Rebuild America, not Iraq

Richard A. Clarke
Published: October 17, 2008

When our congressman, Republican Eric Cantor, cast his vote for war in Iraq, he wasn’t just voting for a conflict that has cost American lives and has made the country less secure. He was also casting a vote against priorities at home, from education to job growth, from alternative energy research to health care.

The cost of the war is staggering: Congress has appropriated more than $600 billion for activities related to the war since 2001. For context, consider this: When Larry Lindsey, President Bush’s economic adviser and head of the National Economic Council, suggested before the war that the price tag could reach $200 billion, then-Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld dismissed the estimate as “baloney.” It turns out the war has cost far more.

Even worse, the war has boosted al-Qaida recruitment and made the United States less secure. It has also distracted us from the real War on Terror in Afghanistan and its border with Pakistan. Military operations there have received less than one-third the funding of the Iraq War. And the Bush administration has yet to capture Osama bin Laden.

As congressional candidate Anita Hartke has said, rightly, “we need to focus our efforts on where al-Qaida is, and right now that’s in Afghanistan.”

The Iraq war has distracted us from crucial non-military priorities as well. The conflict costs about $12 billion per month. What else could we have done with that money?

With the money we spend in three months in Iraq, we could run a 10-year program to secure the world’s nuclear weapons-grade material from theft, we could protect the border by training and equipping about 2,000 new Border Patrol agents, and we could prepare for disasters better by integrating emergency radio systems for police, fire and other public safety responders nationwide — the kind of equipment that would have saved responders’ lives on Sept. 11, 2001.

For another three months in Iraq, the government could match dollar-for-dollar all the student aid provided by higher education institutions in the country. We could expand the nation’s successful Head Start program. Instead, that program now risks losing 14,000 spots that children and families depend on.

Before Hurricane Katrina struck New Orleans in 2005, representatives from Louisiana had requested $60 million for the Southeast Louisiana Flood Control Project.

The administration turned down the request. Instead, lives were lost and the government has spent at least $100 billion on response and recovery efforts.

These are just a few of the priorities we should be investing in.

Jobs are another.

In August, the unemployment rate jumped from 5.7 to 6.1 percent, topping off the most drastic four-month rise in unemployment since 1981.

There are 592,000 more unemployed persons than there were in July, and the indicators for the fall are not promising.

While the Republican Congress that Cantor helped run created many of these problems, Democrats like Anita Hartke are working to solve them. Democrats are planning on a second stimulus package that will invest money in highway funding, infrastructure development and other assistance programs. But it will cost $50 billion — or about the same as four months in Iraq.

These are all conservative estimates, based on the money Congress has appropriated for the war so far. They don’t count the many indirect costs: rebuilding our military strength, caring for hundreds of thousands of veterans for decades to come and the damage to America’s reputation and power projection abroad.

Given his voting record, it’s not surprising that Cantor chose to vote for war instead of investing at home. During his time in Congress, he has voted against the Federal Price Gouging Prevention Act that would have shielded Americans from the high price of gas.

He voted against regulating the subprime mortgage industry — whose meltdown has crashed our economy — against increased funding for federal education and Health and Human Services programs and against increasing the minimum wage.

Now we learn that Iraq has $79 billion in new oil revenue collecting interest in New York bank accounts, while our tax dollars are going to pay for the Iraqi government.

Americans should be outraged. They should elect a Congress opposed to continuing this wasteful Iraq war and in support of rebuilding America.

Richard A. Clarke is a resident of Rappahannock County. He served 30 years as a national security official in the U.S. government.