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January 25, 2005
$80 Billion

The Bush administration is asking for another $80 billion for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan this year, bringing the grand total to over $280 billion.

To put that in a bit of perspective, that's almost half what we spent on World War I ($613 bln) or Vietnam ($623 bln), in today's dollars.

Or, to put it another way, it's enough money to fully fund worldwide AIDS programs for 30 years.

How about this one: Enough to give every child on earth basic immunizations for almost 100 years.

(roughly extrapolated from the National Priorities Project's Cost of War.)

The forthcoming request underscored how the war spending has clearly exceeded initial White House estimates. Early on, then-presidential economic adviser Lawrence Lindsey placed Iraq costs of $100 billion to $200 billion, only to see his comments derided by administration colleagues.

ABC7 News Denver

Note that, at the time, they were not deriding Lindsey's estimates because they were too low. They insisted, in fact, that they were far too high and insisted that the war would be basically free, not to mention a whole hell of a lot of fun.

One interesting item: an estimated 1.5 BILLION DOLLARS to build the U.S. embassy in Baghdad. Yes, you read that right. In their defense, this very well may incorporate the cost of rebuilding the embassy every couple of months after someone blows it up. And I hear they'll have a foosball table.

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