Health vs. War

This story from the NYT reports that vaccinating everyone who needs to be vaccinated against meningitis would cost a total of over 3 billion dollars. The article assumes that this cost has to be paid by the government. Not that I necessarily favour such a course, but in reality, that's less than the cost of one month of operations in Iraq. The government will spend the money--that's a given. Instead of killing people, it could save them. Guess which option or "leaders" will choose.