"Nobody anticipated the breaking of the budget"

"Jesus made me do it."

With the expected passage this spring of the largest emergency spending bill in history, annual war expenditures in Iraq will have nearly doubled since the U.S. invasion, as the military confronts the rapidly escalating cost of repairing, rebuilding and replacing equipment chewed up by three years of combat.

The cost of the war in U.S. fatalities has declined this year, but the cost in treasure continues to rise, from $48 billion in 2003 to $59 billion in 2004 to $81 billion in 2005 to an anticipated $94 billion in 2006, according to the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments. The U.S. government is now spending nearly $10 billion a month in Iraq and Afghanistan, up from $8.2 billion a year ago, a new Congressional Research Service report found.

Annual war costs in Iraq are easily outpacing the $61 billion a year that the United States spent in Vietnam between 1964 and 1972, in today's dollars.

And yet we have about one-quarter to one-third the number of troops that we had in Vietnam (plus a much as they underperformed the South Vietnamese military [which we funded] looks like a frickin' juggernaut in comparison to Iraqs)

Well, at least the Bush Administration displayed its stunning sense of accuracy by predicting the war wouldn't cost much...for just one example,

Rummy:

“Well, the Office of Management and Budget, has come up come up with a number that's something under $50 billion for the cost. How much of that would be the U.S. burden, and how much would be other countries, is an open question.” 1/19/2003

&

“I don’t know that there is much reconstruction to do.” - 4/11/2003