The Costs of War: Dollars, Lives and National Identity

The Iraq War has killed at least 189,000 people to date, including a minimum of 123,000 civilians, and could cost taxpayers a total of $4 trillion as interest accrues on money borrowed to fund the invasion and subsequent occupation.

The numbers come from a massive new report by a team of 30 economists, anthropologists, political scientists, legal experts and physicians about the Iraq War’s effect titled “The Costs of War.”

Neta Crawford, a professor of political science at Boston University and co-author of the report, describes the impact.

“The costs, I think can be put into three baskets. The first is the short-term budgetary costs, second are the immediate human toll … and then there’s the long-term economic consequences,” Crawford said.

After Crawford’s segment on “Democracy Now!” Raed Jarrar, an Iraqi-American blogger, political analyst and American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee communications director, tells how the invasion brought “the complete destruction of the Iraqi national identity.”

“There is no civic identity in Iraq anymore,” Jarrar said, “so people regressed to the other level that they can identify with, and that unfortunately is the sectarian affiliation.”

— Posted by Alexander Reed Kelly.

‘Democracy Now!’: