For the first time, Bush applied a price tag to the war -- numbers that are unrealistically optimistic.

According to Bush, waging the war will cost over $100 billion. The US will have to pay off $18 billion in bribes to nations such as Turkey. The Pentagon will spend $65 billion (!) waging war, and another $20 billion for two years of peacekeeping. And -- this is the kicker -- only $1 billion on humanitarian aid and reconstruction.

The first Gulf War cost $80 billion to wage (in 1991 dollars), and a much easier proposition than the task at hand. A $65 billion war may make sense if Bush expects it to last three days (as many of the chickenhawk brigade like to argue), but anything more substantive will undoubtedly cost far more than Gulf War I.

And what's with the $1 billion in reconstruction aid? I really hope that's a typo or reporting error. If the US won't commit the funds to rebuild Iraq, then fears that it will become another Afghanistan are bound to be realized.