The Australian:
IRAQ WAR 'CAUSED SLOWDOWN IN THE US'
THE Iraq war has cost the US 50-60 times more than the Bush administration predicted and was a central cause of the sub-prime banking crisis threatening the world economy, according to Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz.
The former World Bank vice-president yesterday said the war had, so far, cost the US something like $US3trillion ($3.3 trillion) compared with the $US50-$US60-billion predicted in 2003......
....The war was now the second-most expensive in US history after World War II and the second-longest after Vietnam, he said.
The spending on Iraq was a hidden cause of the current credit crunch because the US central bank responded to the massive financial drain of the war by flooding the American economy with cheap credit....
Just like the Bush administration tried to stop a recent story from airing on 60 Minutes, the White House has worked to keep the truth about the war and so many other things from the American public. Since Republican presidential candidate John McCain has been in lockstep with President Bush, would a McCain administration continue this secrecy and control of the media?