"Lee, you may or may not be aware that President "Ford Disagreed With Bush About Invading Iraq." "

That's not surprising, nor is it surprising that he chose not to wade into the issue- but did mention that this view is based upon what is known to the public. A good thing mention considering that he too was a president

"How much was spent by our military since 1953 on maintaining a virtual noose around P'yongyang's neck?"

Quite a chunk of change, I would say at minimum 5-6 billion per year so around 300 billion, but probably closer to 1/2 trillion. It's very expensive playing defense, and unless you want to fight China, or surrender Korea to China- defense was and is the only option. Of course you could also throw in Tiawan and Japan, then it gets into the tens of billions per year spent because of communist China. Of course the Soviet Union cost far more per year. And of course, now we have the rather small cost of securing ex-soviet union nuclear material.

And then you have the middle east and of course Africa. Cuba and Latin America has been less expensive, unless you throw in the cost of dealing with illegal drugs- the prohibtion against drugs is probably around the same cost as the entire Cold War.