| Iraq war 'will cost each US family $3,415'
Julian Borger in Washington
Friday June 25, 2004
The Guardian
The United States has spent more than $126bn on the war in Iraq, which will ultimately cost every American family an estimated $3,415, according to a new report by two thinktanks.
The report, published yesterday by the leftwing Institute for Policy Studies and Foreign Policy in Focus also counts the human costs.
As of June 16, before yesterday's nationwide attacks, up to 11,317 Iraqi civilians and 6,370 Iraqi soldiers or insurgents had been killed, according to the report, which is titled Paying the Price: The Mounting Costs of the Iraq War.
The death toll among coalition troops was 952 by the same date, of which 853 were American. Some 694, were killed after George Bush declared the end of major combat operations on May 1 last year. Between 50 and 90 civilian contractors and missionaries and 30 journalists have also been killed, the report says.
In a separate USA Today/ CNN/Gallup Poll released last night, for the first time a majority of Americans said the US-led invasion of Iraq was a mistake. In all, 54% of those polled said the move was a mistake, compared to 41% three weeks ago.
"We are paying this enormously high price for failure," Phyllis Bennis, the report's lead author, said yesterday. "It's not as if we are becoming more safe. It's not as if we are bringing peace to Iraq or democracy to the Middle East."
There was no immediate re sponse to the report from the White House yesterday, but the administration has insisted it will stay in Iraq until it has brought peace and stability in the country.
It was reported yesterday that the US central command had put 25,000 more troops on standby in anticipation of an upsurge in attacks after the formal transfer of sovereignty to a caretaker administration next Wednesday. | |
