Pat Buchanan: Was the Iraq venture worth the cost?

...as 90 months of war in Iraq come to an end for America, what was won? And what was lost?

To stampede us into war, the neocons told us that Saddam was tied to al Qaeda and had a role in 9/11, that he had VX gas, botulism, mustard gas, sarin and anthrax, and was acquiring nuclear weapons. What further proof must you have, demanded Condi Rice, "a mushroom cloud over an American city"?

The truth. Saddam had no tie to al Qaeda, no role in 9/11, no chemical weapons, no biological weapons, no nuclear program.

We attacked a nation that did not attack us, did not threaten us and did not want war with us -- to strip it of weapons it did not have.

We were misled. We were deceived. We were lied to.

The cost: 4,400 dead, 35,000 wounded, $700 billion sunk.

"Much has changed since that night" we marched into Iraq, said President Obama. "A war to disarm a state became a fight against an insurgency. Terrorism and sectarian warfare threatened to tear Iraq apart. Thousands of Americans gave their lives. Tens of thousands have been wounded. Our relations abroad were strained. Our unity at home was tested."

Estimates of Iraqi war dead run from 70,000 to 100,000, which means hundreds of thousands of Iraqi widows and orphans. Christians have seen priests murdered, churches burned and half their number driven into exile. Four million Iraqis have left or lost their homes. Two million are in exile, as Baghdad has been cleansed of Sunnis. Al Qaeda was not in Iraq under Saddam. It is there now.

"Time to turn the page," said President Obama.

How does Iraq turn the page, as we retreat to secure bases and prepare to bring home the last 50,000 troops?

Terrorism has returned. Iraq's casualties are back up to where they were before the U.S. surge. Electricity is off much of the time. Six months after elections, no government exists. The Iraqi dead, wounded, widowed, orphaned, homeless and exiled are surely not better off.

What about those we leave behind? What happens to Iraqis who worked with us when we leave? How did our Vietnamese friends fare? What kind of future will Iraqis have, if civil and sectarian war return?

That our soldiers, Marines, diplomats and aid workers did their jobs bravely and honorably is understood by their countrymen -- and attested to by the fact the U.S. military is the most respected of our institutions.

But was the war worth it? Some 72 percent of Americans said in a recent CBS poll that it was not worth the price in U.S. war dead.

What does the secretary of defense think?

"It really requires a historian's perspective in terms of what happens here in the long run," says Robert Gates. "How it all weighs in the balance over time remains to be seen." A seven-year war, and our minister of defense cannot declare that it was all worth it.

Most casualties in Afghan war have occurred on Obama's watch

CNSNews.com) – A majority of all combat-related U.S. casualties in the nine-year-long war in Afghanistan have occurred since President Barack Obama was inaugurated a little more than 17 months ago.

Between Jan. 20, 2009 and July 2, 2010, according to CNSNews.com's database of Afghanistan war casualties, U.S. military personnel suffered 452 combat-related deaths in Afghanistan. That amounts to more than half of the total of 900 combat-related fatalities suffered by U.S. forces in Afghanistan during the entire nine years of the war.

To see a month-by-month chart of U.S. combat casualties in Afghanistan since October 2001 click here.

There have also been 40 non-combat related U.S. casualties in Afghanistan since Obama's inauguration, bringing the total U.S. casualties in the country to 492 during Obama's presidency. Non-combat fatalities include soldiers who have drowned or died from vehicle or other accidents.

Each of the top five deadliest months of the war, accounting for both combat and non-combat deaths, have taken place during Obama's term. Those five months were:

1. June 2010 (59 casualties).
2. October 2009 (58 casualties).
3. August 2009 (51 deaths)
4. July 2009 (43 deaths)
5. September 2009 (37 deaths)