Rep. Jim McDermott: Bad Politics and ADD

By Matt Singleton | Monday, May 12, 2003

In search of a logical, coherent argument for the anti-war cause, a reasonable Dartmouth student might have attended the Rockefeller Center lecture 'The True Costs of War in Iraq.' Jim McDermott, a Democratic House Representative and psychiatrist from Washington state, was the featured speaker that claimed to have all the answers.After all, he witnessed Iraq first-hand when he visited shortly before the war commenced. Hopes for a convincing speech quickly faded as Lynn Mather of the Government Department introduced Rep. McDermott, emphasizing his notoriety for 'embarrassing people in high places.' The tone was already set for a lecture of name-calling and finger pointing, not one of solutions and alternatives.

Rep. McDermott began by addressing the approach by which the United States government goes about its decision making processes. One was saddened to find that decisions are always made in the context of the impact they will have on our relative position to present enemies, with little consideration for anything else. Through a brief history of the past fifteen years and a series of unfounded connections, he arrived at the conclusion that the United States has been searching for and has found the enemy it lost at the fall of the Berlin Wall—Iraq. Without an enemy, we cannot define our foreign policy. The September 11 attacks gave Americans the affirmation they needed to select their new Middle Eastern enemy, and although no reason was given, President Bush was labeled by Rep. McDermott as the 'most untrained President we have ever had in office.' At about fifteen minutes into the speech, the advertised topic—the true cost of war—had yet to be mentioned.

Of course this would not be a first-rate lecture if it did not involve a conspiracy theory or two. Rep. McDermott claimed that President Bush's advisors had this all planned fifteen to twenty years ago; they knew they would have to assume a new role in the world and assert our dominance. Before you could say 'Monica Lewinsky,' he launched into an oration against our oppressive, fear-instilling government. Taken out of context, one might have thought he was referring to Stalinist Russia. The Democrats had been 'paralyzed' by the shock of September 11 and could do nothing to prevent the evil, power-hungry Republicans from taking charge. Of course the Democrats were the only ones in shock. Due to President Bush's scare tactics, the American public was prevented from fighting back against these oppressive measures. 'We haven't seen a propaganda campaign like this since 1938,' claimed Rep. McDermott, likening President Bush's public relations to those of the Third Reich. McDermott also mentioned an editorial that he had written called 'Rule by Fear' that was not accepted by any paper to which he had submitted it. If his speech was any indication, the newspapers probably did not print it because they did not want to be held accountable for libel. Of course, being a psychologist, his rationalization was, 'nobody wants to lay out how you can be manipulated.' Twenty-five minutes and still no mention of the cost of war.

All of this alone led to the preemptive strikes on Iraq led by the United States. We were the only country to violate U.N. resolutions—bringing unparalleled shame upon our nation. Of course, Clinton's invasion of Bosnia without U.N. approval was not mentioned, nor was a single one of the numerous Iraqi U.N violations. Despite Saddam's tyrannical reign in Iraq, President Bush was still vilified by McDermott, even though he refrains from killing, torturing, and starving his own people. In yet another unfounded outburst of intelligence, McDermott also concluded we could have dealt with the army of Saddam without regime change—although no alternative was offered. He then made the astute observation that 'President Bush would mislead us into war [because he wanted it so bad].'

With about ten minutes left, Rep. McDermott finally decided to address the matter at hand: the cost of the war. While economic estimates may vary, Rep. McDermott claimed that a restructuring on the basis of oil revenues would not free Iraq from the financial burden it potentially faces. According to his numbers, Iraq would be hard pressed to gain more than twenty billon dollars from oil revenues and would still have overhead costs of an additional eleven billion dollars per year to run the government, and ten billion dollars in loans to pay off—excluding reparations to Kuwait and Iran. Other estimates reported in the Wall Street Journal tell a different story. The Iraqi economy would not have to support Saddam Hussein and all he required—a huge military and other institutions of repression and terrorism. Its economy would also be strengthened by the production of three million barrels of oil per day, a modest estimate by most accounts, under which yearly revenues would be around twenty-three billion dollars and even more if production climbs to five million barrels a day. Within a relatively short time span, the Iraqi economy could recover.

The cost of the war, according to Rep. McDermott, is so imposing that we will be paying the debts over a period of multiple generations. While his estimate of seventy-five billion dollars seems rather steep, it is only one percent of the U.S. GDP and compared to wars like the Korean War and World War II which accounted for fifteen percent and one hundred thirty percent of the GDP, respectively, the cost seems miniscule in comparison. Not to mention, if oil prices drop to the expected average in the low twenty dollars per barrel, the U.S. economy will get a boost of fifty-five billion dollars to sixty billion dollars a year. And most of all, a more stable and peaceful Middle East is a benefit that one can not begin to quantify monetarily.

What would the cost of the alternative to war be? Would it not be cheaper, as Rep. McDermott would have us believe? According to Steven Davis, Kevin Murphy, and Robert Topel at the University of Chicago Business School, the direct cost of containment (only including troops and equipment) would run an estimated thirteen billion dollars a year for thirty-three-odd years, assuming absolute compliance by Saddam; failing that, the estimate then skyrockets to nineteen billion dollars a year. Discounted to present value, containment would run somewhere in the ballpark of three hundred eighty billion dollars.

The already disjointed discussion degenerated quickly into other political matters regarding Medicaid and even the topic of educational debts. Rep. McDermott's ultimate conclusion was, 'We are addicted to oil,' a rather lackluster conclusion in light of his hyped-up introduction. Expecting to hear a well thought-out argument, even the almost exclusively liberal audience let their disappointment be known through a series of sharp-tongued comments and questions. While he excelled at appealing to people's emotional side, Rep. McDermott's arguments were, at best, weakly supported. Peace, stability, and a diminished threat from terrorism and terrorist-supporting states seems like a bargain at one percent of GDP.

Rep. Jim McDermott: Bad Politics and ADD

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