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Categories: Budget Priorities, National Security, Media Accountability, Peace and Armed Conflict
John McCain defended his now infamous “100 years in Iraq” comments made at a town hall back in January, contending the Democrats are deliberately distorting his remarks. He explained today that those who say he wants to fight in Iraq for 100 years are making a “direct falsification” and apologized that campaigns “have to deteriorate in this fashion.”
At a New Hampshire event five months ago, McCain had an exchange with a voter about the war. “President Bush has talked about staying in Iraq for 50 years,” the man said before McCain interrupted. “Maybe a hundred… We’ve been in Japan for 60 years, we’ve been in South Korea 50 years or so, that’d be fine with me. As long as Americans are not being injured or harmed or wounded or killed, then it’s fine with me. I hope it would be fine with you if we maintain a presence in a very volatile part of the world where Al-Qaeda is training recruiting equipping and motivating people every single day,” McCain said.
Back in September, when President Bush first rolled out the Korea model of the permanent occupation of Iraq which Sen. McCain (R) has now embraced as his platform, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office did a study of what a 50 year 'Korea model' presence in Iraq would cost.
The study was done with highly conservative estimates, figuring a much smaller contingent of troops, and basically all the best case scenario numbers, including everything being basically chill over there like McCain says it'll be.
The CBO came up with an additional $2 trillion over 50 years.
