Letter: Iraq war gets longer and more expensive

Thursday, June 29, 2006 | 7:43 a.m.

In 2002, during the buildup to the invasion of Iraq, Vice President Dick Cheney and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld predicted the conflict would last weeks, not months.

Four years later the Iraq war is among the longest in our history. On Dec. 16 of this year, the Iraq invasion will pass World War II to become our third-longest military conflict. Only Vietnam and the Revolutionary War lasted longer (eight years each).

At the start of the Iraq war, the Bush administration predicted that the war's cost would be about $50 billion. Renewed Iraq oil exports would pay us back for most of that total. On that assumption, the Bush administration made no special effort to fund the war effort. Instead, they continued with plans to cut taxes.

Now it appears that revenues from Iraqi oil exports, even at $70 a barrel, won't begin to pay for reconstruction costs, let alone reimburse the U.S. Treasury for the cost of the war. U.S. taxpayers will be stuck with the reconstruction costs, too.

Today, our adventure in Iraq has become one of our most costly wars. With expenditures exceeding $300 billion and no end in sight, the Iraq war is in third place. As we "stay the course," the cost of this war will almost certainly pass the $500 billion (inflation adjusted) Korean conflict into second place, behind only World War II.

It's time to ask our elected officials to explain why the Iraq war is in our national interest.

William Haven, Henderson