World leaders pledge Iraq support

[gilliam]

Does anyone believe it will cap at 5000? It will be mainly our troops and totally our military funding this effort.

All depends on if the Iraqis fight and if ISIS gets bigger and morphs into a real threat to the US homeland.

 

[Ridgerunner]

All depends on if the Iraqis fight and if ISIS gets bigger and morphs into a real threat to the US homeland.

I imagine Iraqis fighting will be a delicate business. Possibly some of the Sunni tribal leaders will join in against ISIS, but if it’s a totally Shiite army, it will be a terrible mess. However, one has to wonder how much Shiite Iraqis in eastern and southern Iraq really care. They should, one would think, prefer an all-Arab Iraq, if that’s the outcome, to being ruled by Iran. But one never knows.

 

[Ridgerunner]

Does anyone believe it will cap at 5000? It will be mainly our troops and totally our military funding this effort. It is foolish to believe that international community (UN) is funding this war.

There might be substantial funds coming into this one. I recall reading that the first part of the Iraq War, (Bush I) didn’t cost the U.S. anything in terms of money because other countries provided that.

 

[GaryTaylor]

The Iraq plan doesn’t include the Syria plan where the issues still reside. And if you can’t resolve that, than there’s not much of a plan imho.

 

[gam197]

There might be substantial funds coming into this one. I recall reading that the first part of the Iraq War, (Bush I) didn’t cost the U.S. anything in terms of money because other countries provided that.

Strange, that news story never made into all the media outlets.

Iraqbodycount.org puts the total number of Iraqi civilian deaths “from violence” since 2003 as high as 144,000.

Furthermore, a March 2013 study estimated that the financial cost of the Iraq war could be more than $2 trillion.

And now, to compound the waste of money, with our air offensive we are essentially paying to blow up millions of dollars of our own equipment that we left behind in Iraq, as Jason Fields wrote for Reuters last month

The ones who dropped their uniforms, and rifles and ran away? They left behind the bigger equipment, too, including M1 Abrams tanks (about $6 million each), 52 M198 howitzer cannons ($527,337), and MRAPs (about $1 million) similar to the ones in use in Ferguson.”

nytimes.com/2014/09/11/opinion/charles-blow-the-cost-of-war.html

 

[Ridgerunner]

Strange, that news story never made into all the media outlets.

nytimes.com/2014/09/11/opinion/charles-blow-the-cost-of-war.html

cnn.com/2013/09/15/world/meast/gulf-war-fast-facts/

Well, here’s most of it anyway. Keep in mind, I am talking about the FIRST Gulf War, the Bush I one.

"The U.S. Department of Defense has estimated the cost of the Gulf War at $61 billion.

Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and other Gulf States covered $36 billion.

Germany and Japan covered $16 billion."