The occupation is costing the US at least $10 billion per month, not counting depreciation, $67 billion replacement costs for equipment, and billions for medical care of wounded and veterans benefits.  By the end of 2008, the supposed `cake walk’ in Iraq will have cost US taxpayers $1 trillion, a good part of it borrowed from Japan and China, making it America’s second most expensive war in history.
 
Half the US Army is bogged down in Iraq.  This war and Afghanistan have led the US ground and air forces `to the breaking point,’ in the words of senior American commanders.  History shows that all occupation armies become brutalized, corrupted and demoralized.
 
At least 30,000 Iraqi prisoners are held by the US and routinely tortured or executed without trial.  They should be considered political prisoners.  Saddam Hussein’s prisons held fewer inmates.  The brutality of the US occupation of Iraq has enraged the Muslim world against America and, according to US intelligence agencies, has created a whole new generation of anti-American militants.
 
The Bush administration’s torrent of lies about Iraq and ongoing occupation are seen around the globe as crude imperialism worthy of the 19th-century British Raj or old Soviet Union.  Sen. Obama was at least right in the debate when he noted that America’s image is an important factor in national security.  Today, America is hated around the globe, thank you George Bush and Dick Cheney.
 
Washington’s current plans to continue ruling Iraq by means of a puppet government and mercenary army backed by US air power are an attempt to copy the way the British Empire ruled Iraq and exploited its oil.  But once most of the US forces are withdrawn, Iraq may dissolve once again into violence and chaos, or complete its process of splintering into three mini-states, inviting intervention from its covetous neighbors.  Iran has already become the dominant power in eastern Iraq, and Turkey, hungry for Iraq’s oil,  is watching menacingly.  
 
I wish Obama had  riposted: `Senator McCain, one more victory like this and America is ruined.  You had better think about this as you and your neocon alter ego Joe Lieberman urge confrontation against Iran, Hezbullah, Pakistan, Taliban, al-Qaida, insubordinate Arabs, Russia and China.
 
PS: And don’t forget Venezuela, Cuba, Somalia, and Sudan.