Homework Assignment: Cost of the Iraq War

I'm a little late lately, but this is still a good story -- go for it, My Young Padawan Learners.

Institute for Public Accuracy
915 National Press Building, Washington, D.C. 20045
(202) 347-0020 * http://www.accuracy.org * ipa@accuracy.org
___________________________________________________
PM Wednesday, May 14, 2008

$175 Billion Toward $3 Trillion War

Interviews Available

The House of Representatives is expected to have a full chamber debate
on the war supplemental bill on Thursday.

THEODORE LOWI, tjl7@cornell.edu,
http://falcon.arts.cornell.edu/Govt/faculty/Lowi.html
Lowi is professor of American Institutions at Cornell University
and author of several books including "The End of Liberalism." He said
today: "Supplementals are supposed to be for real emergencies -- like
Katrina. The war supplementals are a way for Bush to attempt to hide
the costs and implications of the war in Iraq. Obviously, Bush deserves the blame for much of how the Iraq war has gone, but Congress has gone
along, funding the war. The Republicans have gotten tremendous mileage
out of accusing anyone opposed to the war of not supporting the
soldiers. The power of the purse -- like free speech and privacy -- has been withering away. Congress has diddled around with little things,
but has fundamentally acquiesced.
"This will also substantially limit the choices of the next
president. The candidates have really done a disservice, indicating that
they will be able to change course when their power will in fact be very
limited."

LINDA BILMES, via Jessica Donovan or Michael Johnson, ljb@ksg.harvard.edu, jessica_donovan@ksg.harvard.edu,
http://ksghome.harvard.edu/~lbilmes/index.htm
Bilmes is a former Assistant Secretary and Chief Financial Officer
of the U.S. Department of Commerce. A professor at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University, she co-authored "The Three Trillion
Dollar War." Bilmes said: "There is no such thing as a free lunch and
there is no such thing as a free war. After five years of war, 4,000
[U.S.] deaths, 60,000 injuries, $600 billion spent so far (with the
price tag expected to reach $3 trillion once we add veterans costs,
military reset, interest on the debt, and economic losses), the U.S.
public is waking up to the fact that the war is hurting the economy."

TRAVIS SHARP, tsharp@armscontrolcenter.org, http://www.theiraqinsider.blogspot.com
Sharp is the military policy analyst at the Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation. He writes the "Iraq Insider" blog and is closely following the supplemental spending process. He said today: "If the
pending $175 billion super supplemental is signed into law, the U.S.
government will have approved $650 billion for Iraq since 2003. The
current veterans' education package under consideration will cost $52
billion over the next decade, only 8 percent of the total cost of the
Iraq war to date."