The Cost of the Iraq War

New York Times op-ed columnist Bob Herbert, in The $2 Trillion Nightmare, writes about an issue that has received scant attention in the Democratic and Republican presidential primaries, namely, the cost of the war in Iraq. "The war in Iraq" Herbert asserts, "will ultimately cost U.S. taxpayers not hundreds of billions of dollars, but an astonishing $2 trillion, and perhaps more. There has been very little in the way of public conversation even in the presidential campaigns, about the consequences of these costs, which are like a cancer inside the American economy." He points out that the Bush administration, which has been remarkably inept at addressing other issues, "has tried its best to conceal the horrendous costs of the war. It has bypassed the normal budgetary process, financing the war almost entirely through 'emergency' appropriations that get far less scrutiny."