[icenine]

Originally Posted by finnbow

I know that Pete gets a woody when he sees Iraqi women with purple thumbs, but a report issues by Brown University Watson Institute for International Studies shows that the Iraq War will cost us $2.2 Trillion, plus $3.9 Trillion in servicing the interest on that debt through 2053. Beyond that, a total of 190,000 people were killed (among which were 4,488 soldiers and at least 3,400 U.S. contractors).

And what did we get for this? A strengthened Iran, not to mention these other side benefits:

• Terrorism in Iraq increased dramatically as a result of the invasion and tactics and fighters were exported to Syria and other neighboring countries.
  
• Iraq’s health care infrastructure remains devastated from sanctions and war. More than half of Iraq’s medical doctors left the country during the 2000s, and tens of thousands of Iraqi patients are forced to seek health care outside the country.
  
• The $60 billion spent on reconstruction for Iraq has not gone to rebuilding infrastructure such as roads, health care, and water treatment systems, but primarily to the military and police. The Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction has found massive fraud, waste, and abuse of reconstruction funds.

http://news.brown.edu/pressreleases/2013/03/warcosts

And the GOP is the party of national security and fiscal responsibility? Somebody 'splain that to me.

+1.....
Iraq is a very violent place...right now there is a smoldering Sunni insurgency as evidenced by today's coordinated bombings. I think at this point it will be a race between an insurgency and the increase in wealth brought by oil production that will decide Iraq's future. Hopefully a better economy fueled by oil production will win out in the end. I am not optimistic however.