The Real Costs Of Mad Men's Dreams

How do you ask a man to be the last man to die for a mistake?
– John Kerry, Vietnam Veteran, 1971

The name of the last man to die in Iraq, for the mistakes of the Bush Administration, was David Hickman. He was the 4,474th member of the U.S. military forces in Iraq to die as a result of that incredible misadventure.

There is no need to beat around the bush about the Iraq War. It was a war of choice, launched by some of the biggest cowards in the history of mankind. These were - and still are - men (and even a few women) who were often too cowardly to fight in America's massive military blunder in Vietnam, and are still too cowardly now to take responsibility for their disastrous failures in Iraq. As promised, President Obama ended the Iraq War, a war he did not start and was opposed to. The withdrawal was even finished this weekend - in time so that most troops will be home for the holidays.

After the cheering and the presents, however, the question any sane person will ask is, "What did this war cost America?"

The numbers are staggering. As we already noted, the Iraq War cost 4,474 combat field deaths. The deaths from PTSD and other post-battlefield trauma can only be estimated, but might push that number of Americans closer to 10,000 over nine years. That doesn't even count the estimated Iraqi deaths, both military and civilian, with numbers ranging wildly from 60,000 to 1 million. Counting the injured - physically, mentally, and emotionally - is a task that boosts the numbers of those directly affected by the war into the stratosphere.

The war that Dick Cheney said would go "relatively quickly," and that Donald Rumsfeld once estimated as taking "Five days or five weeks or five months," lasted nearly nine years. The cost in dollars, estimated by then-Bush Budget Director Mitch Daniels was $50 or $60 billion dollars.

The actual cost of the war in dollars, however, was about $824 billion – and it's only that cheap if you exclude interest on the debt accrued from the war and ignore the cost of veterans benefits associated with the war. If you add those figures, as President Obama's administration does in estimating the total cost of the Iraq War, 'Dick & George's Iraq Adventure' may end up saddling America with a bill easily over one trillion dollars.

What could we have done with one trillion dollars over the last decade?

For starters, how about re-investing in America? The latest census figures now reveal that over fifty percent of Americans are living at or below the poverty level. If that $1 trillion spent in Iraq had been invested here at home, potentially tens of thousands of jobs could have been created, repairing America's infrastructure, schools, and communications needs.

If the money squandered on the Iraq War had been spent here at home there's a great possibility President Obama would never have needed to implement the Stimulus Act - an action that cut the poverty rate in half, by the way. Without the stimulus, the number of Americans in poverty over just the last two years would likely have been closer to 65% of the population.

If that $1 trillion from the war in Iraq had been spent on our national debt and education, inequality could likely have been curbed some, while education would have been improved. Since 1990 – just before the first Iraq War –  the richest one percent in America have grabbed nearly one of every five dollars in income earned by ALL Americans, drastically increasing income inequality. Meanwhile, Americans are now so poorly educated that while half of the nation lives at or near poverty level, sixty percent of Americans still see themselves as "haves" - as people who aren't poor.

No matter how the final tally is collected, we know the cost of the Iraq War was too high.

The next time someone in politics begins to talk about war as some kind of gift, as some GOP candidates for President have recently done with Iran, feel free to sock them – loudly and in public – with the bill for the Iraq War. Just make sure to add the cost of the American Dream to their tab.