The cost of war

I made a similar argument to this some years ago regarding the opportunity cost of DoD spending, but this blurb in the Boston Globe realy puts the misallocation of resources into the Iraq war in perspective.

According to World Bank estimates, $54 billion a year would eliminate starvation and malnutrition globally by 2015, while $30 billion would provide a year of primary education for every child on earth.

At the upper range of those estimates, the $456 billion cost of the war could have fed and educated the world's poor for five and a half years.

Which would have a greater effect on US world standing, the war in Iraq or feeding and educating the world?