How Much Does Liberating Iraq Really Cost? — Dean’s World

THe Jawa pointed out this excellent article. Good facts about the real cost of the war.

How Much Does Liberating Iraq Really Cost? — Dean’s World: "As predicted, most critics of the war have turned to the costs, now that the “civil war,” military “quagmire” and “no political progress” memes have become inoperative. Amity Shlaes looks at the claims and the actual costs.

But by the standard method of calculating costs of wars, defense spending as a share of gross domestic product, Iraq’s price is improbably modest.

Back in 1986, the year before Ronald Reagan threw out his “tear down this wall” challenge to Mikhail Gorbachev, defense spending was 6.2 percent of the U.S. economy, according to the Congressional Budget Office. In 1968, the year of the Tet Offensive in Vietnam, it was 9.5 percent.

In 2005, 2006, and 2007, defense spending was about 4 percent of GDP — as low as during the early 1990s, when the U.S. was enjoying the “peace dividend” after the Soviet Union’s collapse."