$144 Billion: Cost of Iraq War...So Far

Check out this chart suggesting ways the $144 billion cost of the war in Iraq could have been spent to make us all safer.

Mirna Galic at the Center For American Progress reports here that "The 9/11 Commission concluded, "we are safer today. But we are not safe." The more pertinent point is that with better policies over the past three years, we could have been in a position of greater safety today than we are. First, we could have invested the international goodwill towards the United States after 9/11 into serious initiatives for North Korea and Iran, instead of squandering it on the invasion of Iraq. Second, we could have spent the $144 billion that the Iraq war will have cost us by the end of this year on pursuing the most dangerous terrorists; preventing the spread of nuclear, chemical and biological weapons; fortifying our homeland; and attending to many other security imperatives."

Straight Talk From George W. Bush

Today the President had this to say to a White House audience which included miltary brass and the recently missing in action Donald Rumsfeld. The occaision was the signing into law of a new $417 billion defense appropriation bill.