Cute. Irrelevant, but cute.

Just for the record, the long-term cost estimate ($4 billion a month for ten years) is pulled totally out of thin air. It is based on the cost of the initial weeks of occupation, ($3.9 billion), and there is no reason to project that further. As usual, the standard gang of media idiots got hold of this and created a brand-new myth.

For a real estimate of costs, which top out at $1.6 billion a month, try the CBO paper on the subject. To be sure, like all CBO numbers, these are based on many assumptions, and need to be taken with a grain of salt, but since your original $3.9 billion a month figure originated from this source, you need to take it into account. Please note Appendix A:

Appendix A: Differences Between CBO’s Current and September 2002 Estimates for an Iraq Occupation

Last September, the Congressional Budget Office estimated that an occupation of Iraq involving a force of 75,000 to 200,000 U.S. military personnel would cost a total of between $1.4 billion and $3.9 billion a month (in 2004 dollars)—or about $17 billion to $47 billion per year—above the military’s regular day-to-day operating costs. That estimate resulted from a top-level estimating methodology based primarily on data from operations in the Balkans.

For this analysis, CBO has revised its methodology for estimating occupation costs to provide a more detailed approach. The options examined in this analysis require a methodology that is sensitive to the effects of changes in deployment schedules and the numbers of National Guard and Reserve personnel called to active duty to support the occupation. Using its revised methodology, CBO estimates that the costs of a long-term occupation of Iraq involving a force of 67,000 to 106,000 personnel (levels that assume the use of all options involving existing forces) would total about $14 billion to $19 billion a year. That revised methodology yields estimates that are about 10 percent to 25 percent lower on a per-person basis than the estimates published in September 2002.

...The estimates of the costs of occupation are uncertain. If information about actual costs experienced to date in Iraq was available, CBO would use actual costs to estimate the costs of a continuing occupation. However, CBO has no supporting data from DoD that allow it to do so at this time. DoD officials recently stated that occupation costs for Iraq total about $3.9 billion a month. But based on a review of DoD data for the costs of the war on terrorism in 2002, CBO believes that the $3.9 billion figure may include some one-time costs that CBO would not incorporate
in its estimate of the costs of long-term occupation. Thus, CBO is reluctant to use that top-level figure in this analysis.

The "$4 billion a month for ten years" number is raw horseshit, although as with any useful lie, I expect to see it for the next year in every damn argument from the Left. Don't hold your breath looking for the revised numbers to show up in the New York Times.

Remember, the original estimate of the war's costs from anti-war types before the war ran as high as $1.6 trillion. Also pulled out of thin air.