During last year's campaign, President Bush's operatives ridiculed John Kerry for forecasting that the cost of the war in Iraq would exceed $200 billion. Now it appears that the Massachusetts senator's estimate was, if anything, on the low side.

The $82 billion war spending bill signed by Mr. Bush pushes the cost of military operations in Iraq well past the Kerry prediction, with no end in sight.

In fact, the talk in Washington is that even more money will be needed yet this year. The Washington Post reported that nonpartisan congressional researchers indicate that the cost by 2010 is likely to exceed a half-trillion dollars.

It's difficult to reconcile these vast expenditures with optimistic statements by administration officials before the 2003 invasion that the war's cost would be defrayed by the sale of Iraqi oil, or that U.S. allies would be picking up a big share of the tab, as they did with the Persian Gulf war. Those rosy predictions have long since evaporated, and the costs for American taxpayers have escalated ever upward.

The war-spending bill provides $76 billion more for Iraq, in addition to $25 billion that Congress previously appropriated for fiscal 2005, which ends Sept. 30. Lest anyone believes that the United States will be abandoning its effort anytime soon, the measure also provides $1.28 billion for an enormous American embassy in Baghdad.

Going back to the U.S. response to the 9/11 terrorist attacks and the invasion of Afghanistan in October 2001, the administration has insisted on funding the war mainly from supplemental appropriations bills, making it difficult to get a good handle on the true costs, over and above the regular Pentagon budget.

Unfortunately, the cost of the war is not measured by dollars alone. More than 1,700 U.S. military personnel have been killed in Iraq. Given the inability of American forces to control the insurgent violence so far, these will not be the last casualties. The cost of the war in both blood and treasure will continue to mount.