US Poll: 75% of Americans Say Iraq Invasion Not Worth the Costs

Local Editor

A record of 75 percent of Americans think the Iraq invasion was not worth the costs, according to a new CBS/New York Times poll released on Monday.

According to a new CBS/New York Times poll that asked if the costs of the Iraq invasion, including monetary and loss of American lives, were worth it, a record of 75 percent of those surveyed said that it was not worth the costs.

This was in contrast to 18 percent of Americans said they think the Iraq invasion was worth the costs.

The results went up from 67 percent [just before the withdrawal of US troops] in November 2011, and 45 percent five months after the invasion began in August 2003.

"Our 2003 invasion of Iraq should be a warning that military force sometimes transforms a genuine problem into something worse. The war claimed 4,500 American lives and, according to a mortality study published in a peer-reviewed American journal, 500,000 Iraqi lives," Nicholas Kristoff wrote in a New York Times op-ed.

"Linda Bilmes, a Harvard expert in public finance, tells me that her latest estimate is that the total cost to the United States of the Iraq war will be $4 trillion," he added.

Moreover, the survey released on Monday found that 63 percent of Republicans and 79 percent each of independents and Democrats did not think the war was worth the cost.

Sources: News Agencies, Edited by website team