Today (March 19) marks the 10th anniversary of formal declaration of war on Saddam Hussein, not to mention a war on one Arab Muslim country on sexed up intelligence and unauthorized by the UN.
A new study has found that the war has cost $ 1.7 trillion with an additional $ 490 billion in benefits owed to war veterans, expenses that could grow to more than $ 6 trillion over the next four decades counting interest. But many may wonder, as this recent report reveals, as to where did US spend nearly $ 2 trillion on Iraq war. This report reminds us of late US President Dwight Eisenhower, who in his farewell speech, warned of ever expanding and highly influential US military industrial complex, which poses grave threat to world peace and harmony. Very small percentage of this $ 2 trillion has benefited any one, except the US military infrastructure.
The defense corporations and the senior individuals of these corporations are big party donors and wield huge influence on almost all federal and state legislators. We are in the 10th anniversary of that disastrous illegal Iraq war, and this huge military industrial complex benefited immensely from this war, which left a million Iraqi dead and thousands are still not accounted for.
All these protagonists of war will continue to spend a big chunk of their revenues on creating more killing machines. The architects of war — the so-called neocons and Zionist-Christian evangelicals led by President George W. Bush and Prime Minister Tony Blair — never expressed any remorse or sense of guilt, except for Colin Powell, then secretary of state.
The world is overly militarized and this invariably creates regional, ethnic and sectarian conflicts — or else how would you justify purchase of such killing machines? — Seif A. Somalya, Jeddah
Cost of Iraq war
