![]() Is the Administration trying to tell the people of this nation it is for free? President Bush mentions the looming conflict in nearly every public pronouncement, yet no cost estimate to fight this war appears in his '04 budget. The possible war has dominated the airwaves for months, yet there is no cost estimate in the President's budget. There is no estimate of the cost of the looming war with Iraq in the President's budget. Even a range of costs would have been somewhat illuminating.īut no cost estimate was included in the President's budget. Even assuming the most primitive and loose definition of the term "fiscal responsibility," that budget request should certainly have included some rough cost estimate for a war with Iraq. What is even worse is that the Congress has barely bothered to ask about them.Įarlier this month, the President unveiled his budget for the Fiscal Year 2004. In both dollars and human lives, the Administration has been ominously quiet about its internal calculations and estimates. Frankly, I have seen little effort by either the Administration or the Congress to inform the taxpayer about the likely costs of this war. We must not just accept the rosy projections so far offered by the Administration. The Congress has a responsibility to explore all possible scenarios with an eye to the eventual costs of this war. Indeed, part of the rationale for support for this war is that America's tremendous military superiority over Iraq will confine a military conflict to a relatively painless contest between the United States' awesome military forces and the relatively weak, conventional military machine of Saddam Hussein.Ī swift and simple military victory certainly is one possibility, but in our democratic-Republic the Administration also has a responsibility to inform the American people that much less pleasant scenarios are also possible and even likely. The Bush Administration has promoted a vision of Saddam's removal from power quickly, easily, and bloodlessly. The President has been unambiguous, and often dangerously blunt, about his passion to use force to destroy Saddam's regime. Since last August, the Administration has worked aggressively to convince the American public that Saddam Hussein is a brutal dictator who directly threatens the United States. 131796 Tell the World the True Cost of War 2003 Robert Byrd
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