Over the next few weeks, I want to take a look back to February and March of 2003, to those fateful days leading up to the Bush administration’s disastrous invasion and occupation of Iraq. I remember all too well the lies that were told, the hysteria that was created, the bullying tactics that were used to silence debate and the mass mobilisation that was organised in opposition to the war.

In the end, then president George W. Bush ignored American public opinion and the sage advice of senior Republican statement like former secretary of state James Baker and former National Security adviser Brent Scowcroft and invaded Iraq leading to the most consequential disaster in recent US history.

The Iraq war has had a staggering impact that continues to grow over time. The magnitude of this disaster can be measured in lost lives, treasure, capacity and prestige.

From 2003 to the formal withdrawal of US fighting forces in 2011, the war took the lives of 4,500 Americans and well over 150,000 Iraqi civilians. And more than 600,000 US veterans of these wars are now registered as disabled. To fully understand the war’s impact, however, we must also factor in the number of young men and women who, after multiple tours in Iraq and Afghanistan (400,000 served three or more tours of duty in these two wars), have returned home suffering from post-traumatic shock disorder (PTSD) — about 10 per cent of veterans suffer from PTSD. A great number of them have tragically joined the ranks of the homeless or the addicted or they have committed suicide. Studies show that on an average night, almost 40,000 veterans are homeless. In recent years, the average number of suicides among this group of PTSD veterans is a staggering 22 per day — meaning that more young veterans of these two wars die each year at their own hands out of despair than died in battle in both wars combined.

The direct costs of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have been estimated to be almost two trillion dollars, with trillions more needing to be factored in to cover the long-term health care and disability payments to the wars’ veterans.

The two long unwinnable wars resulted in grounding down and exhausting the US military. It also demonstrated their inability to decisively beat insurgencies and resistance movements. This proved demoralising to US troops and established the limits of the world’s most powerful and expensive military machine.

read more HERE:   http://jordantimes.com/opinion/james-j-zogby/fifteen-years-later