So, they offer to quit attacking and we say ..

"go hang."

From Daily Kos

Half a trillion
by kos
Thu Jun 29, 2006 at 08:44:03 AM PDT

Half a trillion.

The overall cost of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and other global anti-terror operations since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks will top $500 billion next year, according to congressional estimates and expectations of future funding.

The nonpartisan Congressional Research Service said in a report that through the current fiscal year ending Sept. 30, the government will have spent $437 billion on overseas military and foreign aid funding. That includes the latest supplemental spending bill signed into law this month, which provided $69 billion for the war effort.

Add in roughly $1.5 billion in FY07 Foreign Operations funds for Iraq and Afghanistan; $50 billion in Pentagon "bridge" funds for the first half of FY07, plus as-yet-undetermined supplemental funds for the remainder of the next fiscal year, and total war-related costs will easily soar over $500 billion one year from now.

Meanwhile, Sunni insurgents have offered to cease all attacks if the US offers a timetable to withdrawal.

Eleven Sunni insurgent groups have offered an immediate halt to all attacks - including those on American troops - if the United States agrees to withdraw foreign forces from Iraq in two years, insurgent and government officials told The Associated Press on Wednesday.

Withdrawal is the centerpiece of a set of demands from the groups, which operate north of Baghdad in the heavily Sunni Arab provinces of Salahuddin and Diyala. Although much of the fighting has been to the west, those provinces are increasingly violent and attacks there have crippled oil and commerce routes.

The groups who've made contact have largely shunned attacks on Iraqi civilians, focusing instead on the U.S.-led coalition forces. Their offer coincides with Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's decision to reach out to the Sunni insurgency with a reconciliation plan that includes an amnesty for fighters.

But of course Bush rejected the offer outright. No timetable. No withdrawal. Hundreds of billions more and countless lives set to be sucked down the Iraqi sinkhole for the rest of the Bush presidency.