In September 2002, former Bush economic adviser Larry Lindsey said war could cost between $100 billion and $200 billion, speculation that was immediately dismissed by White House Office of Management and Budget Director Mitch Daniels.
Daniels himself said in December that war could cost between $50 billion and $60 billion, but quickly clarified that it was impossible to tell how much the war might cost and that he was simply trying to compare a new war with its only close historical precedent, the first Gulf War, which cost about $60 billion.
Last fall, Democrats in the House estimated war could cost $93 billion. The bipartisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO), however, said the war would only cost between $9 billion and $13 billion for initial troop deployment and another $9 billion a month thereafter.
As a measure of just how wide the range of possible costs is, the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, another nonpartisan think tank, said in February that war could cost between $18 billion and $85 billion, that five years of post-war occupation could cost between $25 billion and $105 billion, and that humanitarian and other relief efforts could cost between $84 billion and $498 billion.
