NEW YORK - A giant clock ticking the cost of the war in Iraq lit up in Times Square on Wednesday, making its debut by flashing $134.5 billion.

The amount on the clock will grow at a rate of $177 million a day, $7.4 million an hour and $122,820 per minute, said the advocacy group Project Billboard which put it up.

A New York City taxi cab drives past an anti-war billboard sponsored by the Center for American Progress on Wednesday, Aug. 25, 2004, in New York. The billboard features a constantly updated clock that counts the cost of the Iraq war. The clock starts at $134.5 billion and increases at a rate of $177 million per day, $7.4 million per hour and $122,820 per minute. (AP Photo/ U.S. Newswire, Anders Krusberg)

Project Billboard is supported by the Center for American Progress, a liberal think tank headed by John Podesta who served as chief of staff under former President Bill Clinton.

The clock was unveiled just days before Republicans gather in New York for their national convention.

As intended, it caught the eye of many passersby in the busy intersection.

"Just think of the things you could do with that money," said tour guide Farah Perez. "No way am I voting for Bush."

The message may not reach everyone, however, as the clock sits above a much larger billboard of a woman wearing nothing but a pair of sneakers.

"First I saw the other billboard, but then I saw the cost of the Iraq war and the number took my breath away," said passerby Greg Boris. "Then I went back to looking at the other billboard.

"That money should be spent here in the United States," he added.

The new clock sits just a couple of blocks away from a spot where an earlier clock used to flash the growing size of the U.S. national debt.

This clock is part of a legal settlement reached between Project Billboard and Clear Channel Communications after the advocacy group sued the media giant for breaking a contract over the posting of an antiwar billboard in Times Square during this month's convention.

Clear Channel settled the case by agreeing to give Project Billboard two Times Square locations instead of one. In return, the group dropped its plan for a bomb graphic that Clear Channel said it found distasteful.

The advocacy group's other billboard displays a large peace dove and the words "Democracy Is Best Taught By Example, Not By War."

Both billboards are scheduled to run for four months, said a spokesman for Project Billboard

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