Cost of Iraq war will surpass Vietnam's by year's end.

By the end of this year the Iraq war will have cost the US more than the war in Vietnam and will be the US's most expensive war ever, with the exception of WWII.

If Congress approves the supplemental funding request submitted this week by the Obama administration, the cost of the war will rise by $87 billion for 2009, including a previous supplement approved during the Bush administration.

Added to the amount spent through 2008, it would mean the Iraq war will have cost taxpayers a total of about $694 billion. By comparison, the Vietnam War cost $686 billion in inflation-adjusted dollars and World War II cost $4.1 trillion, according to a Congressional Research Service study completed last year.

And, like the war in Vietnam, future generations will be left wondering what it was actually for. Sure, Saddam has gone, but what advantage have the US really gained by spending all of that money and blood in Iraq?

The infamous Iraq oil law which Bush and Cheney were so keen to see passed, where foreign oil companies would sign deals giving them access and control of Iraq's oil fields for up to 35 years, has simply withered on the vine. Democracy has hardly prospered in the region, as Bush and other neo-cons promised would be the inevitable result of a democratic Iraq, so one really is left wondering what the Hell was achieved by this huge expense of capital and human sacrifice.

Take away all the Freedom baloney and one is left looking at waste. A waste of money, a waste of human sacrifice, a squandering of agreements on which we had built international law, a squandering of America's hard won reputation across the globe, and all for absolutely bugger all.

I remember the days when Paul Wolfowitz and others used to argue that this was the war which would finance itself.

On March 27, 2003, Wolfowitz told a Congressional panel that oil revenue earned by Iraq alone would pay for Iraq's reconstruction after the Iraq war; he testified: "The oil revenues of that country could bring between $50 and $100 billion over the course of the next two or three years. Now, there are a lot of claims on that money, but ... We are dealing with a country that can really finance its own reconstruction and relatively soon.”

Could they possibly have been any more wrong than they were?

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Tags: Iraq war, Vietnam war, most expensive