$238 Billion and counting

President Bush is requesting now an additional $120 billion for the wars Iraq and Afghanistan. The bulk, no doubt, is for Iraq. This is on top of the $238 billion that he has already spent.

And, as the Times reports, not one penny of it is being committed to paper in any official budget document.

Over all, the Bush administration will propose a Defense Department budget of $439.3 billion for the 2007 fiscal year, almost a 5 percent increase over this year, according to a Pentagon official who spoke on condition of anonymity because the budget request has not officially been submitted to Congress.

The figure does not include the proposed new money for military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, which have been financed in stand-alone supplemental spending bills since 2001.

The administration's request for the operations in Iraq and Afghanistan would bring their total cost in the 2006 fiscal year to about $120 billion, some of which Congress has already approved. In a briefing for reporters, Joel Kaplan, the deputy director of the Office of Management and Budget, said the costs of military operations this year "will be roughly similar" to last year's costs.

And remember, we were supposed to get in and out of Iraq for about $55 billion altogether. In fact, former White House economic advisor Lawrence Lindsey was kicked to the curb for suggesting that the war could cost as much as $200 billion.