![]() Had your bosses in either place made sufficient allowance for what the war seemed likely to cost and what it has been costing over time? INSKEEP: You were working at the White House for a couple of years and then you were, the last three years, working for Congress. So it's hard for me to imagine you'll get 1.3 trillion in checks written out of the federal Treasury. No one anticipates that we will maintain the same presence in Iraq that we have now for three more years, simply because the toll on the troops has simply been too great. HOLTZ-EAKIN: It depends how much you bake into that cake. INSKEEP: This week, some economists from Harvard and Columbia universities put out a study estimating the total cost of the war, assuming the war goes for several more years, as everyone expects, that it will end up costing between 1 and $2 trillion-with a `T.' Does that sound like a reasonable number? And we have also seen during the course of Iraq and Afghanistan conflicts. One is there are more soldiers injured in the conduct of their duties. HOLTZ-EAKIN: We've seen very sharp increases in veterans' costs, really for two reasons. INSKEEP: What about health care for returning soldiers, an expense that might last for years, if not decades? It means that our economy shifts toward the production of war material and things like that, and that's a-we give up something in the process. HOLTZ-EAKIN: Past that, wars impose other costs. HOLTZ-EAKIN: The budget shows 6 or $7 billion each month for the war in Iraq and Afghanistan, and that's, I think, the appropriate tip-of-the-iceberg estimate that anyone would use. Can you tell me how much this war is costing us? INSKEEP: Now a huge part of that red ink, of course, has the war in Iraq. INSKEEP: But you did count the numbers as they went along. DOUGLAS HOLTZ-EAKIN (Council on Foreign Relations): I have the dubious honor of presiding over the largest dollar deficits in federal history, and I promise you, it's not my fault. Until last month, he directed the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office. We discussed the difference and other matters with Douglas Holtz-Eakin, who has reviewed every dollar earmarked for Iraq for three years. A couple of noted economists put out a report this week on the cost of the war in Iraq, and that report says staying in Iraq through the year 2010 would cost the US more than $1 trillion, which is a long way from the Bush administration's original estimate of around $50 billion for the war.
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