"HOW MANY hundreds of billions has this war based on 'faulty intelligence' cost us already... you think we can credibly threaten yet ANOTHER nation with war?"
2 and a half.

"Quit drinking the kool-aid Tom... You KNOW the invasion of Iraq was a mistake- one that is costing us WAY too much.... "

Well if Iraq is costing too much, then putting greater numbers of troops for same period of time would have cost more. So if you think Iraq war has cost too much money [and blood], and if you in same position as Sec of Def [you does not make the decision of whether to go to war or not- but does ensure that the US can deploy the miltary so it can be ordered to go to war by the President] then you would agree with idea of using smaller miltary force rather than larger miltary force.
Now, we could used a smaller miltary force.
Let's say we used 50,000 less troops on the ground in Iraq. Let's say it costs about $200,000 per troop on the ground in Iraq [btw it easily cost this much, 300K or more wouldn't be unreasonable]. So assuming that 250 billion is accurate, with 50K less troops per year at 200k per soldier year with in 3 years you would have saved 30 billion- though probably more like 50 billion.
Or you could turn this around and add 100,000 [or +200,000 as some wanted]. If you added 100,000 to force in Iraq the US miltary would of course be more stretched than it was. And we would need to recruit more soldiers and grow the miltary size by far more than we are doing currently [something like adding around 30,000 to end strength]. Now, during Cold war our end strength was always at least 2 million, after Cold war it dropped as low as 1.4 million, so adding 30,000 still makes our miltary the smallest it's been in over 50 years- though it lethality is far greater. [[Our current 1.4 million miltary could probably kick the Vietnam 3.5 million end force miltary's ass. You could never actually know, but the present miltary does have better trained soldiers, better equipment, better logistics, better firepower- more accurate [such as smart bombs] and simply more firepower whether from ground force, air forces, or naval assets.]]
Ok, so adding 100,000 soldiers to Iraq would have cost an additional 60 billion- at least. Probably closer to 100 billion or more. And we probably would still trying to get enough armored Hum Vees and body armor to all the troops- and of course a higher percent would have lacked these things plus twice or triple the "stretch". Also tougher controlling and managing this.

So, yes, I understand your point is we shouldn't be in Iraq at all. Which I suppose, you mean the US miltary should not have gone to Kuwait at all. Which means UN inspectors would have never been allowed back in Iraq. Or is your position that we should have deployed US troops but just use them as a bluff. There numerous problems with this apporach, but rather go there, I wonder if you favor this apporach how many US miltary you would have put in the sands of Kuwait and how long would you have left them there?