Listen To Murtha

The Full List is here. Go read it. Highlights:

We are spending $8 billion a month in Iraq. That equates to $2 billion a week, or $267 million a day, or $11 million an hour.

The following are some comparisons between what we are spending in Iraq as we "stay the course" indefinitely and what those funds could be used for instead.

I've been fighting for our military to get out of Iraq because I'm concerned about the loss of our troops and the future of our military, and also because I believe they have accomplished their mission there and the Iraqis must resolve their internal conflict themselves. However, I also wanted to demonstrate what these expenses mean to domestic policy in the United States and give you an idea of just some of the things that we could accomplish with this amount of money.

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$10 billion (1-time)=(5 weeks in Iraq) - Equipping commercial airliners with defenses against shoulder-fired missiles.

$5.2 billion (1-time)=(3 weeks in Iraq) - Estimated need for capital improvements to secure public transportation system (trains, subways, buses)

$1.5 billion/year=(5 days in Iraq) - Radiation detectors needed at all US ports (rejected due to cost)

$1.4 billion/ year=(5 days in Iraq) - Double the COPS (community police grants) program

$800 million/year=(72 hours in Iraq) - Public transportation personnel training and technical support

$700 million/year=(2 days in Iraq) - 100% screening of all air cargo - rejected because of cost (1/4 of domestic shipping and 1/2 of international shipping is done on passenger planes)

$350 million (1-time)=(1.2 days in Iraq) - Make emergency radio systems interoperable (5 years after 9/11, this hasn't happened yet)

$500 million/year=(2 days in Iraq) - Double the firefighters’ grant program

$94 million/year=(8-1/2 hours in Iraq) - Restore cuts to cities hit on 9/11 in Homeland Security budget

Tell me again how the neocons and Shrubya are making America safer by attacking a country that had nothing to do with 9/11. If you believe that, I have some ocean front property to sell you up in the Cascades.