On Friday, September 20, President Bush released his 33-page National Security Strategy, a policy summation that every president must submit to Congress. While offering enlightened ideas on disease and poverty worldwide, the Bush strategy is regrettably an alarming declaration of U.S. power over the rest of the world, including unchallenged military supremacy and freedom to strike at will with unilateral, preemptive military action. It declares that the strategies of containment and deterrence are all but dead. It dismisses for the most part reliance on international treaties. New York Times editors commented that "the paper sounds more like a pronouncement that the Roman Empire or Napoleon might have produced." (NYT, 9/22/02, wk.12)

The Bush National Security Strategy lays bare the reality that a U.S. war on Iraq is about this administration's aspirations to global dominance.

Why do we as state legislators feel compelled to speak out against such aspirations and insist that war on Iraq be a last resort, and if inevitable, embarked upon only with full consent and participation of the U.N. Security Council and other allies?

We speak because, as state legislators who struggle to meet the needs of the people of ______________, we must think about cost. This war will not be cheap, and the states, already strapped from two decades of federal cuts and rising costs, will be left holding the bag. Weapons inspections, by far the safest and most diplomatic process for containing the threat of Iraq, cost zero American taxpayer dollars.

If our President insists on taking us down the road to war, we as state legislators demand a fiscal accounting of the costs and how the bills will be paid. It is our responsibility to do so.

The Congressional Budget Office provided Congress with a new study on September 30 of the projected costs of a U.S. war on Iraq: $9 billion to $13 billion for deploying the military to the Persian Gulf; $6 billion to $9 billion a month for prosecuting a war; $5 billion to $7 billion for returning American forces to their home bases after the completion of the conflict; $1 billion to $4 billion a month for an occupation force in Iraq. The study did not attempt to estimate costs of rebuilding Iraq.

In an interview with the Wall Street Journal, Lawrence Lindsey, the president's chief economic policy adviser, said that the cost of war with Iraq could be $100 billion to $200 billion. He dismissed the economic consequences, saying that the price tag for war would not seriously affect interest rates or add much to the $3.6 trillion federal debt, and amounted to "nothing" in terms of its impact on the economy. Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill echoed Mr. Lindsey saying, "Whatever it is that's finally decided to be done, we will succeed and we can afford it."

The truth is, a $100 billion war with Iraq will cost will cost ________ taxpayers at least $_______ ! (National Priorities Project)

We can afford it?

This summer the Bush administration announced that, after four years of surpluses, the federal government will run a $165 billion deficit.

We can afford it?

President Bush is demanding tight budget constraints on non-defense discretionary spending, which is forcing cuts in human needs programs, including the education programs that were central to his own "Leave No Child Behind" initiative.

We can afford it?

The National Governors Association said in July that 45 states have reported revenue shortfalls over the last year, totaling $50 billion.

The amount of money spent by states on Medicaid, the health program for the poor, has increased this year by 13 percent, following an 11 percent increase in 2001, driven up by increases in prescription drug prices, demands by providers for higher payments, and growth in the eligible population. States, forced to cut back on Medicaid services, are appealing to Congress for help.

We can afford it?

No, Secretary O'Neill. We cannot afford a U.S. war on Iraq. We certainly cannot afford a further increase in the already exorbitant Pentagon budget - almost $400 billion for the new fiscal year. As state legislators who know all too well the painful trade-offs that result from too little money and too many needs, let us be clear: the costs of Mr. Bush's war are simply too high.

Talking points on Iraq