War costs reach astonishing £3.297bn: march on Saturday

In the same week when the UK sees a major anti-war demo (15th March in London) the Commons reports on the financial costs of such exercises.

Photo: Banksy message

This is, of course, only one of the costs of the war - others include collateral damage, the death and maiming of thousands both here and abroad etc. But it is thought provoking when the same government is driving through cuts in the welfare and health budgets, how much these foreign adventures cost.

The Commons defence committee said operational costs for this financial year were now forecast to reach an amazing £3.297bn - a 94% increase on last year. See BBC report:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/7287525.stm

Kate Hudson, the chair of CND, is quoted as saying, "The human cost of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are clear with an estimated 655,000 dead in Iraq alone, but the opportunities lost by spending these billions on further destruction rather than on humanitarian reconstruction adds to the long list of tragedies unleashed by Bush's wars."

Joseph Stiglitz, the former chief economist for the World Bank and a Nobel laureate, recently estimated that the cost of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan would be somewhere between $5 trillion (£2.5 trillion) and $7 trillion for the US alone - with another estimated $6 trillion being spent by other countries.

Join the march

The World Against War demonstration in London will be on Saturday 15 March - called by Stop the War Coalition (of which the Green party is part of), CND and British Muslim Initiative to mark the fifth anniversary of the Iraq invasion - sadly it is so necessary - especially as the problems seem to be growing.

- Six years of war in Afghanistan has brought ever increasing levels of death, destruction and chaos to its people - a top intelligence officer in the US military blurted out the truth: the war is a disaster and the invading forces are facing defeat. (See http://tinyurl.com/26wraq)

- Despite British troops being effectively confined to barracks, the death of another British soldier in Iraq reminded us that Gordon Brown continues to sacrifice people's lives to bolster his political support for George Bush's "war on terror". Meanwhile, Bush's poll rating in the US has sunk to 19 per cent, the lowest ever recorded for an American president. Read more from Paul Rogers here including re the virtually unreported missile attacks on Somalia.

- It was also extraordinary to read the Government getting the High Court to issue a gagging
order on ex-SAS officer Ben Griffin, who revealed how extensively involved Britain is in the kidnapping and torture policies used by the US in secret prisons around the world. (SEE video of Ben explaining why he has spoken out: http://www.stopwar.org.uk/)

I would strongly urge support for this march on the 15 March to ensure that the voice of the
majority is heard, specifically in the call to bring all troops home from Iraq and Afghanistan now and for an end to the atrocities that Israel inflicts every day on the Palestinian people.