The Huge amount of money spend on Iraq could have been able to enroll almost 58,000 children in Head start, almost 163,700 students would have been able to afford college, 9,300 more teachers could have been hired, 14,200 more police officers could be put on streets reducing the crime rate, additional 10,700 border patrol agents could have made our country safer and stopped illegal immigration and 513,000 children could have got health insurance via SCHIP. Millions of social programs could have been started with this money. The money government is using up could have been used by business owners.
This would have increased productivity and provided jobs. These jobs would have helped a lot of people who are now homeless. The government could also have started free clinics, hence helping the poor who could not afford to get treated or their children vaccinated (Joint Economic Committee Majority Staff, 2007). According to website, Boston Globe, there are various other ways to spend this money which is being used in war against Iraq (Strupp, 2007). According to Boston Globe almost all of American Gasoline usage could have been covered for almost 530 days by this $611 billion which is the amount spent on Iraq’s war.
Newton North High School, which is said to be the most expensive high school, could have been made 4000 times with this money. Imagine how many students could get education from 4,000 Newton North High Schools. Almost 14 million students could have studied in Harvard for a year. Almost all cars in America could have gone environment friendly and even then a lot of money would have been left, as converting all cars to run on ethanol would have cost only $68. 2 billion. This money could have been used as health benefit program for poor children.
President has rejected the amount of $35 billion for poor children’s health programs; we could have used this $611 which is almost 17 times more than $35 billion. This money could have not only fed but provided primary education for poor children all over the world. $ 611 billion was worth 7 years of food to these hungry, starved children (Boston Globe, 2007). Apart from all this we could have built 3. 5 million houses which could have been affordable to the poor. United States could have created 15% of its electricity from wind or solar resources.
Almost 45, 800 elementary schools could have been built providing education and increasing the literacy rate. United States could have increased its assistance to needy countries. Only $10 billion would have helped many poor countries to start education, health and other programs with the help of United States. We could have used some of this money to rebuilt Afghanistan. Some of this money could have been used to increase special duty forces in United States. Only $24 billion of this money could have added almost 2 more divisions in the United States army as due to these wars the number of army soldiers has really thinned out.
Only $3 billion of this money could have secured major roads and rails of the country. $ 2. 5 billion could have increased sufficient amount of funding for the fire department. We could have increased safety measures by using $250 million to have walk-through explosive detectors as it is vey easy to pass airport security with hidden explosives. Only $5 million of this amount would have helped us to buy new technology for screening baggage at the airports. Out of 440 airports nationwide, only eight have this new technology of baggage screening.
Before any cargo comes to the United States it is checked by inspectors, only $2 billion would have increased this cargo security. Only $7 billion would have helped in controlling crime by putting almost 100,000 more police officers on the streets. Almost 30. 5 billion would have helped make a 10 year program to ensure safety and removal of world’s nuclear weapons. Afghanistan’s opium crop provides fund for terrorist activities, only S11 million would have helped them shift from cultivation opium to other crops. This simple step would have helped in reducing terrorist activities all over the world.
Only $775 million would have increased public diplomacy and helped United States in bridging the gap between Muslim states and themselves. As seen above that United States could have done a lot by just not invading Iraq. People who used to believe that America is doing the right thing by invading Iraq now believe that it was a mistake as now tax payers in America know that their taxes will not go in helping their nation do something constructive but go in destruction of a nation who might or might not have done anything wrong. Above was just an estimated and cost of war in terms of dollars.
This war has cost United States its reputation. Not just people all over the World think that America could have done something good with this money but American’s themselves, also believe that there economy has gone down due to this single decision. Poor have become poorer and jobless have gone homeless. Health programs are still an issue and terrorists are still wandering. It was thought that the oil reserves in Iraq would help compensate for the cost of his war, but this also went up in the smoke.
References
BBC News. (2005). Iraq War Costlier than Vietnam. Retrieved December 16, 2007 from: