The 5th anniversary of murderously arrogant inanity in Babylon

Five years ago today the Bush Administration, a lazy US media titillated by the prospect of violence, and most of Congress took an ill-informed, myopic, and bellicose America into an unnecessary preemptive invasion of Iraq against all the commonsense of advisors of former Presidential administrations (including GHW Bu$h) and savvy diplomats among our allies.

The UN weapons inspectors were making clear progress during the run-up to the invasion, and the inspectors' expert leader, Hans Blix, had said completing the task of searching for weapons of mass destruction (WMD) would take only months more. Such a search would have been:
1. conclusive,
2. extremely cheap (The war's cost us $3,000,000,000,000--that's $3 trillion),
3. supported by the international community,
4. able to allow the internationally-supported and US-led forces in Afghanistan to continue to hunt down Bin Laden.

If I go to Yearly Kos, it'll be to meet Bill In Portland Maine.

Days since the Mission Accomplished banner was hung from the bridge of the Aircraft carrier: 1,785
Expected monthly cost to fund the Iraq quagmire in 2008: $12 billion
Projected interest payments on money borrowed to fund the quagmire: $816 billion
(Source: The book The Three trillion Dollar War via AP)
Maine's contribution to the war so far: $1.35 billion
[U.S. Casualties since the Iraq War began: 40,229]
U.S. [fatalities] since the Iraq War began: 3,990
(Source: icasualties.org)
Average per year since the war began: 798
What that amounts to if we stay in Iraq, as John McCain insists, for 100 years: 79,800
Estimated Iraqi civilians killed: 150,000 to 1.2 million
(Source: Meteor Blades)

And from John McCain came these gems:

"I believe that the success will be fairly easy." (9/24/02)
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"We’re not going to have a bloodletting of trading American bodies for Iraqi bodies." (9/29/02)
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"We will win this conflict. We will win it easily." (1/22/03)
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"[T]here’s no doubt in my mind, once these people are gone, that we will be welcomed as liberators." (3/24/03)