Are the numbers on CostOfWar.com correct?

[WilliamPitt]

The website says we've spent over $86 billion in Iraq. These numbers, based on the CBO, can't be right, as Bush asked for and got $87 billion from Congress not long ago. Does anyone have actual numbers for the cost of war in Iraq, with links to support the data? Many thanks in advance.

[nadinbrzezinski]

1. William those numbers as in 86B are before

the suplemental bill. They are not taking into account
the new bill

The cost of teh war is four billion a month, average.

[papau]

2. $166 billion spent or requested

http://www.strike-the-root.com/blog/archives/000158.html

http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn?pagename=article&node=&contentId=A45117-2003Sep8¬Found=true

<snip>Bush's $87 billion figure is the largest emergency spending request since the opening months of World War II, according to Pat Towell, a defense fellow at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments. The emergency spending act that followed the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, and the launching of the war in Afghanistan totaled $20 billion.

To put it in perspective, Bush hopes to spend more in Iraq and Afghanistan than all 50 states say they need -- $78 billion -- to finance the budget shortfalls they anticipate for 2004.

The request is higher than the $74 billion the Defense Department plans to spend on all new weapons purchases next year, and higher than the $29.5 billion the Education Department hopes to spend on elementary and secondary education plus the $41.3 billion the administration plans to spend to defend the homeland.

With $166 billion spent or requested, Bush's war spending in 2003 and 2004 already exceeds the inflation-adjusted costs of the Revolutionary War, the War of 1812, the Mexican War, the Civil War, the Spanish American War and the Persian Gulf War combined, according to a study by Yale University economist William D. Nordhaus. The Iraq war approaches the $191 billion inflation-adjusted cost of World War I.

Many lawmakers say Bush's 2004 request is only the starting point. Rep. David R. Obey (Wis.), the ranking Democrat on the House Appropriations Committee, predicted the administration will seek still more money once this installment is secured. For their part, Democrats will try to tack on billions more to finance what they see as insufficient funding for homeland security, local police and fire departments and other "first responders."