The American people made their views on ending the war in Iraq abundantly clear on Nov. 7, 2006, firing the president's party's congressional majority. Later that week, President Bush proposed a "surge" of 20,000 additional American soldiers to be deployed in Iraq. Today, a majority in Congress supports withdrawal of almost all American military forces in the next year, two years, whenever is most immediately practicable. Now, President Bush is preparing us for the possibility of a permanant presence in Iraq. Whatever else one might think about the Bush war policy in Iraq, it's fantastically expensive already. With a fiscal look forward, Senate Budget Committee chair Kent Conrad (D-ND) had this to say about it on the floor of the Senate yesterday: On the war alone--and this puts in perspective the war costs--you will recall the President told us that the war would cost $50 billion. We are at $567 billion and counting. Now... President Bush has indicated and his administration has told us that we should expect a Korea-like" presence in Iraq. Here is what this would mean, according to the Congressional Budget Office. So far, the war in Iraq and Afghanistan has cost $567 billion. CBO tells us a "Korea-like" presence would mean an additional $1 trillion in the period 2009 to 2017, and from 2018 to 2057, another $1 trillion, for an addition of $2 trillion to the $567 billion already committed. So the war that was supposed to cost $50 billion is now headed for $2.5 trillion, if we maintain a "Korea-like" presence, as called for by the President.