THE REAL COST OF THE IRAQ WAR

May 19 2004

Your bill so far is £2.75bn, that could have paid for .. - 280 new schools - 7,236 hospital beds - Training for 12,200 doctors - 5 new hospitals - 2,750 MRI cancer scanners - 132,000 police recruits' salary - 80,000 teachers' salaries - 154,000 nurses' salaries - Training for 70,500 new nurses - 3.3m heart bypasses

By Matt Roper and Paul Gilfeather

IT COULD have paid for over three million heart bypass operations, trained over 70,000 nurses or built 280 badly-needed schools.

It would have met the salaries of 154,000 new nurses or 132,000 police officers for a year.

Instead, £2.75billion has been spent on a war in Iraq which has cost the lives of 833 American and British service personnel, countless more Iraqis, and hasn't made the world a safer place.

This week, figures from the government revealed we are spending £125million on the conflict every month - and there are fears from opposition MPs that the final bill could top £10billion.

That would pay for half a million new police officers or build 20 hospitals.

http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/allnews/tm_objectid=14253417%26method=full%26siteid=50143%26headline=the%2dreal%2dcost%2dof%2dthe%2diraq%2dwar-name_page.html

I remember at the time of the 1st Gulf War there was a co-worker of mine who's wife was a special ed teacher. The school district was short of money and cut her hours back by half, putting about a 10k a year hole in their household's budget. When I pointed out that the cost of a single Copperhead laser guided missile was the equivalent of his wife's salary for an entire year - it was like a light bulb going off over his head. He's been pretty gung ho on military action before then - but when he was able to correlate the dollar cost of war with events in his own life, his attitude changed significantly.

Whose priorities are out of order?

President Clinton proposed 5 Billion for school infrastructure.

Trent Lott and Tom Delay fought it like it was end of world.

He did not get it.

Come see result.

Kids in trailers. Roof falling. Air Condition works sometimes.

Ain't democracy wonderful under Freaks.

I thank God for allowing me to live long enough to watch a truly great man work in government. WJC. God care for him. Putting People First.

n/t

That is insane...

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