Iraq War:
Have the benefits of the war outweighed the costs?
The Iraq war is a touchy subject not a lot of people to talk about it, saying it has been eleven years and we are still over there fighting. Some people think it is necessary for us to be over there and some think otherwise, but the main contributing factor to that decision of us going over there and fighting is U.S. Congress and The President, and they decided for us to go off to war. Since 2003 we have been over there, and we are still over there many lives have been lost in this war, and many lives are still continuing to be lost. Another factor is we are in debt, we have spent a lot of money on this war and we are still over there and continuing to lose money, the costs we have …show more content…
In early 2008 we estimated how much the war was costing us, and it came up to around three trillion dollars. But as the war came to an end and combat stopped we estimated how much the war cost us and it was estimated to be more than three trillion dollars. When we entered the Iraq war it diverted us from the Afghan war which cut our spending down to 14.7 billion dollars for the Afghan war, which was supposed to be a good thing. But as the war carried on we spent about 53 million dollars into the Iraq war. In 2004, 2005, and 2006 we spent four times as much than in the Afghan war. Another problem that made us spend more money was the oil prices and the effect it had from the Iraq war. When we went to war with Iraq a barrel of oil cost us about 5 dollars, as of 2008 since the war was going on and since we got our oil from the Middle East the price per oil barrel jumped up to 10 dollars. It does not seem like a big price jump but since the oil price jumped up it is estimate that we spent 250 billion dollars on oil. The war completely stopped production of oil in Iraq and it dampered production of oil in the Middle East. There is no doubt that the Iraq war added to the national debt. When we entered the war we were in debt 6.4 trillion dollars in 2008 our debt had jumped up to 10 trillion dollars. This does not include the future money we had to spend on the benefits and rehabilitation we had to pay for the …show more content…
The higher oil prices we had to pay for abroad meant we could not spend money on things we needed in the U.S. The war spending also provided less of an economic boost than other forms of spending would. Also paying for foreign contractors in helping us in the war added up more money we spent on the war and made our debt higher. With more spending abroad and not in the U.S. to help pay for out debt made the financial crisis bigger and it made it a bigger debt we got ourselves into. With the war affecting our debt and more spending will make the recession last longer and will take more time to fix (Stiglitz and Blimes). The Iraq war hurt our economy bad and it helped a lot in our financial crisis situation. It is clearly seen that the cost of the Iraq war was tremendous to the American people and the Iraqi people. The war caused our American troops to have be physically and emotionally damaged, that is the price of war but since the war affected our economy our troops that have come home are struggling and not getting the benefits they deserve. The war awesome decimated the Iraqi infrastructure and it caused a lot of Iraqi civilians to be starved, homeless, and jobless. The war in Iraq also help caused our national debt, and helped cripple our economy, and it will take a long time to
Have the benefits of the war outweighed the costs?
The Iraq war is a touchy subject not a lot of people to talk about it, saying it has been eleven years and we are still over there fighting. Some people think it is necessary for us to be over there and some think otherwise, but the main contributing factor to that decision of us going over there and fighting is U.S. Congress and The President, and they decided for us to go off to war. Since 2003 we have been over there, and we are still over there many lives have been lost in this war, and many lives are still continuing to be lost. Another factor is we are in debt, we have spent a lot of money on this war and we are still over there and continuing to lose money, the costs we have …show more content…
In early 2008 we estimated how much the war was costing us, and it came up to around three trillion dollars. But as the war came to an end and combat stopped we estimated how much the war cost us and it was estimated to be more than three trillion dollars. When we entered the Iraq war it diverted us from the Afghan war which cut our spending down to 14.7 billion dollars for the Afghan war, which was supposed to be a good thing. But as the war carried on we spent about 53 million dollars into the Iraq war. In 2004, 2005, and 2006 we spent four times as much than in the Afghan war. Another problem that made us spend more money was the oil prices and the effect it had from the Iraq war. When we went to war with Iraq a barrel of oil cost us about 5 dollars, as of 2008 since the war was going on and since we got our oil from the Middle East the price per oil barrel jumped up to 10 dollars. It does not seem like a big price jump but since the oil price jumped up it is estimate that we spent 250 billion dollars on oil. The war completely stopped production of oil in Iraq and it dampered production of oil in the Middle East. There is no doubt that the Iraq war added to the national debt. When we entered the war we were in debt 6.4 trillion dollars in 2008 our debt had jumped up to 10 trillion dollars. This does not include the future money we had to spend on the benefits and rehabilitation we had to pay for the …show more content…
The higher oil prices we had to pay for abroad meant we could not spend money on things we needed in the U.S. The war spending also provided less of an economic boost than other forms of spending would. Also paying for foreign contractors in helping us in the war added up more money we spent on the war and made our debt higher. With more spending abroad and not in the U.S. to help pay for out debt made the financial crisis bigger and it made it a bigger debt we got ourselves into. With the war affecting our debt and more spending will make the recession last longer and will take more time to fix (Stiglitz and Blimes). The Iraq war hurt our economy bad and it helped a lot in our financial crisis situation. It is clearly seen that the cost of the Iraq war was tremendous to the American people and the Iraqi people. The war caused our American troops to have be physically and emotionally damaged, that is the price of war but since the war affected our economy our troops that have come home are struggling and not getting the benefits they deserve. The war awesome decimated the Iraqi infrastructure and it caused a lot of Iraqi civilians to be starved, homeless, and jobless. The war in Iraq also help caused our national debt, and helped cripple our economy, and it will take a long time to