Iraq - A Strategic Blunder?

[Schmedlap]

One factor that has to be considered, but which is impossible to quantify, is the degree to which the focus on Iraq diverted attention and resources from Afghanistan and from the broader effort against AQ.

As many times as that argument gets repeated, I fail to see any merit at all in it. The real deficit in Afghanistan has not been about dollars and boots. It is a deficit of appropriate knowledge and talent within the framework of an unworkable strategy. Throwing money and Soldiers at the problem won't (and wouldn't have) solve(d) that. The development of our strategy in Afghanistan has occurred in the same manner that building a home would occur if you built a room and then attempted to build the rest of the house around it, ad-libbing the blueprint along the way. As we attempt to stuff the foundation underneath the room and tack the kitchen onto the side of it, we're complaining that everything would have gone fine had we only gotten more nails and 2x4's when the project began.*

In short: USD 100 billion war costs cost more than USD 100 billion. It's likely more close to USD 120 billion because of the additional interest.

Doesn't that assume that we wouldn't have simply spent that money on other stuff? The Bush years weren't exactly a time of frugality on non-defense spending.