I remember participating in a community Lenten service at Holy Spirit Lutheran Church in West Bloomfield, Michigan on the eve of the invasion of Iraq in 2003. Many of us at the service, especially the clergy, shared a conviction that our nation was about to embark upon a huge humanitarian mistake. Our grief was exacerbated by our collective realization that this was happening during the holiest season of the Christian calendar, and we were deeply offended.
I must confess that I have harbored resentment against certain members of the United States Senate who, in my view, capitulated and voted to authorize the invasion in the face of specious evidence that Iraq possessed “weapons of mass destruction.” We now know that some of that evidence was manufactured to fit the designs of those who wanted to invade Iraq and simply needed an excuse. Seven years later, the ensuing war leaves in its wake at least 4,700 coalition military casualties and as many as 106,000 dead civilians. Some estimates are much higher.
In addition, the monetary costs of Operation Iraqi Freedom now top 742 billion dollars. According to the National Priorities Project (http://nationalpriorities.org), citizens of my state (Michigan) will shell out 4.5 billion dollars for both the Iraq and Afghanistan wars in fiscal 2011. For that same money, we could pay 63, 387 elementary school teachers, 70,707 police officers, or 86,276 firefighters for one year.
I am incensed that the rush to war in 2003 was never effectively challenged by those who should have known better. I have always said that I do not receive daily national security briefings, but even I suspected that the rationale being offered by the Bush Administration was hogwash. I suspect that Gen. Colin Powell now knows that, too.
As of today, American troops are coming home, leaving a nation that did not attack us and did not pose a credible threat to American security in shambles. This operation was based on outright lies for which those responsible will never be held accountable. Please don’t tell me that the destruction of Saddam Hussein was worth it.
I am gratified that President Obama has at last made good on his promise to withdraw American troops from Iraq. I am deeply ashamed that this “war” was ever undertaken in my name and that I helped pay for it. The true cost in human lives and in dollars may never be fully known. Consider all of the PTSD and brain-injured veterans as just one indication of the hidden costs that will haunt us for many years to come.
I remember a television interview with President Bush shortly after it became apparent that no WMD were to be discovered in Iraq. The President made light of it all by looking under tables and desks in the White House and comically shrugging his shoulders when nothing was found. It was and is not funny to those who have lost husbands, sons, daughters, and mothers serving their country during a trumped-up war. We should all be very ashamed.
Raising Basileia 