War's price tag

By the end of 2008, the federal government will have spent more than $800 billion on combat operations in Iraq and Afghanistan (government accounts make it hard to separate the two). On top of that comes a mountain of future costs: caring for war veterans (to date, more than 1.6 million troops have been deployed), replacing the military hardware that is being used and worn out in Iraq and paying interest on the enormous sums of money we've borrowed to finance the war. . . All told, we estimate that the cost of the war will easily reach $3 trillion in today's money. . we can expect that the next generation of Americans will eventually spend $600 billion to look after the Iraq and Afghanistan veterans. LA Times, 3/16/08