The real numbers start to come out. This report is dated today.
http://www.thestateonline.net/np_pdf/costofwar.pdf"This analysis concludes that if Congress approves the 2004 supplemental the President
has submitted, and does not spend any new money on Iraq after 2004, the cost to the United
States, including interest on the public debt, will reach $178 billion over the next decade. This
includes only the cost of operations in Iraq, and excludes all estimated costs from the 2003 and
2004 supplementals related to Afghanistan. Last fall, the Democratic staff of the House Budget
Committee released an analysis concluding that the cost of a war in Iraq, including interest on the
public debt, would probably reach $100 billion and could rise to $200 billion. This is likely to
prove a conservative estimate of the total costs.
Under a reasonable set of assumptions, the cost of our operations in Iraq will reach $237
billion and could reach $418 billion over the next 10 years. Because there is no proposal to offset
or pay for the war or the post-war effort, it has to be assumed that the cost will increase the deficit
and the national debt."