The war with Iraq will kill the American economy

The USA’s possible actions against Iraq could affect the American economy, as some politicians, diplomats, and other experts believe. The USA will have to provide the majority of costs and will experience the negative influence of a possible growth in oil prices, as well as other negative consequences.

The Gulf War cost America $60 billion, and it led to the acceleration of the economic recession, which partially started because of the sudden raise of oil prices. America's allies provided about 80% of the costs back in those years, but, now, the USA will have to pay for everything alone.

The government will have to spend billions of dollars each month against the background of unstable economic recovery after the setback of the past year and the growth of the budgetary deficit. New costs will result in the further growth of the deficit or in the reduction of back-up programs in the country.

Furthermore, military actions might show the negative influence on consumer and investors' optimism, which isn't all that high, by the way. If there oil reserves are destroyed, then the growth of oil prices will affect the whole world. All these details are likely to create a rather difficult situation for President Bush, who plans to participate in the 2004 elections.

There is the big wish to raise the authority of the American administration with the help of a successful military campaign, but this is really a difficult goal to accomplish. Everybody realizes the political and economic motives of the new war; however, there is no universal approval of it. There is only one country in the world the unconditionally supports America’s plans: Great Britain. The rest of the world is neutral. Swedish diplomat Rolf Ekeus was the first to publicly accuse the USA of manipulating its own political goals. The diplomat said in an interview to a Swedish radio station that the USA was digging up information about the organization of Iraqi security services, trying to find out where Saddam Hussein is. Ekeus added that the USA and other countries wanted to make themselves sure that Iraq is not producing mass destruction weapon, but this goal has changed.

The USA is no longer in need of international observers: they are now bad for America, since they can easily prove the absurdity of the USA’s accusations against Iraq. Well, we will see what happens.

Dmitry Chirkin PRAVDA.Ru

Translated by Dmitry Sudakov