According to this story on the Carpetbagger Report and backed up by BBC News the cost of the Iraq War may be almost double the official estimate! That takes the cost up to somewhere in the neighborhood of 1.5 Trillion dollars. Remember that billions of the “official” estimate are missing so we have to assume even more billions of this unreported cost is also missing.

“The full economic costs of the war to the American taxpayers and the overall U.S. economy go well beyond even the immense federal budget costs already reported,” said the 21-page draft report, obtained yesterday by The Washington Post.

The report argues that war funding is diverting billions of dollars away from “productive investment” by American businesses in the United States. It also says that the conflicts are pulling reservists and National Guardsmen away from their jobs, resulting in economic disruptions for U.S. employers that the report estimates at $1 billion to $2 billion.

Washington Post – 11/13/07 – ‘Hidden Costs’ Double Price Of Two Wars, Democrats Say

This is expected to be presented to Congress later today, and from there we will see how seriously the Mainstream Media takes it. They have hardly blinked an eye at the current costs, but finding out that the actual costs may be well over a Trillion dollars is significantly different. One thing I would love to see the MSM take up is how our fiscally responsible president can waste 1.5 Trillion on an unnecessary war of choice but can’t spend a few Billion to provide health insurance to millions of our working class children.

Gotta love those nutty pro-lifers and their crazy priorities. War > Children. I’ll post more on this issue as the story unfolds.

* Notice: This story is pending editing but I wanted to push it out as Summer is running errands this morning. So don’t be surprised when all my spelling and grammar issues are fixed later On the bright side you get to see how much better my writing is after Summer fixes it. *