Exactly five years ago, President Bush addressed the nation to announce the commencement of Operation Iraqi Freedom, a nifty euphemism for new American imperialism.
Since the invasion of Iraq, we have witnessed our brave troops returning home in flag-draped coffins, our standing in the world community plummet and our budget deficits soar, not to mention a sharp increase in worldwide terrorism.
An endeavor based entirely on false pretenses and imaginative assumptions, the war in Iraq will have far-reaching and, as is often the case, unintended consequences that we have only now just begun to realize.
The staggering cost of the war, both in terms of blood and treasure, frustrates comprehension.
The colony of Iraq - it can hardly be called a country anymore - has suffered the worst of it. Its people have been decimated - one estimate placing Iraqi civilian deaths at 655,000 - the country has been destabilized, and it has descended into severe sectarian violence that many believe to be civil war, or at least the makings of one.
As we enter the fifth year of the war, we approach another dubious and tragic milestone: 4,000 U.S. casualties. To date, we have lost 3,980 brave and exceptional souls to this desert quagmire. This, the human cost, is of course the most heart-wrenching and important aspect of the war.
Yet, with opinion polls signaling the nation's renewed preoccupation with their pocketbooks, perhaps counting the economic cost of the conflict is the only way for the war in Iraq to remain salient to the average American.
A pair of prominent economists have done just that. According to Joseph Stiglitz, a Nobel Prize winner for economics, and Linda Bilmes, a lecturer at Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government, the war in Iraq will end up costing - are you sitting down for this? - more than $3 trillion. Stiglitz and Bilmes said we're currently spending $12 billion a month in Iraq on operating expenses alone.
The $3 trillion figure is what they call a "conservative estimate" that takes into account the long-term expenses of taking care of wounded veterans and the larger, long-term social costs of the war.
As you might expect, the government has come up with slightly different numbers. According to a Congressional Research Service report, we spend over $10 billion a month in Iraq.
Before the war, one White House advisor was laughed out of the room when he posited that the war might cost $200 billion. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld called it "baloney," and Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz suggested that the war would magically pay for itself - through Iraq's vast oil deposits.
That hasn't happened.
Neither has it been the case that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction or any link whatsoever to the Sept. 11 attacks.
The war in Iraq is the second longest war in U.S. history behind Vietnam and second costliest behind World War II. To those who say we must stay and finish the job, I would ask what that job is exactly. The Iraqis have their "freedom" - they have held elections and drafted a constitution.
We have inflicted great damage upon those people, but they must pick up the pieces and restore their country for themselves, just as we must do the same with ours.
We must come home. Now.
Joshua Fredrickson is a political science senior. His column appears Wednesdays.
