mission accomplished, but it wasn t. the mission was soon parked by scandal and revelations of prisoner abuse at abu ghraib grab. saddam hussein was eventually found in a spider hole. and in 2006, the dictator was hanged. a year later the u.s. sent 30,000 surge troops to halt a civil war. at the height, 170,000 troops served across the country. now two bases left and 4,000 troops. the war cost to the taxpayer nearly $1 trillion. we came in the war divide and we re coming out of it.
your dedication, your commitment to this mission, has been the driving force behind the remarkable progress that we ve seen here in baghdad and across this country. well, the war was initially justified for some as an effort to rid iraq of weapons of mass destruction. i never believed all these cases, anyway, which of course the country didn t possess in the first place. about 4,500 americans gave their lives in that effort over there. an additional 32,000 were wounded. the war cost nearly $1 trillion for us. to this day, it s impossible to look at these numbers and not ask the simple question, was it worth it? was it the right war to fight? kimberly dozier covered the war for cbs news. she was severely wounded by a car bomb, an experience she writes about in her book, breathing the fire: fighting to survive and get back to the fight. she now covers the intelligence community for the associated press. and bob herbert is a distinguished senior fellow at demos. he was a longtime colu
thing. cnn newsroom continues right now with randi kaye. hi there, suzanne. thank you. well, three major stories on the radar this hour. starting with a major hurricane. category 3 irene batters the bahamas and eyes the carolinas. chad myers is watching that. a hostage ordeal is over in tripoli, but the fighting goes on, and moammar gadhafi still out of sight. and washington surveys the damage from the earthquake that shook the east coast almost 24 hours ago. i want to start with a huge and still growing hurricane irene. chad myers is watching it all for us. what s it doing now, chad? and exactly where might it be headed? well, it s headed to the bahamas. and right now, if you want to get a map, it s right over crooked island in the bahamas. and later on it ll be going over long island at the bahamas. the irony is that there s the potential, at least in the cone that in four days it could go over long island, new york. right now at 115 miles per hour forecast to get
where a politician tries to make both sides happy and finds himself in a cross fire. if you look at the headlines from the new york times, the washington post and the editorial, it s where the president finds himself this morning. yes, but i think politics moved on this. talking to white house officials they have found a balanced course here. the president certainly pushed back hard against the military. they wanted to protect gains that they described as fragile. didn t want to draw down this fast but at the same time, if you look at what the president is feeling on the political left and the cross currents in the republican party now about where they should be going as a party in terms of getting out of afghanistan, the driving force the tea party and republican party thinking about not just war fatigue, but war cost. redefining the mission with a smaller scope, really focusing
state legislature in this case. you negotiate it. many, many unions have given up parts of their pensions across the country. you re absolutely right. some of the pension systems are breaking municipalities, counties all over the country. a lot of unions have given back. it s similar situation that we face with entitlements. we have on the municipal level we have huge pension plans and in washington we have entit entitleme entitlements, neither of which are sustainable. the great national governmental question is how do we come together to deal with this problem? i just saw mr. ryan talk about spending 20 years ago. and what it was and how we ve raised everything compared to 20 years ago. what really raised things really were in the bush administration. that s where the spending increased to unsustainable levels. if you start being, again, a historical, and not saying, hey, this war cost us and looking at what really happened and trying to find a way to factually deal