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I think the following (from a Pentagon report via Newsweek) goes nicely with the results of the WMD survey and this piece on a higher "cost" of war.
"423,998 U.S. MILITARY personnel were deployed; other Coalition forces sent an additional 42,987 troops. The total is roughly equivalent to the population of Albuquerque, N.M. The war lasted 720 hours. The allies flew more than 41,400 sorties. That consumed 18,622 tons of fuel, enough to keep a Boeing 737-300 airliner aloft for about 12 years. The Coalition flew 1,801 aircraft—all but 138 were American. The Iraqis were showered with 31,800,000 leaflets bearing 81 different messages. End to end, the leaflets would have made 120,454 rolls of toilet paper. Coalition forces lost 20 aircraft, but only 7 as a result of enemy fire. Search-and-rescue teams flew 55 missions and saved 73 people. 80 aircraft were flown to gather intelligence; they took 42,000 pictures of the battlefield, transmitted 3,200 hours of video and eavesdropped on 2,400 hours of Iraqi communications. Known costs: $917,744,361.55 —an amount equivalent to 46 minutes, 10.5 seconds’ worth of total U.S. economic output in 2001.
—John Barry
Of course, here's the headline they put over it:
War Costs: How Much? Well, How High Can You Count?
Tip of the hat to Chuck.
