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GUESTS: Raed Jarrar, Iraq, Consultant for the American Friend’s Service Committee, and Noah Merril, of the Electronic News and Analysis Website.

According to the American Friends Service Committee, the cost of the Iraq war is $720 million, daily. The figure, which can be broken down to half a million dollars spent per minute, was displayed on banners in cities nationwide last Thursday and Friday. Included in the banner campaign was where the money being spent on the Iraq War could have gone in terms of funding health care and schools. And while the American Friends Service Committee hopes that the monetary estimates will help people turn against the war, Frederick Kagan of the American Enterprise Institute deemed them “absurd,” and “irrelevant.” The Bush Administration is reportedly seeking to increase the war budget for Iraq and Afghanistan to nearly 200 billion dollars in the 2008 fiscal year. And as the costs of the Iraq war continue to rise, so too do the human costs. According to the U.N. High Commission for Refugees, Iraqis seeking asylum in industrialized countries have increased 100% in during the first half of 2007. The UNHCR estimates that 2.2 million Iraqi’s are outside of their homeland. The bulk of refugees have relocated to neighboring countries. U.N. statistics note a million and a half Iraqis are living in Syria – while another 750,000 are in Jordan. To compare: the United States, which has the most troops on the ground in Iraq, has accepted less than a thousand Iraqis seeking asylum this year.

Raed Jarrar and Noah Merril will be speaking on:
September 24th, 7 p.m.
Immanuel Presbyterian Church
3300 Wilshire Blvd. Los Angeles, Ca 90010