Iraq: Withdrawal More Expensive than Staying

[SSG Snuggle Bunny]

The removal of about 140,000 U.S. troops from Iraq by the end of 2011 will be a “massive and expensive effort” that is likely to increase rather than lower Iraq-related expenditures during the withdrawal and for several years after its completion, government investigators said in a report released yesterday.

“Although reducing troops would appear to lower costs,” the Government Accountability Office said, withdrawals from previous conflicts have shown that costs more often rise in the near term. The price of equipment repairs and replacements, along with closing or turning over 283 U.S. military installations in Iraq, “will likely be significant,” the GAO reported.

Even the smallest facilities, with 16 to 200 combat troops, will take up to two months to close, the report said. Several dozen large installations — such as Balad Air Base, with 24,000 inhabitants — are likely to take 18 months or more.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/03/24/AR2009032402741.html

All through the debates on Iraq money was the lynchpin of Obama's argument for withdrawal (remember, liberals by the very essence of their creed, are money obsessed and greedy crooks). Now it appears saving money is not a valid argument.

What are the odds that Obama will consider Iraqi national security and sovereignty as well as US resolve and prestige instead?

[DumbAss Tanker]

I'm not so sure it was ever about the money with that crowd, they just liked throwing the cost issue in for garnish.

[Chris_]

I'm not so sure it was ever about the money with that crowd, they just liked throwing the cost issue in for garnish.

Oh, it was always about the money.....they see the budget for the WOT as funds that they can spend on pandering to their special interest groups.....

doc

[Jim]

Oh, it was always about the money.....they see the budget for the WOT as funds that they can spend on pandering to their special interest groups.....

doc

yes, they expressly stated that they were to use the Iraq money for their socialist pork.

trouble is, they figured they just line up some planes and that was it.  watch and see how much crap gets abandoned.

[DumbAss Tanker]

I believe you all are mistaking what Democrats said for what they really meant.  As we all know, they are inveterate liars, and taking their statements at face value is generally a mistake.  In my opinion, it was never really about the money, it was a desire to drive a keystone Bush foreign policy feature into a Viet Nam-like failure with the goal of gaining politically from it in the same manner they did when they played Ford on Viet Nam and Watergate.  The money was just the cover story for their real goal of trying to insure a lot of Soldiers and Marines got killed and maimed for nothing, so they could convert that to House and Senate seats. 

[The Village Idiot]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/03/24/AR2009032402741.html

All through the debates on Iraq money was the lynchpin of Obama's argument for withdrawal

wasn't there calls for redeployment to staging areas outside Iraq so we could go in if needed??

that would be twice as expensive and nearly guarantee's another war which would be far more bloody.

apparently this was abandoned too.

[Chris_]

I believe you all are mistaking what Democrats said for what they really meant.  As we all know, they are inveterate liars, and taking their statements at face value is generally a mistake.  In my opinion, it was never really about the money, it was a desire to drive a keystone Bush foreign policy feature into a Viet Nam-like failure with the goal of gaining politically from it in the same manner they did when they played Ford on Viet Nam and Watergate.  The money was just the cover story for their real goal of trying to insure a lot of Soldiers and Marines got killed and maimed for nothing, so they could convert that to House and Senate seats. 

Quite true, however once the strategy was implemented through the success at the polls, they need to free up the money for their use........it would not do politically for them to begin cutting funding while boots were/are still on the ground, when THEY are in power (of course it was OK to attempt when a Republican was in the WH).  Tactically, by use of a sympathetic media, pounding the public incessantly about the war on a daily basis, they simply wore down the electorate to the point where the rest of the pieces fell into place.  You will note the lack of media coverage of the war now that they are in power.......

It was brilliant when you think about it, a "perfect storm".......unfortunately Democrats are structurally unable to actually govern as effectively as they are able to attain the power to do so......

doc