Five years ago tonight, March 19, 2003, the United States began to bomb Iraq in a preemptive campaign that Bush administration officials dubbed ``shock and awe.''
At the time, the price of oil was about $36 a barrel and gasoline cost about $1.65 a gallon.
The purpose of the attack allegedly was to locate ``weapons of mass destruction'' that President Bush said the Iraqi government had.
During the next few weeks, the bombing accelerated, a ground attack began and the Iraqi army dispersed before the onslaught.
In May 2003, about two months later, Bush landed on the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln to declare ``mission accomplished.'' By the end of the year, Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, a notorious satrap, was captured; he would later be hanged after being convicted in Iraqi courts.
Vice President Cheney said the war and its aftermath would cost Americans little, as the Iraqis, sitting on one of the largest supplies of oil in the world, would be able to finance their own reconstruction.
Five years later, the Iraqi war and occupation continue, with about 160,000 American troops stationed there. The price of oil is more than $100 a barrel and gas is approaching $3.50 a gallon locally.
No weapons of mass destruction were found.
Nearly 4,000 American soldiers have died in Iraq, and the worst year so far was 2007, when at least 852 soldiers died, according to the Washington Post.
Thousands more American soldiers have been wounded, and the death toll of Iraqis is conservatively pegged in the hundreds of thousands.
The war has cost at least $500 billion so far, and according to a report published by the Los Angeles Times, it will ``easily reach $3 trillion in today's money'' if the U.S. Army is withdrawn next year.
With the greenback losing value fast, that number is likely to climb. And any troop withdrawal is unlikely to be planned before 2009, after Bush leaves office.
Cynthia Benjamin of Garrattsville said there are so many reasons to try to stop the war that she doesn't know where to begin.
``It's ruining lives, our economy, our reputation in the world,'' she said.
Benjamin's son Capt. Jesse Greaves served 14 months in Iraq. He's in Germany now and is likely to go back to Iraq, she said Monday.
She doesn't want him to go, and so she protests the war often from the streets of upstate New York to the U.S. Capitol. Benjamin has been arrested for crossing a picket line, but she doesn't rule out another arrest if it will somehow show her fellow citizens the desperate state the nation is in.
``I'm just trying to get through to people,'' she said.
Sandy Twang of New Berlin said war ravaged her family when she was growing up, and it's doing the same thing to other families now. The logic of the war's backers _ that it's better to fight over there than here _ makes little sense, she said.
``The war does come home,'' said Twang, who has a ``Stop the War'' sign in her yard.
A recent poll by the Wall Street Journal and NBC News indicated that 53 percent of Americans want to withdraw most troops by the end of next year. About 42 percent don't want to withdraw that quickly and 5 percent are undecided.
Anthony Casale of Cooperstown, a delegate for Republican presidential candidate John McCain, cautioned against leaving Iraq until it is stabilized. Conditions there are improving since the U.S. sent more troops in last year in an operation known as the surge, he said.
``I think it's clear the surge is working,'' Casale said, and to pull out precipitously would be to waste a tremendous effort on the part of the nation and its soldiers.
Norwich Police Chief Joseph Angelino was injured twice during his last tour of duty in Iraq, from 2003-05.
Angelino, a first lieutenant with the Marines, said, ``We can't pull out now; there would be no stability at all in that country.''
He said he expected the war to last as long as it has, despite the rosy predictions from some at the start.
Tex Seamon, director of Otsego County's Veterans Service Agency, said the war is exacting a toll on its surviving soldiers.
``The big thing I'm seeing is all the guys with PTSD,'' Seamon said.
Post-traumatic stress disorder is a condition caused by seeing or experiencing traumatic events, and it can cause recurring, serious anxiety attacks. Soldiers from every war often need professional counseling as they readjust to civilian life, he said.
Michael Whaling of Sharon Springs, a war critic, said Washington should begin a phased withdrawal of troops from Iraq to show the Iraqi government the Americans won't stay and die there forever.
``We have to show the Iraqi government that we're serious about leaving,'' he said.
``Then I think we should send Bush and Cheney to (U.N. tribunal) The Hague to be tried for war crimes because there was only one reason for this war,'' Whaling said. ``Oil.''
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