The current US War in Iraq has become the most expensive military undertaking by the United States in the last sixty years. According to a recent study, the U.S. Treasury is paying out more money each month to sustain the war in Iraq than it did during the Vietnam War. While there is little disagreement about the actual expenses involved in the Iraq War, the opponents and the supporters of the War disagree on its actual impact on the US economy. While the political left and the traditional conservatives in the country are staunchly against the Iraq war and decry its detrimental effect on the US economy, the right-wing neo-conservatives consider the expense of the war worthwhile and beneficial for the US in the long run. This essay takes a look at the impact of the US War in Iraq on the US economy by examining the right and the left wing views.

             Estimates and the Actual Cost of War in Iraq.

             Before the United States invaded Iraq in March 2003, the budget director of the Bush administration had predicted that the war would cost between $50 and $60 billion1 (Bennis et al, 2005) while most independent estimates of the cost of the war suggested that the U.S. would have to spend somewhere between $ 50 and $ 150 billion on the war effort. (Surowiecki, 2003) The leading proponents of the war, namely the neoconservatives, considered the amount to be mere peanuts for the broader political gains which the United States was supposed to achieve from the invasion. The amount of 50 and 150 billion dollars were considered quite affordable for the US economy since it constituted a tiny fraction (between 0.5 and 1.5 %) of the country's G.D.P. Some economists even suggested that the war spending would stimulate the US economy as it did during the Second World War in the 1940s and the Korean War in the 1950s. However, most wars and cost estimates do not go according to plan and the Iraq War did not end quickly as was hoped by the US government.