[Congressional Record Volume 154, Number 55 (Tuesday, April 8, 2008)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E527-E528]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]

[[Page E527]]


                           FIVE YEARS OF WAR

                                 ______
                                 

                       HON. JANICE D. SCHAKOWSKY

                              of illinois

                    in the house of representatives

                         Tuesday, April 8, 2008

  Ms. SCHAKOWSKY. Madam Speaker, as we mark the fifth anniversary of 
the ill-planned and ill-executed war in Iraq, I rise to draw thc 
House's attention to two articles from the Chicago Tribune about the 
lasting damage done by the conflict.

               [From the Chicago Tribune, Mar. 16, 2008]

 By Any Calculus, War's Cost Cruel: Politics, Money, Blood--All Show a 
                          Painful Bottom Line

                          (By David Greising)

       It's a cold calculus, trying to estimate the cost of a war.
       What is an Iraqi life worth? The life of an American GI? 
     It's no easier estimating the value of removing Saddam 
     Hussein from power than it is calculating the sum cost of 
     lifetime health care for a host of disabled American 
     soldiers.
       When politicians talk about the war's costs in terms of 
     lives and treasure, they don't necessarily expect someone to 
     actually pull out a spreadsheet and start running the 
     numbers.
       But that is what has happened with the Iraq war. And as we 
     approach the 5-year anniversary of the initial March 20, 
     2003, ``shock and awe'' aerial assault on Baghdad, it is 
     worth noting an important shift in the accounting of the 
     conflict's cost.
       Those who opposed the war are finding that the costs far 
     exceeded anything they would have expected, or might have 
     argued, at the time the conflict started. The most notable 
     and authoritative such argument is put forward by Nobel 
     Prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz, who puts an eye-
     grabbing, ultimate bottom line on the seemingly endless U.S. 
     commitment to Iraq: at least $3 trillion. That's trillion, 
     with a ``T.''
       Those who argued during the run-up to war that armed 
     conflict would be more economical than the cost of containing 
     Hussein have shifted fields. Instead of arguing, as some once 
     did, that America's Iraq adventure might actually turn a 
     profit once the country's vast oil wealth began to flow, they 
     now put forward a more nuanced argument.
       On a purely fiscal basis, they now acknowledge, the war has 
     been at best a wash. But looked at as a total package--taking 
     into account the benefits of removing a tyrant from power and 
     thrusting Iraq into its post-Hussein period, however bloody 
     and chaotic--they say armed intervention was still the more 
     attractive alternative.
       A trio of University of Chicago economists sought to 
     estimate the cost of containing Hussein had there been no 
     U.S.-led invasion. Their 2006 paper pegged it at $700 billion 
     over an unspecified period of years.
       That estimate figures in the extra U.S. military equipment 
     and manpower that would have been needed to keep Hussein 
     within his borders and keep his hands off Kuwait. It includes 
     the cost of weapons inspection programs, of economic 
     boycotts, of oil that would remain in the ground and a rate 
     of premature Iraqi deaths ranging from 10,000 to 30,000 per 
     year, based on Hussein's bloody track record and 
     mismanagement of the country.
       ``When people talk about the cost of war, as an economist, 
     you have to ask, `In comparison to what?''' said Kevin 
     Murphy, one of the U. of C. economists.
       Though he faults President Bush for errors in execution, he 
     believes war was the better option.
       ``I don't hear Joe Stiglitz saying the best world is the 
     world where Saddam stays around as long as possible because 
     it costs too much to make him leave,'' Murphy said.
       He has a fair point. Stiglitz spends little time 
     contemplating either the economic or moral consequences of 
     allowing Hussein to remain in power. Perhaps that is because 
     Stiglitz cannot take his eyes off the financial and human 
     catastrophe that is unfolding before the nation's eyes.
       Bringing important new scholarship to the book ``The Three 
     Trillion Dollar War: The True Cost of the Iraq Conflict,'' 
     Stiglitz and co-author Linda Bilmes spend little time 
     contemplating what-ifs. Instead they turn a calculating eye 
     to the economic consequences of the American military 
     invasion--and to the vital policy considerations presented by 
     both its financial and human costs.
       There is the expected, grim accounting that any actuary 
     might calculate. The cost of 4,000 American troops' lives, 
     for example, runs to roughly $28 billion. War outlays have 
     added $1 trillion to the national debt, and could run to $2 
     trillion over time, the authors calculate.
       One of the most important calculations is an aspect of the 
     war often ignored by the politicians and pundits who are not 
     quite as handy with a calculator as Stiglitz is: The 
     staggering, long-term toll of veterans' health care, 
     disability benefits and Social Security disability pay. Add 
     them up, and even in a best-case scenario they amount to $371 
     billion, according to the authors' calculations.
       Stiglitz expected his calculations would come under 
     criticism, as they have. But he said the larger purpose--
     putting some price tag on the war--is important.
       ``The public ought to have some accounting of the costs,'' 
     he said in an interview.
       ``Obviously, after Pearl Harbor, you wouldn't sit down and 
     say, `How are we going to respond?''' Stiglitz said. ``But 
     this was a war of choice. We didn't have to go to war. We had 
     a choice of timing, and a choice of whether to go to war at 
     all.''
       The debate is not purely among economists, obviously. But 
     even among political scientists who supported the war, 
     Stiglitz's view is starting to take hold.
       Michael O'Hanlon, a security expert at the Brookings 
     Institution who runs a project that compiles all manner of 
     data on present-day Iraq--from military and civilian deaths 
     to commodity costs to public opinion--said he cannot ignore 
     the negatives: a huge increase in violence in Iraq, the lack 
     of political stability, the inability to find weapons of mass 
     destruction and oil prices at $110 a barrel.
       O'Hanlon supported the initial American invasion, and he 
     gave carefully delineated backing to the troop surge a year 
     ago. Today, though, ``common sense ultimately pushes me 
     toward the Stiglitz view if I had to look at just the bottom 
     line,'' O'Hanlon said.
       The question for Americans, ultimately, no longer is 
     whether going to war made sense. Today, as we head toward the 
     presidential election, the question is whether we keep U.S. 
     troops in Iraq or start bringing them back.
       Based on governmental budget figures, several economists 
     have put the cost of the Iraq war at $12 billion a month. 
     Stiglitz figures the actual cost probably is at least twice 
     that.
       And putting a final fiscal argument to the test, Stiglitz 
     invokes a tenet of economics that is hammered home at the U. 
     of C. business school itself: The fallacy of the ``sunk 
     cost.''
       People throw good money after bad, in hopes of recovering 
     what they first invested, even though every new dollar just 
     perpetuates a lost cause.
       Five years into the war, Americans must decide whether we 
     are caught up in a sunk-cost fallacy. But in this case, the 
     cost is not counted just in dollars and cents. It is tallied 
     in the impact on American security, and in the cost of 
     American and Iraqi lives.
                                  ____


               [From the Chicago Tribune, Mar. 19, 2008]

  5 Years After: Flowers, Ruins; Iraq's Torn Social Fabric May Be the 
       Hardest Item To Mend as the Country Makes Fitful Progress

                              (By Liz Sly)

       Baghdad.--On Baghdad's battered streets, signs of the 
     progress made over the past year mingle uneasily with the 
     debris of the violent upheaval that has torn Iraq apart over 
     the past five years.
       The ubiquitous concrete blast walls that seal off Sunni and 
     Shiite neighborhoods and protect government buildings serve 
     as a reminder of the ever-present threat of suicide bombings 
     and sectarian violence. But they have been brightly painted 
     with flowers, animals and scenes of Iraqi life, bringing a 
     splash of color to the decrepit, dusty streets.
       Freshly planted marigolds bloom along the sidewalks, beside 
     the wreckage of buildings destroyed in air raids and suicide 
     bombings that still have not been rebuilt.
       Many shopping streets and markets have sprung back to life, 
     rejuvenated by the improvements in security that have taken 
     place in recent months. In yet other neighborhoods, whole 
     streets have been emptied by the flight of more than 1.1 
     million Baghdadis from their homes.
       Compared with a year ago, the improvements brought about by 
     the surge of an extra 30,000 U.S. troops are manifest. The 
     U.S. military says the violence is down to levels not seen 
     since 2005, permitting a sense of normality to return to many 
     areas.


                            A broken country

       But 5 years after the U.S.-led coalition launched the war 
     that was to bring freedom, democracy and prosperity to a 
     long-suffering populace, Iraq remains a broken country, with 
     no clear sense of when, how or even if it is going to be 
     fixed.
       U.S. commanders are the first to acknowledge the enormity 
     of the challenges that lie ahead.
       ``The gains are fragile and they are tenuous and until they 
     are cemented by national reconciliation, by truly resolving 
     the

[[Page E528]]

     big political questions that are necessary, by truly getting 
     the economy going again... until all of that happens, then 
     understandably what has been achieved on the ground will be a 
     bit fragile,'' Gen. David Petraeus, commander of U.S. forces 
     in Iraq, said in an interview.
       The statistics tell the story of a nation still a long way 
     from recovery: About 60 percent of Iraqis lack access to 
     clean drinking water, and 4 million don't get enough to eat, 
     according to the United Nations. Electricity is supposed to 
     average 7 hours a day in Baghdad, but many areas still 
     receive only 2 to 3 hours a day. An estimated 151,000 Iraqis 
     have died during the war, as have nearly 4,000 U.S. troops.
       And the biggest undertaking of all will be healing the 
     sectarian divide that opened wide and engulfed the country in 
     bloodshed in 2006-07, after the attack on a holy Shiite 
     shrine in Samarra, Petraeus said.
       ``It did incredible damage to the social structure. I'm 
     talking about the tearing of the fabric of Iraqi society and 
     I think that has probably been the most significant damage 
     that has been sustained,'' he said. ``And that is something 
     that is going to take years.''
       Whether Iraq has the luxury of years to heal is in 
     question. The extra troops of the ``surge'' are going home by 
     July, and the U.S. presidential election calls into doubt the 
     future strength of any force that remains.
       Meanwhile, the two other factors that contributed to the 
     success of the surge, the Sunni revolt against Al Qaeda in 
     Iraq and the cease-fire declared by the Shiite Mahdi Army 
     militia, cannot be counted on to endure.
       Far from ending the civil conflict, the deployment of extra 
     U.S. troops rather served to freeze it.
       Neighborhoods have been pacified to a large extent because 
     local feuding factions concluded it was no longer in their 
     interests to continue fighting a beefed-up U.S. force, or in 
     many instances because members of the opposite sect were 
     driven out altogether.
       For many, the war's chief legacy has been one of 
     disappointment. ``I was expecting to travel the world and now 
     I can't even go to Washash,'' said Ammar Yahya, 33, 
     referring to a Baghdad neighborhood now controlled by the 
     Mahdi Army.


                             Concrete walls

       He is a Sunni living in the troubled Dora district, 
     surrounded by the high concrete walls that have helped secure 
     many neighborhoods but which have also left communities 
     isolated. Friends and relatives don't dare visit him, and he 
     is reluctant to leave because most journeys require traveling 
     through Shiite neighborhoods.
       ``We were so very happy when the Americans came,'' he said. 
     ``Now I wish we had stayed under Saddam's tyranny.''
       An ABC poll of 2,200 Iraqis conducted for the fifth 
     anniversary showed that 46 percent now expect improvements in 
     the coming year, up from 39 percent last August but still 
     below the 69 percent who were optimistic in November 2005. 
     And 55 percent now say their own lives are going well; that 
     is down from 71 percent in late 2005.
       ``Give it time,'' said Said Hakki, a Shiite who returned 
     from exile and now heads the Iraqi Red Crescent Organization. 
     ``Security is just beginning to improve. I think the glass is 
     more than half full. We've got cell phones, satellite dishes, 
     and how many new newspapers do we have? Under Saddam, bananas 
     were like a dream.
       ``Iraq is a war zone. There are many different factions 
     still settling their scores. The Shiites feel the Sunnis were 
     harsh to them for the past 35 years and they want to get 
     their rights back, but with time and understanding and 
     reconciliation things might change.''
       But reconciliation is proving elusive. Even the mainstream 
     Sunni National Accord Front, which has seats in Iraq's 
     parliament, refused to attend a ``national reconciliation 
     conference'' summoned Tuesday by Prime Minister Nouri al-
     Maliki.
       Many Iraqis question the Shiite-led government's commitment 
     to reconciliation with its former Sunni foes.
       ``The political leaders have no national vision,'' said 
     Saad al-Hadithi, a political scientist at Baghdad University. 
     ``Their goal is to achieve benefits for their own specific 
     group, This is why they don't want to share power or let 
     anyone else in.''
       Petracus points to other recent gains, such as signs of 
     improvement in the economy. ``The difference over a year ago 
     is very dramatic, there has been very substantial progress,'' 
     he said. ``It does give a sense of what might be if we can 
     build on it and continue on the trajectory that we've seen 
     now for a good four or live months.''
       But in terms of repairing the country's torn social fabric, 
     the task has hardly even begun, he said.
       ``People say, have there been stitches put back in that 
     fabric? I'd say we're just trying to line the fabric up and 
     to just get the situation calm enough so that the seamstress 
     can put a couple of stitches into it,'' he said.

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