Salon: "What the money could have paid for" (Iraq billions)

[Bush_Eats_Beef]

Another way of looking at the "Kerry needs to lay back and not attack Bush" premise. Maybe Kerry needs to buy a Salon.com subscription, READ the site, and immediately begin tearing Bush a new one.

Or maybe not. I'm not an "expert."

How George Bush bankrupted the war on terror
Are we safer after invading Iraq? No. Would we be safer if we'd spent the hundreds of billions the war has cost on improving our own security at home? Yes.
http://www.salon.com/tech/feature/2004/09/11/cost_of_war/index.html

Perhaps the most comprehensive picture of the current health of our mission in Iraq is provided by The Iraq Index (http://www.brookings.edu/iraqindex), a chart of hundreds of statistics that measure every facet of everyday life -- for both the Americans and Iraqis -- in the country. The index, which is updated three times a week by Michael O'Hanlon, a foreign policy fellow at the Brookings Institution, functions as a map of American blunders in Iraq; you can't read through the entire 50-page document without concluding that American troops are engaged in extremely heavy fighting in the country, and will likely be needed in the region for a long time. Here are some of the grim statistics: For much of last year, the estimated number of insurgents throughout Iraq stood at about 5,000. The number is now 20,000. The average number of patrols conducted by coalition forces every day now stands at a near-record high -- more than 1,800, compared with 1,600 last November. Last November, there were about 700 attacks on coalition forces in the country; in August, there were 2,700. In June of 2003, there were six attacks on Iraqi oil facilities; in August of 2004, there were 21.

Fighting all these insurgents is expensive business -- and you might say that it would be worthwhile expensive business if the benefits were clear, and if our resources were limitless. But the benefits of this fight are far from clear, while the money being spent in Iraq is almost certainly being diverted from a more pressing concern -- protecting ourselves in the United States.

To take one example, look at the security of U.S. ports. In November 2002, Bush signed the Maritime Transportation Security Act, meant to provide federal funds to upgrade security at seaports and waterways. The Coast Guard has estimated that $7.5 billion is necessary over 10 years to protect trading ports in accordance with the act -- but since 9/11, P.J. Crowley points out, Bush has allocated less than $500 million for the task. Similarly, the Coast Guard needs $4 billion to upgrade its fleet, and $2 billion is necessary for the Cargo Security Initiative, a program that would dispatch security screeners to ports around the world to inspect cargo heading for the United States. All of these initiatives have been underfunded. "We are challenging the Coast Guard to do more than they've ever done before -- we're giving them a central role in the war on terrorism," Crowley notes. But we're not paying for it.

Crowley's report brims with scenarios like this -- domestic agencies asked to do more but given fewer resources with which to complete their tasks. Instead of increasing funding for police, as you'd expect a government to do after an attack like 9/11, the Bush administration cut by almost $100 million the funding for Bill Clinton's 1996 crime bill, meant to put 100,000 police officers on the streets. Rather than increase funding for fire departments, Bush cut resources by $250 million for the Assistance to Firefighters Grant Program, which goes to purchase equipment for local departments.

[Lefta Dissenter]

1. that's been my point to my freeper relatives

but nobody listens to me :eyes: