What We Face as a Nation

The Iraq and Afghan wars, more than any other events, have overshadowed the nation for the past 30 months and could well define the next four years. While the events of September 11, 2001, have had a major impact on our nation and our world, it is our response to that tragedy defining its impact.

Our response in Afghanistan was almost exclusively military, and largely depended on American weapons and troops. It was followed by a second war in Iraq , a preemptive war of choice that was more dramatically unilateral, despite some involvement of a “coalition of the willing.” This war has driven a wedge between the United States and many of its traditional allies and antagonized much of the world. It has diverted critical resources from efforts in Afghanistan and against Al Qaeda, the organization responsible for the attack on the United States.2 Weapons of mass destruction that posed an “imminent threat” to our nation – the alleged reason for the war – have not been found, nor has a strategic connection to Al Qaeda been established.3 A new National Security Strategy, promulgated in 2002 and used as an underpinning for the war in Iraq, explicitly stated that the U.S. has the right to take military action anywhere in the world, even before threats are fully formed – the preemptive war principle.4

The Iraq war has been rhetorically absorbed into the larger “war on terror” by the nation’s leadership to the degree that the missions have become almost inseparable to many in the public square. With the situation in Iraq framed as a fait accompli, the nation is now told there is only one choice: to fix what it has “broken.” This task is complicated by the shocking revelations of detainee abuse in U.S.-run prisons in Iraq and elsewhere. In addition to the horrific suffering endured by untold numbers of people in U.S. detention, the prison scandal has undercut U.S. moral authority and further weakened the worldwide outpouring of support that followed 9/11.

There is no end in sight to the costs in Afghanistan and in Iraq , where the U.S. has already spent $119 billion.5 To accommodate these costs and those of the major tax cuts enacted under the current administration, substantial reductions are proposed in human services and public health programs. As a result, it is primarily the most vulnerable of our society, many of them children, whose needs will be sacrificed.6 Meanwhile, recommendations to protect the safety of the nation’s communities and transportation networks have not been fully implemented or funded, due in part to the growing militarism of the U.S. and the increasing share of the federal budget directed to military activities.7,8 Our leadership’s top priority is to defend our “borders” – however and wherever they choose to draw them – above all else.

What Catholic Teaching Tells Us

• The Pope, U.S. bishops and bishops throughout the world have been united in questioning “the moral legitimacy” of “preemptive or preventive” uses of military force to overthrow the government of Iraq.9

• The U.S. bishops point out that Catholic teaching imposes strict conditions “for overriding the strong presumption against the use of military force. … The Catechism of the Catholic Church limits just cause [for use of military force] to cases in which ‘the damage inflicted by the aggressor on the nation or community of nations {is} lasting, grave and certain.’ ”10

• “When war threatens humanity’s destiny, as it does today in Iraq, it is even more urgent for us to proclaim with a loud and decisive voice that peace is the only way to build a more just and caring society. Violence and arms can never solve human problems.”11… “It is more urgent than ever to return to a more effective collective security that gives the United Nations Organization its proper place and role.”12– Pope John Paul II

What We Need to Consider

Human Costs

• Deaths : More than 1,100 coalition deaths, including more than 1,000 U.S. military deaths, not counting deaths of U.S. contractors and other coalition civilians, and Iraqi civilian death of an estimated 11,781 to 13,790. The U.S. military does not keep track of Iraqi military deaths or “collateral” damage (civilian deaths).13


• Wounded : More than 6,690 U.S. troops wounded, many with losses of limbs.14


• Toll on families : More than 140,000 U.S. troops separated from their families, homes, jobs – stretched thin, with little hope of relief.15


• Post-traumatic stress : “There will be tens of thousands” of psychological casualties with post-traumatic stress disorder, “and the cost will be tremendous,” noted a PTSD expert in the Veterans Administration Hospital System. Two army surveys have shown that among returning troops, 15 to 17 percent show signs of mental health problems.16
  

Economic Costs

• $144.4 billion spent, or pledged to be spent, to date.17
• Cost of continued involvement at the current level in Iraq : $177 million a day, $7.4 million an hour, $122,820 a minute.18
  

Safety Initiatives Sacrificed

Some public safety needs that could have been met with money spent on the Iraq war:

• Improved security for airports and air transportation ($15.2 billion)


• Cargo and port security improvements, and expedited Coast Guard fleet upgrades ($13.5 billion)


• Hiring of 100,000 police officers ($7 billion); more equipment for fire fighters ($2.5 billion); integrated emergency radio system for first responders throughout the U.S. ($350 million)19

Human Services Sacrificed

Some program cuts that have been proposed:

• Funds for school districts to help low-income and other disadvantaged children would fall $660 million below 2004 levels, adjusted for inflation, by 2009.20


• Veterans health services funding would fall 17 percent below 2004, adjusted for inflation, by 2009.21


• Although the National Institutes of Health is proposed to receive a $310 million increase in fiscal 2005, NIH funding would be cut by more than $920 million, after adjusting for inflation, in 2006.22

 

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In agreement with the U.S. Bishops, Catholics are urged to vote for candidates “based on the full range of issues, as well as on the candidate’s personal integrity, philosophy and performance,” keeping in mind that “a Catholic moral philosophy does not easily fit the ideologies of ‘right’ or ‘left’, nor the platform of any party…Our responsibility is to measure all candidates, policies, parties, and platforms by how they protect the life, dignity and rights of the human person, whether they protect the poor and the vulnerable and advance the common good."8

“Most issues are moral issues. If we take moral issues seriously, we need to vote accordingly.”

– Bishop Thomas Gumbleton
Caucus Co-chair

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1. Statements from the publication “Faithful Citizenship: a Catholic Call to Political Responsibility,” US Conference of Catholic Bishops; concepts adapted from “Peaceweavings: Choosing a Presidential Candidate, Pax Christi, USA and the National Catholic Rural Life Conference
2. “Iraq conflict ‘boost’ to al Qaeda,” BBC News, June 3, 2003; “How the war in Iraq damaged the war on terrorism,” by Jessica Stern, Salon.com, April 7, 2004
3. “Ex-Arms Hunter Kay Says No WMD Stockpiles in Iraq,” by Tabassum Zakaria, Reuters, January 23, 2003; “Al Qaeda Hussein Link is Dismissed,” By Walter Pincus and Dana Millbank, Washington Post, June 17, 2004
4. “The National Security Strategy of the United States of America,” President George W. Bush, The White House, September 17, 2002; American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research
5. “Details released on war spending,” by Associated Press, Boston.com, from The Boston Globe, May 27, 2004
6. “Administration’s Budget Would Cut Heavily Into Many Areas of Domestic Discretionary Spending After 2005,” Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, Revised March 5, 2004
7. “The Opportunity Costs of the Iraq War,” Center for American Progress, August 25, 2004
8. “Fiscal Year 2004 Budget Request,” Center for Defense Information ; “Paying the Price: The Mounting Costs of the Iraq War: A Study by the Institute for Policy Studies and Foreign Policy in Focus,” June 24, 2004
9. Statement on Iraq, Most Reverend Wilton D. Gregory, President, United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, February 26, 2003; Statement of Cardinal Pio Laghi, Papal Envoy, After Meeting with President George Bush, March 5, 2003
10. Statement on Iraq, United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, Washington, D.C., November 13, 2002
11. Address of John Paul II to the Staff of the Italian TV Channel Telepace (TV Peace), March 22, 2003
12. Address of His Holiness Pope John Paul II to the Diplomatic Corps Accredited to the Holy See for the Traditional Exchange of New Year Greetings, January 12, 2004
13. “Forces: U.S. & Coalition/Casualties,” CNN.com ; Iraq Body Count
14. “Forces: U.S. & Coalition/Casualties,” CNN.com ; “ Iraq war’s human toll could be felt for decades,” Christian Science Monitor, October 1, 2003
15.“ U.S. force in Iraq to grow as Marine deployment pushed up,” USA Today, June 8, 2004
16. Seattle Post-Intelligencer, August 27, 2004 ; New England Journal of Medicine, July 1, 2004
17 & 18..“The Opportunity Costs of the Iraq War,” Center for American Progress and Project Billboard.org, August 25, 2004
19. “ Op-Chart, Safety Second,” by Michael Pan, Amanda Terkel, Robert Boorstin, P.J. Crowley and Nigel Holmes, The New York Times, August 8, 2004; “The Opportunity Costs of the Iraq War”
20 & 21. “Administration’s Budget Would Cut Heavily Into Many Areas of Domestic Discretionary Spending After 2005,” Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, Revised March 5, 2004
22. “Administration Memo Confirms Plans for Budget Cuts in Many Domestic Discretionary Programs in 2006,” Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, Revised June 1, 2004

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