"BTW - This "war" was supposed to cost $50 billion, tops. What does that say about neocons? "

Neocons didn't think the occupation phase would last more than couple months. They in general underestimated the degree in which the Iraqis were degraded by Saddam's 30 some odd rule of Iraq. I don't think they understood how evil Saddam was, i.e. Castro is a nice guy in comparison. And say if the Iraqis had a less evil dictator- say a Mubarak or a
Gadhafi, Iraqi would still been more problematic than they generally thought, especially considering the "army" and State dept we "had".
The focus of the discussion, was on the invasion aspect, much talk of needing to fight house to house in places like Baghdag as part of the invasion. The neocons thought mostly about getting rid of Saddam's rule. They weren't big supporters of occupation and "peacekeeping" type activity.
By definition a Neocon, is a liberal who faced with reality realizes that his/her cherished liberal beliefs are simply wrong. It doesn't mean they lose all the liberal beliefs or suddenly become vastly wiser. So, for example the idea that criminals and normal people are basically the same, and the solution to criminals is the need for "right kind" empathy and dialog rather the need of simply arresting them and punishing them, or at personal level having a gun and defending yourself from them. That would an example of a cherished liberal belief, that they for whatever reason a neocon has realized was wrong.

Or more pertain to Iraq issue, a Neocon has realized that the UN can't be depended upon to solve all security problems that America faces- and having a strong US military is something we still need in this modern world. This doesn't make the Neocon an expert on military matters, but the idea that US military could conduct a military invasion and occupation better than something ran from the UN. And to me it seems most likely be true- I don't think using the Kosovo model in regards to Iraq would be a good idea.