President Obama should take troops out of Iraq

While unemployment and the nation's economic crisis were prominent topics at President Barack Obama's first State of the Union address last week, there's one issue that U.S citizens remain divided on--the Iraq War.

On one side, supporters of continued military action in Iraq believe the troop surge is working and the insurgents are being defeated. Additionally, they think that a continued U.S. presence is necessary to ensure the democratic governemtn in Iraq will continue.

However, I stand on the other side of the fence concerning this controversial topic for a number of reasons. First, no mass weapons of destruction were ever found. Second, more than 5,300 American service men and women have lost their lives in the conflict. Lastly, the cost of the war has now surpassed $700 billion.

In a speech delivered in Cincinnati on Oct. 7, 2002, former President George W. Bush stood before the nation and tried to rationalize a war with Iraq. In the speech, he said Saddam Hussein's Iraq "possesses and produces chemican and biological weapons: and "is seeking nuclear weapons."

Only two years later, after a CIA report concluded there were not any weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, Bush was forced to backtrack on his prior statment. He said, "There was a risk, a real risk, that Saddam Hussein would pass weapons or materials or information to terrorist networks, and in the world after September the 11th, that was a risk we could not afford to take."

That backtracking occurred in 2004, showing we shouldn't have gone to war with Iraq in the first place. Now, six years later, I am left to wonder why President Obama has yet to pull our troops out of a problem that is not ours to deal with.

As I previously mentioned, the sot of the war has now surpassed $700 billion. Taking that figure even further though, this diasaster is costing taxpaying citizens a whopping $20 million an hour. Taking it even one step further, the cost per second is $6,000.

With the country's unemployment at an allt-ime low and families struggling with the economic crisis, the money being spent on the war is valuable money we could be using to keep our own citizens afloat. As a world power, it is understandable to want to help those in need around the world. yet, when we can't even help our own citizens in a time of need, how does it make sense to give so much of our money to a country half way around the world?

With all this said, it's time for President Obama to stick to some of his campaign promises and quickly get our U.S. soldiers out of Iraq. We have spent too much time and money fighting a war that was justified for the wrong reasons. If he doesn't, I fear thousands of soldiers will continue to die and our deficit will continue to grow, things our country just can't deal with right now.