Always Take the High Estimate and Add to It

I found a few interesting articles in some idle time (read: Procrastinating). One is this AP article concerning the dollar costs of the war in Iraq. A few highlights:

Rumsfeld defended the Pentagon's pre-war vagueness at an October news conference, saying: "We were criticized for not giving answers because we didn't know the answer."

Wolfowitz told a House panel in March that Iraqi oil revenues could be between $50 billion and $100 billion in the next two years. Current Pentagon estimates say that Iraq's oil revenue will be about $12 billion to $15 billion next year and around $19 billion in 2005 - a fraction of Wolfowitz' pre-war boast.

Former White House economic adviser Larry Lindsey also came under fire last year when he estimated a war with Iraq could cost between $100 billion and $200 billion. Mitch Daniels, then Bush's budget chief, discounted the estimate as "very, very high," and the issue was cited as one of the reasons why Lindsey resigned in December.

The sad part about the above article is that it was written in NOVEMBER 2003!!!

A Feb 2005 article says

This latest supplemental includes $64 billion for Iraq and increases the total cost to the US to more than $200 billion through 2005.

and, finally,

"...You are talking about $500 billion in total annual spending, of which 20% - the total of the supplement - is unaccounted for. No other agency has discretionary authority of 20% of its budget."

The point of all of this for me is: Over and over again we have learned to take the administration's most favorable estimates and divide by 5 or 10. Then, take any estimates that the administration scoffs at as being rediculously exaggerated and multiply it by ten or twenty percent. If someone gets fired over their concerns, call your bookie and make a large wager on whatever the fired person may have claimed, especially if it involves the cost of something in terms of dollars and/or lives. Righteous indignation, particularly on the part of Bush or Rumsfeld, is also a dead give away. This happens OVER AND OVER. Someone else is always to blame. So much for the buck stopping anywhere! The incompetence of the administration is only matched by it's lack of willingness to take responsibility for anything. As Rummy says, "...we didnt' know the answer." Unfortunately, instead of leading us to caution and further investigation, our ignorance was followed up with the command to attack.