How Much?

How much is the war in Iraq costing us?
Estimates of financial impact are debatable, but several studies have tried

"Using a “top-down” calculation based on U.S. budget appropriations, the group estimates the total money spent or allocated comes to about $255 million per day, or a little less than $1.8 billion a week. That figure includes both military and non-military spending on things like reconstruction.

Other estimates cast a wider net in their definition of total costs — including things like the loss of life. Insurance companies and juries in wrongful death cases inevitably come up with a dollar figure, but any number used to represent the financial loss resulting from the death of more than 3,000 soldiers is only and estimate the true economic impact. Such estimates also include the short- and long-term cost of caring for the tens of thousands of those disabled in combat.

Then there are future costs that don’t show up in current appropriations, like the money needed to replace equipment that's wearing out faster that it would if wasn’t being used in combat. And, since the government is running deficits — and borrowing to make up the difference — at least some of the interest on the national debt has to be added to the Iraq war bill.

If you add these costs, and others, to the total tab, the cost of the war has jumped from $4.4 billion to $7.1 billion a month since the 2003 fiscal year, according to a paper co-authored in January by Columbia University professor and Nobel-prize winning economist Joseph Stiglitz, an outspoken critic of the war. The paper estimates the total cost could top $1 trillion."

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Don't forget, the oil was going to pay for it and it wasn't even going to cost a Billion in the first place.

Whatever.