During a speech yesterday, Congressman John Murtha revealed for the first time that the Pentagon is planning to ask for an additional $100 billion for the war in Iraq next year:

MURTHA: Twenty years it’s going to take to settle this thing. The American people is not going to put up with it; can’t afford it. We have spent $277 billion. That’s what’s been appropriated for this operation. We have $50 billion sitting on the table right now in our supplemental, or bridge fund we call it, in the Appropriations Committee. They’re going to ask for another $100 billion next year.

…

QUESTION: Can we come back to the $100 billion? You said that you expect the military to ask for $100 billion. Where are you getting that figure?

MURTHA: Where I get all my figures: the military.

Murtha is a ranking member of the House Defense Appropriations Subcommittee, so he probably knows what he’s talking about here.

The 100 billion would raise the current projected military cost to over $350 billion dollars.

The Christian Science Monitor recently wrote an article about the cost of the war, and included this statement:

If the war lasts another five years, it will cost nearly $1.4 trillion, calculates Linda Bilmes, who teaches budgeting at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University. That’s nearly $4,745 per capita. Her estimate is thorough. She includes not only the military cost but also such things as veterans’ benefits and additional interest on the federal debt.

Remember this?

WASHINGTON (CNN)—The White House is downplaying published reports of an estimated $50 billion to $60 billion price tag for a war with Iraq, saying it is “impossible” to estimate the cost at this time.

White House Office of Management and Budget Director Mitch Daniels told The New York Times in an interview published Tuesday that such a conflict could cost $50 billion to $60 billion—the price tag of the 1991 Persian Gulf War.