The War in Iraq

The purpose of this paper is to prove to the reader that America should pull troops out of Iraq. There are several good reasons to do so, but I am only going to touch on three. The first reason is the high death toll of Americans, the second is the high cost, and the third is that there is a hidden agenda

There have been thousands of deaths in the past four years because of the war. The death toll for Americans is up to 3,000 troops over the past few years. For the Iraqis it could be between 48,800 – 654,965, depending on which poll looked at (Lacey, 2006). If thought about it, these numbers really don’t matter. Even if one soldier dies within four years, a family still lost a loved one. Either way, a special person had been lost for someone who really needs him or her. President Bush is planning on sending 20,000 more troops over to Iraq; to me that mean 20,000 more possible deaths. Should we take the chance of losing a loved one over a hidden agenda?

The cost of this war is outstanding (and not in a good way). It costs $100,000 per soldier to get them ready for combat (Mulrine, 2007). The total cost is up to $5,489,356,000 and rising every second we speak. If Bush adds another 20,000 troops to this, at $100,000 a person, this is another $2,000,000,000. That is a lot of money; everyone in America could have free gas for a year instead of wasting so much money on war. The $2,000,000,000 does not include the cost of month-to-month expenses like: food, water, and equipment. The cost of month-to-month expenses is between “6 billion and 9 billion dollars” (Iraq, 2002). There is also another cost that not everyone is aware of. Even after the war is over, it will still cost us around “4 billion dollars a month for U.S. occupation of Iraq” (Iraq, 2002). What we should really do with all that money is invest it in our local communities. Communities across the United States contribute millions of dollars to this war, while their schools are lacking supplies.

After four years and some odd months, billions of dollars, and thousands of deaths, what has America accomplished? There were never any weapons of mass destruction intended for the U. S. The government already knew this before we went over there; it was a government excuse to attack Iraq. So, what is the real reason we are at war? What do they have that we want? Oil, “115 billion barrels of proved oil reserve which is the third largest supply in the world.” From uncovering documents, it has been proven that Bush’s administration had plans for getting Iraq’s oil before the 9/11 attacks on the U.S. (Thornton, 2005). Bush wants everyone to think that American troops are in Iraq to disarm it. If that is the case, why is it taking