This book, by George McGovern and William Polk, retails at Amazon for
$9.90, plus shipping charge. Here are the Table of Contents and the
Foreword.
CONTENTS
This book, by George McGovern and William Polk, retails at Amazon for
$9.90, plus shipping charge. Here are the Table of Contents and the
Foreword.
CONTENTS
FOREWORD
viii
CHAPTER 1
How Can Citizens Find Out
What They Need to Know?
1
CHAPTER 2
What is Iraq, and Who Are the Iraqis?
19
CHAPTER 3
Effects on Iraq of the American
Invasion and Occupation
37
CHAPTER 4
Damage Report: The Impact
On America of the Iraq War
65
CHAPTER 5
How to Get Out of Iraq
91
CHAPTER 6
What Happens If We Do Not
Get Out of Iraq?
123
AFTERWORD
129
INDEX
137
WHY WE WROTE THIS BOOK
Events have proven that our government's decision to invade and occupy
Iraq was a calamitous mistake. So far, more than 2500 young Americans
have been killed; more than 16,000 have been wounded, half of them with
disabilities that can never be repaired; and more than 40,000 have
received severe psychological damage for which they, and we, will be
paying for decades to come. As bad as these results of the war have
been, they are just the beginning. The Defense and Veterans Brain Injury
Center has learned that perhaps one in every 10 – about 50,000 --
returning soldiers has suffered a concussion whose effects -- memory
loss, severe headaches and confused thinking -- will linger throughout
his or her life. Exposure to depleted uranium is expected to add
thousands of more patients, many of whom will develop cancer, to
hospitals run by the Department of Veterans Affairs.
No one knows how many Iraqi civilians we have killed. Estimates run from
30,000 to 100,000. Since Iraq has a total population of less than 10
percent of America's, even the lowest estimate means that virtually
every Iraqi has a relative, neighbor, or friend whose death he or she
blames on us. A whole society has been crippled and may not recover for
a generation or more. President George W. Bush and his team originally
told us that we invaded Iraq in search of weapons of mass destruction
that were an "imminent threat" to the United States. When no such
weapons were found, we were told that our army had invaded Iraq to bring
democracy. Military force may change a regime, but it cannot create
democracy.
President Bush and his team have also told us – are still telling us –
that they sent and want to keep our army in Iraq to destroy terrorism.
But, as we now know – and as they knew then – Iraq had nothing to do
with the 9/11 terrorist attacks on America. Our war against Iraq is not
reducing terrorism and making us safe. Rather, it is breeding terrorists
in large and increasing numbers and giving them a base of operations
among people who now hate our country. The longer we occupy Iraq, the
greater will be the danger to America.
The material costs or the war will likely almost bankrupt our economy.
They will ultimately reach about $2 trillion. That is about $8,000 for
each man, woman and child in America. Had we devoted it to the struggle
against poverty, hunger, and ill-health both at home and abroad, we
could have wiped out AIDS, malaria, tuberculosis, various childhood
diseases as well as illiteracy and made our world truly safer.
Even many of those who wanted us to attack Iraq, including some of our
most senior military officers, now recognize that the war cannot be won.
So, the high costs have all been for naught. The war has been a terrible
and useless waste. Instead of recognizing this fact, however, some,
particularly among the so-called neoconservatives, are now in favor of
what has been called "the long war" against "the universal enemy." This
is a recipe for disaster. It could bring upon us, our children and our
grandchildren the nightmare described by George Orwell in his novel
1984. Then we would not even know for what and against whom we are
fighting, but in the course of fighting we would be in danger of losing
the very things we are told we are fighting to preserve. Today, we are
truly looking over the abyss toward a hell on earth.
Changing a misguided course is not, as some have charged, a sign of
weakness which would encourage our enemies and dishearten our friends;
rather it is a sign of strength and good sense. It is neither wise nor
patriotic to continue an ill-conceived blunder that is wasting the lives
of young American soldiers and Iraqi civilians while threatening the
moral and fiscal integrity of the nation we all love. It is now a matter
of great urgency, in the interests of both the United States and Iraq
for us to begin systematically bringing our troops home and starting the
healing process.
President Bush has said, "You're either for us or against us." The
authors of this book are emphatically "for us." Both of us have spent
years in the service of our nation. But we also emphatically believe
that true patriotism is not, as Bush has suggested, blind acquiescence
to a misguided policy. Rather, it imposes on citizens the requirement to
seek with intelligence, knowledge, and sound reasoning a clear view of
reality. Public opinion polls tell us that Americans are trying to do so.
This book aims to help.
So much false information has been given out that the intelligent
citizen is hard pressed to get a true picture of reality. So we begin
our book with a summary of how Americans were misled into this needless
war. Then we turn to "damage reports" on the effects of the war -- on
Americans, on the Iraqis and on the U.S. position it world affairs.
Citizens have what government officials term a "need to know" this
information in order to judge the plan we propose to get the United
States out of Iraq But those who believe they know enough about what has
happened may wish to fast forward to chapter 5 where we lay out our plan
on how to stop the hemorrhaging and get out of Iraq with the least
possible cost and damage. In Chapter 6, we consider what will happen if
the United States foolishly decides to "stay the course" and, finally,
we point up the lesson we should learn from this costly misadventure.
George S. McGovern
William R. Polk