This clever site offers some insight into the cost of the Iraq War in dollar terms.   Human costs are of course ultimately more important than money, but most people simply refuse to recognize that when you are talking about things like war and hunger the *human costs* often boil down to dollar costs.

You can save  LOT of people in the developing world by allocating a relatively small number of dollars, especially if they are spent on famine or health items. More about that later as politically and emotionally motivated spending is a fascinating examination of human irrationality.

The human death toll in Iraq (or even the total global WAR death TOLL) simply pales in comparison to the global hunger OR health tolls.   It's a factor of many thousands of preventable hunger deaths for every ONE (arguably NON-preventable) Iraq war death. 

Unlike most fiscal conservatives I simply stagger from the failures of the neocons when it comes to intelligent budgeting and ROI.    McCain, very much to his credit, was talking about this years ago and is talking about it now.