Kirk Watson: “It has been a year since the President began pressing to invade Iraq. At the time, many of us pressed the President to…”

“It has been a year since the President began pressing to invade Iraq. At the time, many of us pressed the President to fully account for the cost of his planned war. Most Americans would agree that if the issue of Iraq was important enough to start a war over, it was important enough to pay for. For a year, Congress has asked for hard numbers on the cost of occupying and rebuilding Iraq, and for a year the President has given us nothing but blandishments and pie-in-the-sky forecasts. At the time, experts, including the President's own chief economist, predicted the war and reconstruction would cost as much as $200 billion. But the President and his aides actively downplayed those numbers, saying it would only cost around $50 billion. Well, guess what? Last week the President finally admitted that he had low-balled the cost of the war when selling it to Congress a year ago. The President is now asking for an additional $87 billion, billion with a B, to extricate our troops from what is beginning to look like a quagmire.”