War may become second-most expensive

The Iraq War has cost the lives of thousands of American military personnel and countless Iraqi civilians. But it's also about to become America's second-most expensive war ever in its dollar amount - even when you adjust the cost of older wars for inflation.

While World War II remains the costliest, the Vietnam conflict ranks second, with an inflation-adjusted price tag of $686,000,000,000 (over a half-trillion). But this is about to be surpassed by the Iraq War, which now stands at $648,000,000,000.

This sum is almost 7 times the inflation-adjusted cost of the '91 Gulf War. And that includes only the price of military operations. It doesn't even include spending on veterans' benefits or assistance to war allies.

All this after Mitch Daniels said the Iraq War would cost less than one-tenth of what it has. Disaster Daniels must have been using some of that "fuzzy math" Bush used to talk about.

(Source: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080725/ap_on_go_co/war_costs)