The Cost of War
Two important stories have appeared recently about the impact of the war in Iraq. "Spy Agencies Say Iraq War Worsens Terror Threat" by Mark Mazzetti in Sunday's New York Times reveals that U.S. intelligence officials have concluded that the Iraq war has made the threat of terrorism worse. Mazzetti uses tenacious sourcing to confirm the existence of this top-secret intelligence assessment, which contradicts the Bush administration's public statements about the war's effect. He keeps his sources anonymous because the assessment is confidential -- do you think he's justified in doing so?
Michael Fabey of Aerospace Daily & Defense Report takes a different kind of look at the war's impact with "Ground Operations Costs Taking Toll on Other DOD Accounts, Analysis Shows." Fabey details how the ground wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have drained money away from weapons modernization programs. To report this story, Fabey analyzed 1.5 million contracts and other DOD documents obtained from the National Institute of Computer-Assisted Reporting. I learned about Fabey's story from Investigative Reporters & Editors.