With today being the five year anniversary of Bush war against Sanity I thought it approitate to post some sombering thoughts on this misguided path.
The dollar cost of invading and occupying a foreign country: over 400 Billion US dollars and counting!
Number of US soldiers/ and Iraqi citizens killed during Operation Iraqi freedom: over 3000 dead US solders and counting. Over 300,000 Iraqi's killed.
The most frequently cited figure is the 29,320 soldiers wounded in action in Iraq as of Thursday. But there have been 31,325 others treated for non-combat injuries and illness as of March 1.
Veterans Affairs predicts it will treat 330,000 veterans from Iraq and Afghanistan in 2009 — a 14 percent increase over the 2008 estimate of 263,000 — at a cost of nearly $1.3 billion.
For the 2009 budget, the White House requested $93.7 billion for the VA, including $41.2 billion for medical care for all veterans — not just those from Iraq and Afghanistan. That's an increase of $2.3 billion over the current budget.
Earlier this week, a federal judge in San Francisco held the first hearing in a class-action lawsuit filed by two vet groups, including Sullivan's, against the VA alleging their neglect in treating suicidal soldiers. The lawsuit asks that the VA immediately screen and treat all potentially suicidal veterans.
According to VA research obtained last month by The Associated Press, 144 veterans from Iraq and Afghanistan committed suicide from the start of the war in Afghanistan in 2001 through the end of 2005. Statistics from 2006 and 2007 were not yet available.
In November, President Bush signed legislation directing the VA to improve its mental health training for staff and do a better job of evaluating and treating veterans.
The Associated Press News Research Center in New York contributed to this report.
