atrios points out how the bush administration assured the american public last april that american taxpayers would not have to pay more than $1.7 billion to rebuild iraq. what interesting is that back then the administration specifically rejected an analogy to the marshall plan, which costed u.s. taxpayers $97 billion (what the marshall plan would be in modern dollars). now that the administration wants us to pony up $87 billion (for starters, i don't think anyone believes this will be the last and final payment), marshall plan analogies are back in vogue.
why the difference? back in april, the war was just starting, and the administration was still assuring us that it would be cheap. the marshall plan meant a long-term financial commitment which was contrary to the easy-in, easy-out tale that bush was trying to sell.
but now things have changed. we are in iraq, and will probably be mired there until it becomes a stable country. so now bush is pushing us to buy our way out. they pretend that they never told us it would be easy or cheap to get out of iraq and ignore the fact that one major reason why it will be so expensive is that we have alienated our allies by pushing ahead with this globally unpopular war they will not help share the costs of rebuilding. once the american public has accepted that rebuilding iraq is a long-term commitment that for the most part we will have to bear, the marshall plan analogy becomes much more favorable to the bushies. after all, the marshall plan was ultimately a success and, most people would agree, was worth the substantial investment by american taxpayers. now that bush is no longer pretending that we won't foot the bulk of the bill he wants to convince us it will work out well and will ultimately be worth it.
