George W. Bush should be held accountable for the brutal war he started in Iraq without provocation and the lies he told about it

How to Sell a War to the American People

This is the second episode of the Eyes Only series – where we use leaked and declassified documents to understand what’s really happening behind the scenes. Answering questions like: How do politicians wield their influence? What can documents teach us about their decisions and motivations? And what do the powerful say to each other when they think nobody is listening?

In this episode, we explore the run up to the Iraq war, and how the invasion of Iraq and removal of Saddam Hussein was planned within hours of the attacks on 9/11. We use leaked and declassified documents to tell the story of an influence campaign waged by senior Bush Administration officials, despite internal reports admitting that they had no evidence of WMD in Iraq

Noam Chomsky reflects on the Iraq War 20 years later

Prolific anti-war activist Noam Chomsky delivers his verdict on the “most elementary truth” American leaders still refuse to acknowledge about the Iraq War 20 years later: “It was the supreme international crime of aggression.” Watch his wide ranging discussion with Mehdi on the lessons the U.S. has still failed to learn from the 2003 Iraq War.

WMD Inspector: Bush should have faced war crimes court over Iraq invasion

Former U.N. Chief Weapons Inspector Hans Blix gained notoriety 20 years ago when he contradicted President George W. Bush’s claims about Iraq and weapons of mass destruction. He asked for more time to find those weapons, Bush instead invaded Iraq. Two decades later, Blix joins Mehdi to discuss lessons learned from the war, and why he’s worried history could repeat itself.

Secret 9/11 Memo Reveals the warnings George W. Bush Ignored which costs thousands of lives

New report reveals what President Bush knew leading up to 9/11 attack

Bush & Cheney Should Be Charged with War Crimes Says Col. Wilkerson, Former Aide to Colin Powell

Calls are increasing for the prosecution of George W. Bush administration officials tied to the CIA torture program. On Monday, the American Civil Liberties Union and Human Rights Watch called on Attorney General Eric Holder to appoint a special prosecutor who would investigate the crimes detailed in the Senate Intelligence Committee’s report on the program. On Monday, The New York Times editorial board called for a full and independent criminal investigation. We put the question about prosecution to Col. Lawrence Wilkerson, who served as chief of staff to Secretary of State Colin Powell from 2002 to 2005.

George Bush, Dick Cheney war crimes: Torture

Rachel Maddow, guest host on countdown with Keith Olbermann, comments on the newly emerging evidence of the Bush White House’s role in promoting torture.

The ICRC report on CIA interrogation techniques concluded categorically that they were “torture”–not “tantamount to torture” as previously reported–and issued an explicit warning to the U.S. Administration that the use of these techniques was a war crime which might subject U.S. leaders to criminal prosecution. This is the real potential headline maker from the book.

– She provides a number of grueling examples of the application of the techniques including the brutal murder of Manadel al-Jamadi, the placement of prisoners in closed coffins for prolonged periods, and one instance in which a below-the-knee amputee with a prosthesis who had his prosthesis taken away and was forced to stand for hours on one foot, hanging from a rail.

– She traces the development of the torture techniques to the work of two contractors, Mitchell and Jessen, and disclosed the specific techniques they developed. She notes that the techniques rely heavily on a theory called “Learned Helplessness” developed by a Penn psychologist Martin Seligman, who assisted them in the process. All of this was done under the thin pretext of being a part of the SERE program. Seligman is a former president of the American Psychological Association. This helps explain why the APA alone among professional healthcare provider organizations failed to unequivocally condemn torture and mandate that its members not associate themselves with the Bush Administration techniques. – She describes an internal CIA investigation by IG Helgerson which concluded that the program violated the Geneva Conventions and U.S. criminal law. Vice President Cheney intervened directly, calling Helgerson directly into his office and speaking with him, after which the CIA report was stopped in its tracks.

– Steven Bradbury at DOJ was asked to resolve this by crafting opinions that gave CIA full latitude to torture, with no restraints–setting aside the opinions crafted by Dan Levin which authorized techniques only within narrow constraints. After Bradbury rendered opinions exactly as solicited on his “probation,” Bush personally expressed his pleasure with Bradbury’s performance and nominated him to head OLC. – According to James Comey, AG Gonzales repeatedly told him that he fully appreciated that the CIA program was torture and was criminal but he couldn’t oppose or block it because “Cheney wants it.”

– The role of the torture lawyers in crafting the system is far more intimate than they have acknowledged. John Yoo, Michael Chertoff and Alice Fisher reviewed specific techniques which clearly amounted to torture and blessed them as fine to use, and then lied publicly and to Congress about their involvement. Yoo is said to have given his legal blessing to torture techniques and their application by DOD operatives on the squash court as he played rounds with Jim Haynes.

– A staff attorney at DOJ names Jessica Radack was fired and then hounded by Chertoff and Fisher after she dispensed correct advice to the effect that John Walker Lindh could not be interviewed by the FBI without being Mirandized and having his attorney present. This advice was overridden by Alberto Gonzales and Jim Haynes, who then had DOJ files purged to remove any evidence that the correct advice had ever been rendered. The purging of the files was carried out by Alice Fisher, who went on to head the Criminal Division. When a district court judge demanded to see the DOJ’s internal communication on the matter, he was told that there were no records.

– Mayer believes that there was criminal obstruction, carried out by the head of the Department’s Criminal Division. – Mayer portrays Cheney as the man who introduced and pushed torture from the beginning and David Addington as his “fixer.” According to her, they never lost a battle.

Per an article from Amnesty International, here’s a list of War Crimes which George W. Bush has yet to be held accountable;

amnesty.org/download/Documents/28000/amr510972011en.pdf

1. Acts of torture (and, it may be noted, other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment and enforced disappearance) were committed against detainees held in a secret detention and interrogation program operated by the USA’s Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) between 2002 and 2009.

2. The CIA established this secret program under the authorization of then-President George W. Bush.

3. Since leaving office, former President George W. Bush has said that he authorized the use of a number of “enhanced interrogation techniques” against detainees held in the secret CIA program. The former President specifically admitted to authorizing the “water-boarding” of identified individuals, whose subjection to this torture technique has been confirmed.

4. Additionally, torture and other ill-treatment, and secret detention, by US forces occurred outside the confines of the CIA-run secret detention program, including against detainees held in military custody at the US Naval Base at Guantánamo Bay in Cuba, and in the context of armed conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan.

5. George W. Bush was Commander in Chief of all US armed forces at the relevant times.

6. The Administration of George W. Bush acted on the basis that he was essentially unrestrained by international or US law in determining the USA’s response to the attacks in the USA on 11 September 2001. Among other things, President Bush decided that the protections of the Geneva Conventions of 1949, including their common article 3, would not be applied to Taleban or al-Qa’ida detainees.

7. George W. Bush, as Commander in Chief at the relevant times, if he did not directly order or authorize such crimes, at least knew, or had reason to know, that US forces were about to commit or were committing such crimes and did not take all necessary and reasonable measures in his power as Commander in Chief and President to prevent their commission or, if the crimes had already been committed, ensure that all those who were alleged to be responsible for these crimes were brought to justice.

8. The USA has failed to conduct investigations capable of reaching former President George W. Bush, and all indications are that it will not do so, at least in the near future.

9. The facts summarized above, which are matters of public record, are sufficient to give rise to a mandatory obligation under international law for any state that is party to the UN Convention against Torture, should former US President George W. Bush enter that state’s territory, to:
* launch a criminal investigation;
* arrest former President Bush or otherwise secure his presence during that investigation; and
* submit the case to its competent authorities for the purposes of prosecution if it does not extradite him to another state demonstrably able and willing to do so.

10. While there is some debate whether states that are not parties to the UN Convention against Torture have essentially the same obligations under customary international law, it is clear that such states have the power to exercise jurisdiction in such circumstances and, in Amnesty International’s submission, should do so.

11. Further, as some of the torture and other cruel inhuman or degrading treatment of detainees occurred in the context of armed conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq, states to which former US President George W. Bush travels also have obligations under the 1949 Geneva Conventions and/or under customary international humanitarian law, essentially the same as those under the UN Convention against Torture.

Iraqi who threw shoes at President Bush still angry after 15 years

Iraqi journalist Muntazer al-Zaidi gained fame in 2008 for hurling his shoes at then U.S. President George W. Bush in a news conference to show his anger at the chaos that followed the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq. Almost 15 years on, he is still furious.

Iraq Veteran Confronts Ex-President George W. Bush On War Deaths

This is how Bush should be called out every time he shows his face in public. He’s a illegitimate president who deserves NO RESPECT.

Worst president ever REPUBLICAN George W. Bush lied about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq which led to the illegal invasion and war against Iraq. That war was clearly illegal because Iraq did nothing to the United States and therefore George W. Bush had no legitimate reason to attack Iraq. The Iraq war caused the deaths of over 100,000 Iraqi citizens and over 4,000 Americans.

50 Reasons why George W. Bush was the Worst President Ever

1. He stole the presidency in 2000. Republicans in Florida purged more than 50,000 African-American voters before Election Day, and then went to the Supreme Court where the GOP-appointed majority stopped a recount that would have awarded the presidency to Vice-President Al Gore if all votes were counted. National news organizations verified that outcome long after Bush had been sworn in.

George W. Bush was and is a illegitimate president.

2. Bush’s lies started in that race. Bush ran for office claiming he was a uniter, not a divider. Even though he received fewer popular votes than Gore, he quickly claimed he had the mandate from the American public to push his right-wing agenda.

3. He covered up his past. He was a party boy, the scion of a powerful political family who got away with being a deserter during the Vietnam War. He was reportedly AWOL for over a year from his assigned unit, the Texas Air National Guard, which other military outfits called the “Champagne Division.”

4. He loved the death penalty. As Texas governor from 1995-2000, he signed the most execution orders of any governor in U.S. history—152 people, including the mentally ill and women who were domestic abuse victims. He spared one man’s life, a serial killer.

5. He was a corporate shill from Day 1. Bush locked up the GOP nomination by raising more campaign money from corporate boardrooms than anyone at that time. He lunched with CEOs who would jet into Austin to “educate” him about their political wish lists.

6. He gutted global political progress. He pulled out of the Kyoto Protocol which set requirements for 38 nations to lower greenhouse gas emissions to combat climate change, saying that abiding by the agreement would “harm our economy and hurt our workers.”

7. He embraced global isolationism. He withdrew from the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, over Russia’s protest, taking the U.S. in a direction not seen since World War I.

8. He ignored warnings about Osama bin Laden. He ignored the Aug. 6, 2001 White House intelligence briefing titled, “Bin Laden determined to strike in the U.S.” Meanwhile, his chief anti-terrorism advisor, Richard Clarke, and first Treasury Secretary, Paul O’Neill, testified in Congress that he was intent on invading Iraq within days of becoming president.

9. Ramped up war on drugs, not terrorists. The Bush administration had twice as many FBI agents assigned to the war on drugs than fighting terrorism before 9/11, and kept thousands in that role after the terror attacks.

10. “My Pet Goat.” He kept reading a picture book to grade-schoolers for seven minutes after his top aides told him that the World Trade Centers had been attacked in 9/11. Then Air Force One flew away from Washington, D.C., vanishing for hours after the attack.

11. Squandered global goodwill after 9/11. Bush thumbed his nose at world sympathy for the victims of the September 11, 2001 attacks, by declaring a global war on terrorism and declaring “you are either with us or against us.”

12. Bush turned to Iraq not Afghanistan. The Bush administration soon started beating war drums for an attack on Iraq, where there was no proven Al Qaeda link, instead of Afghanistan, where the 9/11 bombers had trained and Osama bin Laden was based. His 2002 State of the Union speech declared that Iraq was part of an “Axis of Evil.”

13. Attacked United Nation weapons inspectors. The march to war in Iraq started with White House attacks on the credibility of U.N. weapons inspectors in Iraq, whose claims that Saddam Hussein did not have nuclear weapons proved to be true.

14. He flat-out lied about Iraq’s weapons. In a major in October 2002, he said that Saddam Hussein had the capacity to send unmanned aircraft to the U.S. with bombs that could range from chemical weapons to nuclear devices. “We cannot wait for the final proof—the smoking gun—that could come in the form of a mushroom cloud,” he said.

15. He ignored the U.N. and launched a war. The Bush administration tried to get the U.N. Security Council to authorize an attack on Iraq, which it refused to do. Bush then decided to lead a “preemptive” attack regardless of international consequences. He did not wait for any congressional authorization to launch a war.

16. Abandoned international Criminal Court. Before invading Iraq, Bush told the U.N. that the U.S. was withdrawing from ratifying the International Criminal Court Treaty to protect American troops from persecution and to allow it to pursue preemptive war.

17. Colin Powell’s false evidence at U.N. The highly decorated soldier turned Secretary of State presented false evidence at the U.N. as the American mainstream media began its jingoistic drumbeat to launch a war of choice on Saddam Hussein and Iraq.

18. He launched a war on CIA whistleblowers. When a former ambassador, Joseph C. Wilson, wrote a New York Times op-ed saying there was no nuclear threat from Iraq, the White House retaliated by leaking the name and destroying the career of his wife, Valerie Plame, one of the CIA’s top national security experts.

19. Bush pardoned the Plame affair leaker. Before leaving office, Bush pardoned the vice president’s top staffer, Scooter Libby, for leaking Plame’s name to the press.

20. Bush launched the second Iraq War. In April 2003, the U.S. military invaded Iraq for the second time in two decades, leading to hundreds of thousands of civilian deaths and more than a million refugees as a years of sectarian violence took hold on Iraq. Nearly 6,700 U.S. soldiers have died in the Iraq and Afghan wars.

21. Baghdad looted except for oil ministry. The Pentagon failure to plan for a military occupation and transition to civilian rule was seen as Baghdad was looted while troops guarded the oil ministry, suggesting this war was fought for oil riches, not terrorism.

22. The war did not make the U.S. safer. In 2006, a National Intelligence Estimate (a consensus report of the heads of 16 U.S. intelligence agencies) asserted that the Iraq war had increased Islamic radicalism and had worsened the terror threat.

23. U.S. troops were given unsafe gear. From inadequate vests from protection against snipers to Humvees that could not protect soldiers from roadside bombs, the military did not sufficiently equip its soldiers in Iraq, leading to an epidemic of brain injuries.

24. Meanwhile, the war propaganda continued. From landing on an aircraft carrier in a flight suit to declare “mission accomplished” to surprising troops in Baghdad with a Thanksgiving turkey that was a table decoration used as a prop, Bush defended his war of choice by using soldiers as PR props.

25. He never attended soldiers’ funerals. For years after the war started, Bush never attended a funeral even though as of June 2005, 144 soldiers (of the 1,700 killed thus far) were laid to rest in Arlington National Cemetary, about two miles from the White House.

26. Meanwhile, war profiteering surged. The list of top Bush administration officials whose former corporate employers made billions in Pentagon contracts starts with Vice-President Dick Cheney and Halliburton, which made $39.5 billion, and included his daughter, Liz Cheney, who ran a $300 million Middle East partnership program.

27. Bush ignored international ban on torture. Suspected terrorists were captured and tortured by the U.S. military in Baghdad’s Abu Gharib prison, in the highest profile example of how the Bush White House ignored international agreements, such as the Geneva Convention, that banned torture, and created a secret system of detention that was unmasked when photos made their way to the American media outlets.

28. Created the blackhole at Gitmo and renditions. The Bush White House created the offshore military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, as well as secret detention sites in eastern Europe to evade domestic and military justice systems. Many of the men still jailed in Cuba were turned over to the U.S. military by bounty hunters.

29. Bush violated U.S. Constitution as well. The Bush White House ignored basic civil liberties, most notably by launching a massive domestic spying program where millions of Americans’ online activities were monitored with the help of big telecom companies. The government had no search warrant or court authority for its electronic dragnet.

30. Iraq war created federal debt crisis. The total costs of the Iraq and Afghan wars will reach between $4 trillion and $6 trillion, when the long-term medical costs are added in for wounded veterans, a March 2013 report by a Harvard researcher has estimated. Earlier reports said the wars cost $2 billion a week.

31. He cut veterans’ healthcare funding. At the height of the Iraq war, the White House cut funding for veterans’ healthcare by several billion dollars, slashed more than one billion from military housing and opposed extending healthcare to National Guard families, even as they were repeatedly tapped for extended and repeat overseas deployments.

32. Then Bush decided to cut income taxes. In 2001 and 2003, a series of bills lowered income tax rates, cutting federal revenues as the cost of the foreign wars escalated. The tax cuts disproportionately benefited the wealthy, with roughly one-quarter going to the top one percent of incomes compared to 8.9% going to the middle 20 percent. The cuts were supposed to expire in 2013, but most are still on the books.

33. Assault on reproductive rights. From the earliest days of his first term, the Bush White House led a prolonged assault on reproductive rights. He cut funds for U.N. family planning programs, barred military bases from offering abortions, put right-wing evangelicals in regulatory positions where they rejected new birth control drugs, and issued regulations making fetuses—but not women—eligible for federal healthcare.

34. Cut Pell Grant loans for poor students. His administration froze Pell Grants for years and tightened eligibility for loans, affecting 1.5 million low-income students. He also eliminated other federal job training programs that targeted young people.

35. Turned corporations loose on environment. Bush’s environmental record was truly appalling, starting with abandoning a campaign pledge to tax carbon emissions and then withdrawing from the Kyoto Protocol on greenhouse gases. The Sierra Club lists 300 actions his staff took to undermine federal laws, from cutting enforcement budgets to putting industry lobbyists in charge of agencies to keeping energy policies secret.

36.. Said evolution was a theory—like intelligent design. One of his most inflammatory comments was saying that public schools should teach that evolution is a theory with as much validity as the religious belief in intelligent design, or God’s active hand in creating life.

37. Misguided school reform effort. Bush’s “No Child Left Behind” initiative made preparation for standardized tests and resulting test scores the top priority in schools, to the dismay of legions of educators who felt that there was more to learning than taking tests.

38. Appointed right-wing judges. Bush’s two Supreme Court picks—Chief Justice John Roberts and Associate Justice Samuel Alito—have reliably sided with pro-business interests and social conservatives.

The predominantly conservative Supreme Court has been making partisan decisions including;

• Destroying the Voting Rights Act – After the Supreme Court ruling, 22 states have passed Voter ID laws that make it more difficult to vote. Texas also rammed through their new gerrymandered districts that, prior to this decision, would have required a pre-clearance from the Department of Justice.
• Citizens United allowing billionaires to buy elections
• Hobby Lobby Decision which allows non coverage of birth control pills for companies owned by religious objectors.

If George W. Bush had not been president, these rulings would never happened.

He also elevated U.S. District Court Judge Charles Pickering to an appeals court, despite his known segregationist views.

39. Gutted the DOJ’s voting rights section. Bush’s Justice Department appointees led a multi-year effort to prosecute so-called voter fraud, including firing seven U.S. attorneys who did not pursue overtly political cases because of lack of evidence.

40. Meanwhile average household incomes fell. When Bush took office in 2000, median household incomes were $52,500. In 2008, they were $50,303, a drop of 4.2 percent, making Bush the only recent two-term president to preside over such a drop.

41. And millions more fell below the poverty line. When Bill Clinton left office, 31.6 million Americans were living in poverty. When Bush left office, there were 39.8 million, according to the U.S. Census, an increase of 26.1 percent. The Census said two-thirds of that growth occurred before the economic downturn of 2008.

42. Poverty among children also exploded. The Census also found that 11.6 million children lived below the poverty line when Clinton left office. Under Bush, that number grew by 21 percent to 14.1 million.

43. Millions more lacked access to healthcare. Following these poverty trends, the number of Americans without health insurance was 38.4 million when Clinton left office. When Bush left, that figure had grown by nearly 8 million to 46.3 million, the Census found. Those with employer-provided benefits fell every year he was in office.

44. Bush let black New Orleans drown. Hurricane Katrina exposed Bush’s attitude toward the poor. He didn’t visit the city after the storm destroyed the poorest sections. He praised his Federal Emergency Management Agency director for doing a “heck of a job” as the federal government did little to help thousands in the storm’s aftermath and rebuilding.

45. Yet pandered to religious right. Months before Katrina hit, Bush flew back to the White House to sign a bill to try to stop the comatose Terri Schiavo’s feeding tube from being removed, saying the sanctity of life was at stake.

46. Set record for fewest press conferences. During his first term that was defined by the 9/11 attacks, he had the fewest press conferences of any modern president and had never met with the New York Times editorial board.

47. But took the most vacation time. Reporters analyzing Bush’s record found that he took off 1,020 days in two four-year terms—more than one out of every three days. No other modern president comes close. Bush also set the record for the longest vacation among modern presidents—five weeks, the Washington Post noted.

48. Karl Rove, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld. Not since Richard Nixon’s White House and the era of the Watergate burglary and expansion of the Vietnam War have there been as many power-hungry and arrogant operators holding the levers of power. Cheney ran the White House; Rove the political operation for corporations and the religious right; and Rumsfeld oversaw the wars.

49. He’s escaped accountability for his actions. From Iraq war General Tommy Franks’ declaration that “we don’t do body counts” to numerous efforts to impeach Bush and top administration officials—primarily over launching the war in Iraq—he has never been held to account and was not impeached as he should have been.

50. He may have stolen the 2004 election as well.
Never in the history of exit poll data has there been there such a discrepancy which showed Kerry was winning and yet when the votes were counted, BUSH won. Phd Professors and Mathematical Scholars has certified that exit poll data has historically been accurate within 3% of the actual votes counted. They have stated that what happened in 2004 was mathematically impossible and the only explanation is that the 2004 election was rigged

Article written by By Steven Rosenfeld at http://www.alternet.org/news-amp-politics/50-reasons-you-despised-george-w-bushs-presidency-reminder-day-his-presidential?page=0%2C2

http://www.thenewamerican.com/usnews/foreign-policy/item/18441-un-could-prosecute-bush-for-war-crimes-says-ex-u-s-terror-czar

UN Could Prosecute Bush for War Crimes, Says Ex-U.S. Terror Czar

http://www.globalresearch.ca/bush-adminstration-convicted-of-war-crimes-and-crimes-against-humanity/5336860

Bush Administration Convicted of War Crimes and Crimes against Humanity – Global Research

Former U.S. President George W. Bush recently dedicated his Presidential Library in Dallas. The ceremony included speeches by President Obama, ex-President Bush, and every other living ex-president. But none of the speeches so much as mentioned to Iraq war – the undertaking that dominated George W. Bush’s presidency, and will define his historic legacy.

A five-panel tribunal unanimously delivered guilty verdicts against Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld and their key legal advisors who were all convicted as war criminals for torture and cruel, inhumane and degrading treatment.

Mark Ruffalo Condemns George W. Bush: He Must Be ‘Brought to Justice’ for Iraq War Crimes

In an apparent shade towards Ellen DeGeneres, Ruffalo wrote on Twitter that “we can’t even begin to talk about kindness.”

Per the above article: “The “Avengers” actor took to social media October 9 to condemn the former President of the United States, writing that Bush deserves to be “brought to justice for the crimes of the Iraq War.” Ruffalo added that Bush’s alleged crimes include “American-led torture, Iraqi deaths and displacement, and the deep scars — emotional and otherwise — inflicted on our military that served”

Activist urges authorities to arrest Bush over war crimes in Iraq

Former United States President George W. Bush’s speech was interrupted Wednesday after an activist shut him down, slamming him for committing war crimes…

Activist urges authorities to arrest Bush over war crimes in Iraq
Former United States President George W. Bush’s speech was interrupted Wednesday after an activist shut him down, slamming him for committing war crimes in Iraq and turning his family’s life into a nightmare. Jeb Sprague, a lecturer at UCLA and anti-war activist, crashed Bush’s speech at the Distinguished Speaker Series of Southern California event in Long Beach on Monday.
Per the above article: “Activist urges authorities to arrest Bush over war crimes in Iraq”

“Former United States President George W. Bush’s speech was interrupted Wednesday after an activist shut him down, slamming him for committing war crimes in Iraq and turning his family’s life into a nightmare.

https://t.co/oo0g1P5nDb”>pic.twitter.com/oo0g1P5nDb

“Arrest this war criminal:” Former US President George W. Bush’s speech gets interrupted again, as anti-war activist slams him for committing war crimes in Iraqpic.twitter.com/oo0g1P5nDb

— Daily Sabah (@DailySabah) September 23, 2021

Jeb Sprague, a lecturer at UCLA and anti-war activist, crashed Bush’s speech at the Distinguished Speaker Series of Southern California event in Long Beach on Monday.

“Your war destroyed my cousin’s life. Your war created a nightmare for my family. He’s a shell of his former self. Tens of thousands of Americans and a million Iraqis have died,” Sprague yelled.  “Arrest this man. Arrest this war criminal”

Cost of the Iraq War

According to a Congressional Budget Office (CBO) report published in October 2007, the U.S. wars in Iraq and Afghanistan could cost taxpayers a total of $2.4 trillion by 2017 when counting the huge interest costs because combat is being financed with borrowed money. The CBO estimated that of the $2.4 trillion long-term price tag for the war, about $1.9 trillion of that would be spent on Iraq, or $6,300 per U.S. citizen.[7][8] The most recent CBO report, which was conducted after the end of combat operations and hence did not have to estimate future costs, was released in December 2014 and placed the cost at $0.815 trillion.[9]

Joseph Stiglitz, former chief economist of the World Bank and winner of the Nobel Prize in Economics, and Linda Bilmes of Harvard University, have stated the total costs of the Iraq War on the US economy will be three trillion dollars in a moderate scenario, described in their book The Three Trillion Dollar War and possibly more in the most recent published study, published in March 2008.[10] Stiglitz has stated: “The figure we arrive at is more than $3 trillion. Our calculations are based on conservative assumptions…Needless to say, this number represents the cost only to the United States. It does not reflect the enormous cost to the rest of the world, or to Iraq.”

A 2013 updated study pointed out that U.S. medical and disability claims for veterans after a decade of war had risen to $134.7 billion from $33 billion two years earlier.

The extended combat and equipment loss have placed a severe financial strain on the U.S Army, causing the elimination of non-essential expenses such as travel and civilian hiring.