The post-war price tag. There have been a lot of reports about how much it will cost to rebuild Iraq. A new one out this week puts the cost at a minimum of $100 billion and said it will take hundreds of thousands of American troops on the ground there for years to keep the peace. Then it went a little further.
The American people, who remain in support of the war, have no idea what they are getting into. The report task force chaired by James Schlesinger, secretary of defense under Nixon and Ford, and Thomas Pickering, ambassador to the U.N. under Bush Senior had a very clear message to President Bush: The American people cannot and should not be kept in the dark when it comes to the staggering financial and emotion costs of rebuilding the Iraqi state. They need to be levelled with, and fast. Nation-building, public opinion, and the salutary effects of sticker shock.
Guests:
E.J. Dionne, columnist, The Washington Post, and fellow at The Brookings Institution
Nolan Finley, editorial page editor, The Detroit News
Eric P. Schwartz, project director for the Council on Foreign Relations independent task force on a post-conflict Iraq