Rep. Jim McGovern@RepMcGovern
23 years ago tonight, in an Oval Office address, George W. Bush announced the start of the Iraq War.
4,492 American service members were killed in the years that followed. 32,292 were wounded.
At least 200,000 Iraqi civilians died. The humanitarian impact was immense.
America wasted 9 years and 3 trillion dollars on a war that never should have happened—a war predicated on a lie, pushed by warmongering neocon politicians, and paid for by everyday people.
Imagine what that $3 trillion could have bought here at home. Imagine the decade we could have spent focusing on America, our people, our place in the world. Imagine the lives our service members, stolen from us, would have lived. But instead, the president took us to war. Yet another costly quagmire in the Middle East.
I voted against the Iraq War. I knew the White House would lie to Members of Congress and voters alike to manufacture the pretext for a conflict—and they did.
Now, Iran is shaping up to be Iraq 2.0—new lies, new bloodthirsty politicians, still paid for by American families. Yesterday, we learned that Trump wants another $200 billion for his war. That's after Congress already gave the Pentagon more money than it even asked for in the budget.
Enough is enough. It is not too late to learn from the past. Stop this madness. Bring our troops home. End this war.
