the American public.

On the Anniversary of the war the President is telling Americans that he is continuing a strategy "that will lead to victory in Iraq" but Americans are rightfully skeptical.

After the "mushroom cloud" misinformation of the march to war and "slam dunk" intelligence evidence, the American people, who pay for this war with their lives and dollars and spirit, deserve a little straight talk.

It is hard to fix a problem that you won't admit exists.

The Administration was wrong - spectacularly wrong -- and as a result, at a critical moment in the history of nuclear proliferation, there is a vacuum at the top of the international coalition against the spread of nuclear weapons. Not since India's decision to "go nuclear" triggered a like response from Pakistan have we seen so many nuclear dominoes lined up to fall. If Tehran builds the Bomb, Egypt could follow, North Korea will follow through, and South Korea and Brazil may complete the rush.

The proliferation of nuclear weapons materials and technologies only increases the threat that someday a nuclear bomb may fall into the hands of terrorists.. Al Qaeda has said that it intends to exploit nuclear commerce to build a radioactive "dirty" bomb. If we are not careful, they could succeed in doing so, or in actually obtaining a nuclear explosive device. Dealing with this threat will require unprecedented international cooperation - something that we sacrificed when we started this war. Perhaps that is why William Odom, a retired lieutenant general who ran Army intelligence and later the National Security Agency during the Reagan administration, has described the Iraqi adventure "the greatest strategic disaster in our history."

Digging out of this hole will take years - perhaps generations - but it must begin with a renewal of the respect for the American public, for the value of international consensus and law by leadership committed to those goals. Three years after the start of this war, that leadership is missing.

http://markey.house.gov/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1334&Itemid=87