Pentagon: Iraq War a 'major debacle'

A McClatchy article from 17 April 2008 reports:

WASHINGTON — The war in Iraq has become "a major debacle" and the outcome "is in doubt" despite improvements in security from the buildup in U.S. forces, according to a highly critical study published Thursday by the Pentagon's premier military educational institute.

The report released by the National Defense University raises fresh doubts about President Bush's projections of a U.S. victory in Iraq just a week after Bush announced that he was suspending U.S. troop reductions.

The report carries considerable weight because it was written by Joseph Collins, a former senior Pentagon official, and was based in part on interviews with other former senior defense and intelligence officials who played roles in prewar preparations.

It was published by the university's National Institute for Strategic Studies, a Defense Department research center.

"Measured in blood and treasure, the war in Iraq has achieved the status of a major war and a major debacle," says the report's opening line.
...
The report said that the United States has suffered serious political costs, with its standing in the world seriously diminished. Moreover, operations in Iraq have diverted "manpower, materiel and the attention of decision-makers" from "all other efforts in the war on terror" and severely strained the U.S. armed forces.

"Compounding all of these problems, our efforts there (in Iraq) were designed to enhance U.S. national security, but they have become, at least temporarily, an incubator for terrorism and have emboldened Iran to expand its influence throughout the Middle East," the report continued.

Cost of a gallon of gas, $4; cost of a war...priceless

In a 28 Feb. news conference, President Bush learned that gas prices were pushing $4/gallon.

Peter Maer of CBS News Radio asked: "What's your advice to the average American who is hurting now, facing the prospect of $4-a-gallon gasoline, a lot of people facing ... "

"Wait, what did you just say?" the president interrupted. "You're predicting $4-a-gallon gasoline?"

Maer responded: "A number of analysts are predicting $4-a-gallon gasoline."

Bush's rejoinder: "Oh, yeah? That's interesting. I hadn't heard that."

The president, once known for his common-guy skills, sounded eerily like his father, who in 1992 seemed amazed to discover that supermarkets had bar-code scanners.

The $4-a-gallon forecasts were reported widely in newspapers and on TV in the past week. The White House press secretary took a question about $4 gas at her Wednesday media briefing. A poll last month found that nearly three-quarters of Americans expect $4-a-gallon gas.

The president, however, had difficulty grasping the possibility, even after Maer told him.

"You just said the price of gasoline may be up to $4 a gallon — or some expert told you that," Bush repeated. "That creates a lot of uncertainty."
...
At a Shell service station in San Mateo, Calif., the price of a gallon of regular had already reached $4.29, well above the California average of $3.42, as measured by AAA.

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In other reality-based cost news, Nobel economics laureate Joseph Stiglitz has co-authored (with Linda Bilmes) a new book in which they estimate the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan will cost the U.S. more than $3 trillion -- with the final tally likely to exceed that.

"It's much more like five trillion," Stiglitz said yesterday in an interview with Bloomberg Radio. "We were trying to make Americans understand how expensive this war was so we didn't want to quibble about a dime here or a dime there."
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"This war is the first war ever that's been totally financed by borrowing, by deficits,'' said Stiglitz, a professor at Columbia University in New York. "Because we haven't raised taxes, because we've tried to pretend this war is for free, we've been skimping on our treatment of veterans."

The estimate drew criticism: Senator Sam Brownback (R, TX) said the number ignores the price the U.S. would pay if Iraq became a terrorist state. [I would argue that, in fact, this is the price the U.S. has paid to create a terrorist state in Iraq.] And a White House spokesman criticized Stiglitz, saying the war on terrorism is, well, priceless:

"People like Joe Stiglitz lack the courage to consider the cost of doing nothing and the cost of failure. One can't even begin to put a price tag on the cost to this nation of the attacks of 9-11," said White House spokesman Tony Fratto, conceding that the costs of the war on terrorism are high while questioning the premise of Stiglitz's research.

"It is also an investment in the future safety and security of Americans and our vital national interests. $3 trillion? What price does Joe Stiglitz put on attacks on the homeland that have already been prevented? Or doesn't his slide rule work that way?"

Now, maybe the book makes the political/moral judgment that $3 trillion spent on Iraq is wrong, but so far, the criticisms seem to be that there has been a cost accounting done at all -- and for saying that this is the first time we've waged a war without any effort at financing it. Again, I would argue that the U.S. invasion and occupation of Iraq -- which had no WMDs and no link to Al Qaeda -- has had little, if anything, to do with preventing "attacks on the homeland."

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And (I am not making this up) Karl Rove claims that

If we were to give up Iraq with the third largest oil reserves in the world to the control of an Al Qaida regime or to the control of Iran, don’t you think $200 a barrel oil would have a cost to the American economy.

Er, isn't the fact that we've effectively turned Iraq over to the control of Iran one of the few uncontested facts of the American-sponsored "regime change" in Iraq?