What would you buy with $1.2 trillion?

You could buy a few of these things:

• A doubling of cancer research funding
• Treatment for heart disease and diabetes for every American needing it
• A global immunization campaign

Do these each for a decade and you've only spent half. You could still pay down a good 7 percent of the $8.6 trillion national debt.

Or, you could start and prosecute a war in Iraq.

To date, direct spending for the Iraq War has already reached $700 billion, with another $250 billion in anticipated costs to treat wounded and returned veterans, $100 billion to get the armed forces back to prewar fighting readiness, and other incidentals. All told, that's $1.2 trillion gone.

The author notes that it's not that $1.2 trillion is wasted, not if all goes well in Iraq. But it's to note that we need to evaluate whether the $1.2 trillion could have been better spent: on national security, fighting Al Qaeda in Afghanistan, or beefing up airport security. Any one of which would have had a higher success rate than this failed war.