After nearly nine years, all American troops are finally leaving Iraq. The United States formally ended the war today - eight years, seven months and 14 days after the so-called "mission accomplished" speech. Nearly 4500 Americans lost their lives. Thankfully there will be no more from this particular war. Welcome home.
The costs of this totally unnecessary neocon war have been enormous. And, the increasingly irrelevant John McCain and increasingly misguided Cheney family to the contrary, the withdrawal is long past due. In addition, the official number of wounded Americans is more than 33,000. The toll on Iraqis was much greater - a minimum of 100,000 - 125,000 Iraqi civilians have been killed since the US invaded (Iraq Body Count website). Some other estimates are much higher (e.g., Lancet/Johns Hopkins study on the "excessive" Iraqi deaths). The total US price tag for the Iraq War will eventually reach 3 trillion dollars with the cost to other countries about the same order of magnitude (Stiglitz and Bilmes, Washington Post article). For a good summary of Stiglitz and Bilmes analysis of the total cost of the war, see the 2008 article by Aida Edemariam in The Guardian.
The Iraq War is the greatest US foreign policy debacle since Vietnam. It has immeasurably damaged the US reputation throughout the world. It has damaged the world and national economy. It was based on false intelligence and "sold" to a gullible and scared American public with deception, arrogance and lies. Senator McCain, you have it completely wrong. It was the neocons who misled the country into this unnecessary war of aggression and it is they, not the President who finally extracted us from Iraq, who will be judged most harshly by history.
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