Assembly Majority Leader Watson Coleman: NJ National Guard Should Be Sent To California, Not Iraq

WATSON COLEMAN: NJ NATIONAL GUARD SHOULD BE SENT TO CALIFORNIA, NOT IRAQ

(TRENTON) - Assembly Majority Leader Bonnie Watson Coleman today assailed President Bush's planned deployment of New Jersey Army National Guard troops in the Iraq next summer, calling it an expensive diversion of public resources that could be better used to address unanticipated emergencies here in the United States.

Watson Coleman (D-Mercer) criticized Bush's war agenda as the Congressional Budget Office in Washington issued a new report that places the Iraq War costs at $1.9 trillion - a price tag that amounts to roughly $6,300 per every man, woman, and child in the country.  When the Afghanistan troop costs are added into the mix, the total war costs amount to $2.4 trillion, or roughly $8,000 a person.

"The numbers show that the Bush Administration's priorities are completely skewed," said Watson Coleman.  "We are wasting trillions of dollars overseas while at the same time compromising our nation's own ability to respond to crises right here in the United States.  We shouldn't be sending National Guard troops to Iraq; we should be sending them to California where wildfires have displaced nearly a million of our fellow American citizens."

Watson Coleman said Bush's Iraq obsession is costing America more than young lives; it's depriving states of resources that might better be used to handle weather emergencies like hurricanes, floods, and wildfires or to help American citizens in need.

The Assemblywoman noted that New Jersey's taxpayers already are up the creek for over $21 billion worth of the costs for the Iraq War, according to the National Priorities Project.  Watson Coleman said that if New Jersey could have used the money differently, it would have paid for 190,000 units of additional housing, or 366,000 additional public school teachers, or 12 million one-year health insurance policies for children, or 1 million scholarships for four-year public colleges.

"The fires in California are out of control and Bush's spending in Iraq is out of control," said Watson Coleman.

The Assemblywoman further lashed out at Bush for stubbornly adhering to a "see-no-global-warming" policy position for too long when mounting scientific evidence pointed to changing climate patterns caused by increased greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.  Watson Coleman charged that the short-sighted Bush environmental policies were a contributing factor to the horrendous fires now sweeping across Southern California.

"Nero's no longer fiddling while Rome burns, he's spending and spending taxpayer money in Iraq while Southern California burns," said Watson Coleman.

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