Yikes. Maybe fewer American lives would be lost in Iraq if our allies weren’t also allies with the enemy.
Tags: Britain, Iraq, War
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Posts Tagged ‘Iraq’
The Congressional Research Service, a non-partisan group, released a study recently detailing the costs of all major US wars in 2008 dollars. Surprisingly, Iraq isn’t first. Or second. It comes in third at $648 billion behind World War II and the Vietnam War. In fact, we’ve still got $3466 billion to go in Iraq to catch up to the cost of WWII! At the current rate, it’ll take another 4,813 10,152 days (almost 28 years) in Iraq to even match the costs of WWII.
I’m not saying it’s totally awesome how much we’re spending in Iraq, but studies like this do help put it into perspective. When the average person hears, “We’re spending over $720 $341.4 million a day in Iraq!” we’re shocked, but that’s because most of us think $500 is a lot. (And for a person, it is, but not for a government the size of the United States.) So $720 $341.4 sounds huge. This study really helps put war costs into perspective.
In terms of Gross Domestic Product, the Iraqi war is clearly not breaking us. It comes in at a quaint 1%, whereas WWII weighed in at 35.8%. In fact, there were only two major wars the US has been involved in that consumed less of a percentage of our GDP: the Persian Gulf War and the War in Afghanistan, both at 0.3% GDP.
Take a look, it’s interactive!
UPDATE: According to the National Priorities Project, the daily cost of the Iraqi war is $341.4 million, not $720 million. Heh, I guess that’s what quickly Googling something will get you.
Tags: Iraq
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CNN: ‘Sunni Arab bloc rejoins Iraqi Cabinet‘
I suspect the progress is due to the proximity of The Great One, having just landed in Afghanistan.
Tags: Iraq, Obama
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