(NSI News Source Info) March 10, 2009: Financial, logistical and political costs of leaving expected to be high. Measured in blood, the price tag in Iraq is absolute: 4,238 Americans have died during America's six-year war. For Iraqis, the toll is far greater.
One of the many large U.S. military bases in Iraq, Forward Operating Base Remagen is seen in a photo relased by the U.S. military in March 2006.
Icasualties.org, which tracks body counts reported by the media, notes nearly 45,000 civilians have been killed since Iraq's Shiite-led government was formed in April 2005; another Web site puts the tally since 2003 close to 100,000.
Yet as the Pentagon prepares its exit strategy in line with President Barack Obama's announced plans to end the war by 2012, a wholly different calculus is emerging. With the end of combat rhetorically on the horizon, the cost of leaving is now measured in financial, logistical and, above all, political terms.
Obama told Marines at Camp Lejeune, N.C., that while the United States would leave Iraq "sovereign, stable and self-reliant," the price of staying had become too great. "What we will not do is let the pursuit of the perfect stand in the way of achievable goals," the president said. "We cannot sustain indefinitely a commitment that has put a strain on our military and will cost the American people nearly a trillion dollars."
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