Lynn C. Woolsey: “when the American death toll in Iraq hit 4,000 on March 23, there was a great deal of coverage about it in the media.…”

“when the American death toll in Iraq hit 4,000 on March 23, there was a great deal of coverage about it in the media. But the media only seems to care about the death toll when it reaches a special milestone. But now that the number of dead has reached 4,012, they have packed up their cameras, they have gone back to ignoring Iraq. Once again, our brave soldiers are dying in virtual anonymity, surely paying the highest price. Here at home, the administration's occupation policies are harming American people in other ways. I am talking about the millions of Americans who are suffering because we are spending our Nation's treasure in Iraq rather than on vitally-needed social and economic programs here at home. We're spending about $4,600 every second on the occupation, or about $12 billion a month. Joseph Stiglitz, the Nobel Prize winning economist, has calculated that the occupation will ultimately cost $3 trillion, and that, Mr. Speaker, is a conservative estimate. And it will certainly cost a whole lot more if the administration gets its way and we establish permanent bases in Iraq or the others get their way and we remain involved in Iraq for 50 to 100 years. This enormous drain on our resources has buried us so deeply in debt that we cannot make investments in the programs that would really move our Nation forward. Just think of what we could do with all of those trillions of dollars.…”