What could have been saved? A trillion dollars, a million lives, the global reputation of the U.S. - but that wasn't the plan
Neo-Cons could have saved a trillion dollars, spared over a million lives and prevented tens of thousands of dead and injured U.S. soldiers but decided to unleash carnage anyway, after it was revealed last night that Saddam Hussein offered to step down and go into exile one month before the invasion of Iraq.
"Fearing defeat, Saddam was prepared to go peacefully in return for £500million ($1billion)," reports the Daily Mail.
"The extraordinary offer was revealed yesterday in a transcript of talks in February 2003 between George Bush and the then Spanish Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar at the President's Texas ranch."
"The White House refused to comment on the report last night. But, if verified, it is certain to raise questions in Washington and London over whether the costly four-year war could have been averted."
According to the tapes, Bush told Aznar that whether Saddam was still in Iraq or not, "We'll be in Baghdad by the end of March."
Why didn't the Neo-Cons take Saddam's offer? After all, the invasion was about "weapons of mass destruction" and "spreading freedom", we were told. With the dictator gone, the U.N. and American forces were free to roam the country in search of the non-existent weapons while setting up the "utopian democracy" that Iraqis now live under.
The Neo-Cons didn't take the offer because the invasion of Iraq was not about Saddam Hussein, it was about making fat profits for the military-industrial complex by bombing the country back into the stone age, slaughtering countless innocents in the process, seizing control of oil factories, and setting up military bases as a means of launching the Empire's next jaunt into Iran.
The invasion of Iraq was about having a justification to stay there indefinitely and break the country up into different pieces as was the plan all along.
Here's what $1 billion could have saved us.
- At least $200 million every single day that could have been spent on fighting poverty, building schools, taking men to Mars, ad infinitum.
- At least $1 trillion that the Iraq war will eventually cost if we ever leave. A trillion is a million millions.
- At least 1 million dead Iraqis according to the latest numbers, along with millions more that will die in the years to come as a result of depleted uranium poisoning, malnutrition, cholera and all manner of other horrors brought about by the invasion.
- Over 1.1 million displaced Iraqis who have been forced to leave their new "utopian democracy" and another million who have been forced to leave their homes due to sectarian violence and persecution.
- Over 3800 dead U.S. soldiers since the invasion began.
- 300 dead coalition soldiers since the invasion began.
- Anything from 23,000 to 100,000 injured U.S. soldiers since the invasion began.
- The reputation of the U.S. around the world as the most hated nation on earth.
- The ballooning deficit and the probable eventual collapse of the U.S. dollar and the economy.
Thanks Neo-Cons - I hope it was worth it.
