Tenth Anniversary of Gulf War II, a.k.a. the Iraq War

Roots of today's economic, social problems found in that terrible mistake

By Will Collette

When you hear Republicans piss and moan about the national debt, remember this: if they had not bum-rushed the United States into a totally unnecessary war ten years ago today, we would not have spent the $1.6 TRILLION already down the tubes, and would not be facing the bill for an additional $4.5 TRILLION in on-going costs.

Nearly 5000 dead Americans would still be alive. So would more than 100,000 dead Iraqis. We would not be facing the pain and cost of dealing with hundreds of thousands of wounded veterans.

Instead of an Islamic Republic that is closely aligned with Iran, chances are Iraq would still be run by Saddam Hussein or one of his thug sons. Obviously, that alternative future is not a good one, but is the one we got instead - at the cost of so much blood and national treasure - any better?

This is a good time to pause and reflect on how bad mistakes like the Iraq War can happen. Two major ingredients are lying politicians and a gullible, scared public. We had both of those ingredients in large measure in 2003 as we look at some of the key arguments that took us to war ten years ago:

Thanks to Bill in Portland, Maine and the Daily Kos