The Bush administration and Iraq: What's the secret?

Give George Bush credit for trying, it's that the thing he tried is really, really expensive. When the Bush administration went in to Iraq (and even several months afterward) I thought, these guys know something we don't and there is information leading them to believe that there is something more than just the public talking points driving the decisions. Something more than "a higher father" too if you recall Bush's use of that expression. Some in the money management community held this view as well and if you search around you may be able to find a paper or two dedicated to, and speculating on, this idea.

The problem is that I struggle to imagine what this higher thinking was or is. A low level thought like "they are going after oil prices and positive election results will follow lower oil prices", if that was a prominent factor, looks like such a wild miscalculation now that I could not have possibly been a factor. If you read Plan of Attack you might have thought that the U.S. Saudi alliance was thinking about a dividend in the form of the U.S. having some post war advantage with mid-east oil.

The secret at this point for me is "what is the total, all things considered, cost of the Bush administration's invasion and follow on activity in Iraq?" This is a puzzle where the total investment is unknown, the total future effect to the world system is unknown and the duration of the impact of the activity on the world system is unknown. It seems like we will need some sort of major military or economic conflict or natural disaster for the effects of this war to be substantially diluted in the minds of many people in the world.