The end of the Iraq War?

Some extracts from Jim Wallis' article (an article that's worth reading in full) on the end of the Iraqi War - as far as the US's involvement in it is concerned.

The war in Iraq was fundamentally a war of choice, and it was the wrong choice.

From the outset, this war was fought on false pretenses, with false information, and for false purposes. And the official decisions to argue for this war and then carry it out were made at the height of political and moral irresponsibility — especially when we see the failed results and consider both the human and financial costs.

This week, U.S. Rep. Walter Jones, a nine-term Republican from eastern North Carolina and long-time member of the House Armed Services Committee....called his decision to give President George W. Bush the authority to go to war in Iraq “a sin.”   

Jones has had a change of heart towards the War through having personal encounters with families who lost their precious loved ones, and by the convictions of his own Christian faith.  He says 'we were lied to and “misled” into war by the “previous administration.”

Wallis lists some of the costs of this unjust war:
* 4,499 U.S. military killed
* 32,200 wounded
* 110,000 estimated Iraqi civilian deaths
* 2.5 million internally displaced Iraqis
* $800 billion in federal funding for the Iraq War through FY2011
* An estimated $3-5 trillion total economic cost to the United States of the war in Iraq.
* As many as 300,000 U.S. troops returning from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan with post-traumatic stress disorder.
* 320,000 troops returning from Afghanistan and Iraq with traumatic brain injuries
* The number of suicide attempts by veterans could exceed an earlier official estimate of 1,000 a month.

Wallis adds: Such a list takes my breath away and should drive each of us to pray for lives that have been so painfully and irreparably changed.

And note that for every US soldier killed, nearly 25 Iraqi civilians were killed.   Admittedly, there has been much internal bloodshed, not entirely related to the War.