You can't deny that this administration's foreign policy is one of the more aggressive and ambitious (not to mention expensive) ones we've had in a long time. How many hundreds of billions are they willing to spend in this experiment to re-make Iraq in the image of a western democracy? We will be repaying this bill over the next two generations, and there is no guarantee as of yet that the Iraqi people will willingly embrace these changes and not revert to some sort of Islamic regime somewhere down the line. The neocons have led us into a bold and expensive gamble with Iraq, and the American taxpayer is stuck with footing the enormous bill for it whether we like it or not. Funny that nobody hinted at the real costs of this prior to the war.
The NeoCons influence would be of a tactical nature. Much more influential on governmental policies, and of a strategic nature, would be the Hart-Rudman Commission Report. Not only in foreign policy but the complete re-organization of the government. These are policies that will be in effect for 25-50 years, transcending presidents and politics.
This issue of pre-emption gets thrown around out of context. In reality it is step #3 in a 7 step defense cycle where each step is to prevent the subsequent step(s). They are: prevention, deterrence, pre-emption, crisis management, consequence management, attribution, and retaliation.
Which brings us back to Iraq which was/is a pre-emptive move. Nobody knows/knew for sure what weapons he had/has or to what degree they were developed. What was known was that he was willing to deseminate those weapons, far and wide, to be used against the US.
As for the cost, that is nothing compared to the potential cost of doing nothing.