To: tejek who wrote (330186 ) 3/24/2007 11:26:35 AM From: Road Walker Respond to re: That's only part of the picture, however; the total number of U.S. troops deployed into the war theater, that is, Iraq and neighboring countries, may be as much as 100,000 more than that. Last August, for instance, the Congressional Research Service, quoting the Department of Defense's Contingency Tracking System, put the total deployment at 260,000, while the number actually in Iraq was at 140,000 to 160,000. (Other estimates by government-oversight bodies have put the total deployed in the theater at 202,000 to 207,000.) So far, $351 billion has been spent or appropriated between 2003 and 2007, and the president's additional budget request of $68 billion in 2007 will bring that to $419 billion, if it passes, according to estimates by the Congressional Budget Office (these figures include U.S. military expenditures, expenditures for Iraqi security forces, and spending for foreign aid and diplomatic operations in Iraq). With another $113 billion predicted for the 2008 budget, the total direct cost of the war will by then top half a trillion dollars, $532 billion in all. That naturally does not even begin to take into account indirect costs, from veterans' care to oil-price rises.
