I suspect that once they sit down after the fact - do the math and divide what we spent into what we got, they'll realize that we f*ing overpaid X3 the going rate. In the end, we got off lucky in terms of American lives, not so much Iraqi life's. If one thinks regime change was a goal, a single Tomahawk missile to a Hussein family reunion would have been significantly more cost effective and the end game would have been very similar with much less innocent life and American treasure and world goodwill wasted. We could have sat back, let the international community work on them, and had the manpower, money and hardware to deal with the real threat just next door, a nuclear armed Iran.
What was our opportunity cost? Hard to calculate. Fortunately, jb has his oil to refuel his SUV now. Little pricey though.
Cost and justification are a separate issue.