March 20, 2013 4:44PM # Was the Iraq War Worth It? By [Christopher A. Preble](https://www.cato.org/people/christopher-preble) --- SHARE That’s the [question](http://www.usnews.com/debate-club/10-years-later-was-the-iraq-war-worth-it) posed by *US News and World Report*’s “Debate Club” today. Here’s the opening to [my response](http://www.usnews.com/debate-club/10-years-later-was-the-iraq-war-worth-it/the-iraq-war-was-no-cakewalk). > Tragically, the Iraq War was not worth the costs. The leading advocates for war understated the costs and exaggerated the benefits. They claimed that the war would be cheap, perhaps even profitable, thanks to lower oil prices. They suggested that it would be easy, a “cakewalk,” not requiring a long-term U.S presence to stabilize the country after Saddam Hussein’s ouster. They blithely dismissed concerns about the tensions between Arabs and Kurds, and between Sunnis and Shiites. > > > We now know how wrong they were. A new report from the Watson Institute for International Studies at BrownUniversity tallies up the costs: nearly 4,500 U.S. troop fatalities, more than $1.7 trillion spent, and another $490 billion owed. Estimates of the number of Iraqis killed in the sectarian bloodletting that occurred after the collapse of Saddam’s regime exceed 130,000. Millions were displaced, many still have not returned to their homes. The Iraqi Christian community has been decimated. You can read the rest [here](http://www.usnews.com/debate-club/10-years-later-was-the-iraq-war-worth-it/the-iraq-war-was-no-cakewalk) and vote for the best argument. ##### Related Tags [Defense and Foreign Policy](https://www.cato.org/defense-foreign-policy) [![Creative Commons License](/build/cato_2020/images/creative-commons.svg)](http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/) This work is licensed under a [Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/).