Paying for Iraq: You break it, you buy it

Sunday, September 21, 2003 - Page updated at 12:00 A.M.
Leonard Pitts Jr. / Syndicated columnist

It's not as if one is ever particularly eager to spend $87 billion. After all, $87 billion is, to use the technical term favored by those who move in the world of high finance, a whole bunch of money.

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KEY QUOTES:

"Truth is, many Americans were so hot for war that we hardly seemed to need a reason. So hot, in fact, that we could scarcely tolerate anyone who wasn't. To raise a question about what we were doing, much less risk a criticism of it, was deemed by some a treasonable offense."

"Now, the bill comes due. It finds the president seemingly caught off guard and the people balking, even though the cost was eminently predictable. Like it says on the sign in the five and dime: You break it, you buy it. We broke a lot of stuff in Iraq."

"Unfortunately, no one seems to have thought about what would happen once the breaking was done."

"We find ourselves trapped in a paradox of our own making. We can't afford to rebuild Iraq. And we can't afford not to."