Reading of Saddam's execution tonight, I'm reminded of all those
debates over consumer regulation I've had with smart conservatives --
most memorably Antonin Scalia several times in the '70s. Sure safer
cars and cleaner air are good things, BUT AT WHAT COST? Because there's
"no such thing as a free lunch," Green, where is your cost-benefit
analysis?
So before Bush & Co. do their version of a Terrell Owens dance in the
end zone, it would be good if they first did a cost-benefit analysis of
the capture and execution of Saddam. Let's see: the BENEFIT: -- he's
gone; the COST -- up to 600,000 dead Iraqis according to a careful Johns
Hopkins study; 3000 dead Americans; 20,000+ maimed and wounded
Americans; an out-of-pocket cost of $400 biliion, toward a likely total
cost of ( counting debt service, disability care etc.) of $2 trillion
over time; a war lasting longer than WWII -- and, oh yes, a rise in
terrorism and terrorists as well as the plunge of popularity of the
U.S. around the world, making it far harder to organize coalitions to
fight such international scourges as terrorism, global warming, AIDS
etc.
Other than George, Laura and Barney, is there anyone who really thinks
that this cost-benefit ratio was worth it? Where can I read apologies
from Wolfowitz, Feith, Kristol, Perle for willfully ignoring these
monumental costs to our blood, treasure and name?
And this is no mere after-action report, with 20-20 hindsight. Folks
like Zinni, Scowcroft and so many others chronicled in Tom Ricks's book
Fiasco warned of such plausible costs but two consequential armchair
warriors -- Bush and Cheney -- weren't counting. Any argument can
sound convincing if you ignore the costs and exaggerate the benefits.
And when Congress in a pre-war hearing asked about the costs of a
first-ever American invasion and occupation of a Muslim country,
Rumsfeld blithly said they were "unknowable" -- and the Congress, a
pathetic West Wing of this White House, in effect said "ok."
In terms of lives lost, monies spent, good will squandered, terrorists
multiplied, can readers please let me know if there's ever been a
deliberate decision with a worse cost-benefit ratio in American history
than the arrest and execution of Sadam Hussein? Perhaps experts at the
American Enterprise Institute and Heritage Foundation, who specialize
in demanding such calculations before government regulatory decisions
are made, could now provide an answer to a question they apparently
never asked before March 19, 2003.