Cost of Iraq war could surpass $1 trillion
So let's see... $1,000,000,000,000 dollars, divided by a population of 26,000,000, gives $38,461 per person in Iraq. The per capita GDP (purchasing power) in Iraq is $3,400. So by the time we're "done" in Iraq, we will have ended up spending enough money to have hired every man, woman and child, at average wages, for ten years to work full-time at rebuilding their country. Or, if we just hired all 7,500,000 men between the ages of 15 and 64 years of age, we could have paid each of them $133,333, which would come to 39 years of full-time employment. Yup, we could have hired each and every working-age man in Iraq, for pretty much their entire career. I don't know about you, but if I were given 39 year's wages to improve my little corner of the world, I bet I could make it pretty fancy.