>>>Of course, hindsight is 20-20 .... But it is interesting to think what could have been done with $12B in other ways.
>>
>>These $12G are a pittance, compared to other waste. Now if a week in Iraq costs about $2G, imagine USA with that money being spent elsewhere instead...
>>
>>- rebuild the infrastructure so no more collapsing bridges, tunnels etc
>>- have more than 200 health inspectors on the whole country (China has 140,000 or so, and even my little municipality of 120,000 people back home has six)
>>- free vaccinations, TB screening, and other prevention
>>- enough money for public education to attract talent into teaching
>>- European/Japanese style fast railway (far more green than using jets for 30 passengers) - the 2:05 hours train trip between Paris and London was just recently tested; three hours from Paris to Marseilles is already common. Imagine an overnight trip coast to coast.
>>- double the strength of levees in N.O.
>>- get college tuitions back to 1999 levels
>
>While I agree that all the things you suggest would be a better application of the money than where it actually went, I find it very interesting that one of the choices was never "Return it to the people you taxed it from to begin with and let them decide how they want to spend their own money" <bg>

Are you suggesting some sort of a non-taxing government setup? How would such a government operate? If not, then they would first have to decide not to have a war, then decide what it would have cost had they decided otherwise, and then return only that money to the citizenry?