The Three Trillion Dollar War

A salon article/book review reveals the actual cost of our war of choice in Iraq. If you'd like to get angry today, be sure and check out the article.

"To put Stiglitz and Bilmes' $3 trillion in perspective, it's worth comparing it to the cost estimates Bush officials bandied about before the war began. The authors present a damning "Nightline" transcript in which one official, Andrew Natsios, blandly told Ted Koppel that Iraq could be completely reconstructed for only $1.7 billion. (With the war now costing $12.5 billion a month, Natsios' estimate would have been accurate if he had stipulated that it would pay for four days' worth of reconstruction. Which, considering the delusional nature of most of the Bush administration's pre-invasion estimates, may have been how long it thought it would take to rebuild the country.) Other officials settled on a figure of $50 billion to $60 billion. Larry Lindsey, Bush's economic advisor, went way out on a limb, suggesting that the war might cost $200 billion -- a figure derided by then-Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld as 'baloney.'"