Sir George once again demonstrates how BDS (Bush Derangement Syndrome) can turn otherwise at least semi-competant academics into blithering idiots.
As Sir George pointed out, for the projections of cost to be accurate, we would have to spend approximately $2 BILLION a year per (current number) wounded veteran for the next 35 years. I know that health care is expensive, (boy, don't I know it after undergoing a sextuple bypass!) but I would think that a $2 million per vet per year figure would be an unreasonably high estimate, much less a $2 billion figure.
They also cite a "slowing of the US economy" WHAT slowing? Last month all the leading economic indicators showed a rise in all areas...
They say that "the rise in oil prices is directly attributal to the war"....Sir George points out that the difference in production in Iraq was only 180,000 barrels lower than this same time last year; which on the world market isn't even a drop in the bucket. Of course, these are economists, so they don't have to provide evidence of their contentions, all the rest of us should just assume that it's gospel truth, working arcane manipulations of numbers that turn out results of past figures into something 71 times greater.
They furthur show that they don't have any conception of what they are talking about when they accuse the US of using depleted uranium bombs in Iraq...seems that they know of a sooper sekrit ordnance™ that the soldiers that use it don't. There is NO SUCH THING as a "depleted uranium bomb".
Furthur, the effects that they ascribe to DU have been shown not to exist in study after study. But, as in the case of all those afflicted with BDS, facts have little to do with their rhetoric. It takes roughly 3 tons of DU per acre to raise the normal background radiation on a given area by .002%. it would take roughly 150,000 rounds of DU PER acre to reach that level...even a raging moonbat should see the absurdity of the possibility of that.
In fact, DU is THREE times less radioactive in the U-235 ( the dangerous fraction) than occurs in NATURAL Uranium that is present in most soils. DU is used in place of lead as shielding in some Hospital x-ray facilities because it's density per ounce allows for thinner shields and it's ability to STOP radiation from passing through it. See large numbers of techs coming down with radiation poisoning?
It's used in the armor plating of some tanks and the ballast weights in some fighter aircraft...see thousands of soldiers and pilots coming down with radiation poisoning? Hundreds? ONE?
Radioactivity is the Boogyman of the uninformed...tell someone that something is "radioactive" and they flee the spot shrieking in terror. It's taylor made for the hysterical meme crowd, since so few people are really informed about it.
Yes the Iraq war IS a costly endeavor, ALL war is costly; both in terms of lives and treasure, but the cost in not seeing it through to the end would be much higher, and asertions such as those made by the authors of the article only serves to muddy the water to the greater detriment of us all.
As with any cost comparrison, the cost of NOT fighting the war needs to be considered.