An interesting article from Charles Pena, the Director of Defense Policy Studies at the Cato Institute:
$250 Billion and Counting:Time to come clean about the cost of Iraqi Freedom. Link:
http://www.reason.com/hod/cp021605.shtml
An excerpt from the article:
Citing Office of Management and Budget estimates, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld once thought the Iraq mission might cost $50 billion or less. Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz once opined that Iraqi oil revenues of $50 to $100 billion, instead of U.S. taxpayer dollars, would pay for the occupation and reconstruction
Surprised to see such a reasoned statement coming from Cato, I went and checked out Mr. Pena's page at Cato's website:
http://www.cato.org/people/pena.html
and, observed that this was his first article since May, 2003. So, apparently, he was
silenced by someone for his strong opposition to the war.
Hmm..., interesting.
Checkout his full slate of articles at the link above.