Libya war costs can stop UK benefit cuts

Source: Press TV
http://www.presstv.ir/detail/183329.html

The cost of nine weeks of war in Libya is equal to what the UK government had planned to save by imposing cuts to housing benefits that would force11,000 disabled people into homelessness, SWC claims.

Prime Minister David Cameron and his deputy Nick Clegg have continually been telling the British nationals that the country's financial crisis has resulted in the government's benefit cuts for the most deprived and vulnerable British citizens.

Following the imposed changes in the housing benefit to save £200 million, about 65,500 British citizens had to face an average weekly cut of £41. The Homeless Charity Crisis revealed that the cuts would make 11,000 disabled people homeless.

"We are deeply concerned that some of the disabled people affected by this will end up homeless, and in the worst cases rough-sleeping," Leslie Morphy, chief executive of Crisis, said.

The government had previously said there is no alternative to the benefit cuts, but Stop the War claims, “there is an obvious alternative to the cutting of housing benefit: stop waging war in Libya.

“We were told the cost of the war would be tens of millions, not hundreds, but the government admits that over £100 million has been spent already. It is anticipated that by October over £1 billion pounds will have been spent waging war on a country which poses no threat whatever to Britain.”

The UK government has already deployed four Apache attack helicopters, each costing £30 million pounds. By the first Apache attacks on 4 June, in which seven Hellfire missiles were fired, the UK government had to pay £427,000 that was enough to fund the housing benefit of all of those 11,000 disabled people who are facing the harsh cut plans.

Stop the War also said that the cost of the Apache Hellfire missiles “is in addition to the dozens of Tomahawk missiles (£500,000 each) and Storm Shadow missiles (£800,000 each) which have been fired in the past three months. These are fired from Tornado jets, which cost £35,000 an hour to keep in the air, or Typhoon jets, costing £70,000 an hour.”

“The cost of one Tomahawk missile would protect the housing benefit of 234 disabled people for a year. One Storm Shadow missile would fund another 375 people.”

Britain is interfering in its third war in a Muslim country in the past ten years. The Libya war, just like the former ones, was opposed by the British nationals.

This is while the coalition forces have considered the Libya war, which is in fact a “conventional act of imperialism” to control the oil industry of the country, as a humanitarian involvement to protect the Libyan people civilians.