Allan: Yes.
Mike: Thank you very much for your comment Mr. Ambassador Mike [IB]. I used to work in the Middle East in Department of [IB]
David: Huh? Huh? Ah, we got a couple of [interpose] good, good.
Mike: Number one, I agree with you 110% that the invasion of Iraq was one of the greatest [IB] in American history. [IB] at that time, most of us know it by now. I mean to say about the course, I mean our economy is suffering, suffering substantially, I think probably because the Bush administration managed to hide the cause. Now, I think we are coming to the real cause of this and the cause is the current economic situation among other things, so the question is can we afford to stay in Iraq, can we afford to stay in Afghanistan without having [IB] deeper economic recession possibility, question here?
David: Well, yeah. Good question. I’ve remember the- this is fairly early on the former chief economist of the world bank estimated the final cost would be 3 trillion dollars, of course, this all depends on what you count, you’re counting, but you’re counting the long-term care of all these hardly wounded soldiers and we tend only to think about 4 thousand are dead American military, there are close 20,000 wounded and many of these because of the nature of the war and the protection they had, many of these have brain injuries and so forth. And with all the other cost, you know, okay maybe it’s 2 trillion not 3 trillion. It’s still not pocket change that’s for sure. Iraq is gonna be a lot less expensive for us because the- I mean our development efforts and many other things we were paying for and now being paid for by the Iraqis. I don’t think the money is so important as the strain it puts on the arm forces especially on the army and the marine corps, the ground forces, and of course, to a significant degrees were drawing down in Iraq with these troops are going on to Afghanistan and one of the interesting things to me, I went to a two-day conference in Iran a couple of months back at the Marine Corps University. The degree to which the marine corps has taken ownership of Afghanistan, the marines think that Iraq is the armies war and the mar- and Afghanistan is gonna be their war. So, of course, the marine corps is much smaller than the army. There is also gonna be, of course, an extra cost because we’re talking about 30,000 more people in the army and I’ve got smaller number for the marine corps, but I think, you know, certainly the cost is significant but I think the strain on the military forces is even greater.
Mike: Thank you.