Adding up the costs of war.

First, there’s this, by Joseph Stiglitz and Linda J. Blimes:

MADISON, WI (The Capital Times) July 8 - Last week the U.S. “stood down” in Iraq, finalizing the pullout of 140,000 troops from Iraqi cities and towns — the first step on the long path home. After more than six years, most Americans are war-weary, even though a smaller percentage of us have been involved in the actual fighting than in any major conflict in U.S. history.

But not so fast. The conflict that began in 2003 is far from over for us, and the next chapter — confronting a Taliban that reasserted itself in Afghanistan while the U.S. was sidetracked in Iraq — will be expensive and bloody. The death toll for U.S. troops in Iraq and Afghanistan reached 5,000 in June. An additional 80,000 Americans have been wounded or injured since the war in Iraq began. More than 300,000 of our troops have required medical treatment, and Army statistics show that more than 17 percent of our returning soldiers suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder.

Meanwhile, in Iraq, even though most of the population has long told pollsters they can’t wait for U.S. forces to leave, U.S. officials have said we are likely to station 50,000 troops at military bases in the country for the foreseeable future. This is because the situation in Iraq is highly precarious.

Moreover, the U.S. barely has begun to face the enormous financial bill for the war. By our accounting, the U.S. has already spent $1 trillion on operations and related defense spending, with more to come — and it will cost perhaps $2 trillion more to repay the war debt, replenish military equipment and provide care and treatment for U.S. veterans back home. Many of the wounded will require indefinite care for brain and spinal injuries. Disability payments are ramping up and will grow higher for decades. The stress of extended, multiple tours to Iraq means that a whole generation of U.S. military men and women may now be suffering from long-term mental health issues. The suicide rate in the Army is at its highest level since record-keeping began…

The rest here.

And then this:

WASHINGTON, DC (AP) July 8 - Children of U.S. military troops sought outpatient mental-health care two million times last year, double the number at the start of the Iraq war, and there was also an alarming spike in the number of military kids hospitalized for mental-health reasons.

Internal Pentagon documents show the increases, which come as the services struggle with wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and a shortage of therapists.

The total number of outpatient mental-health visits for children of active-duty men and women doubled from one million in 2003, the year of the Iraq invasion, to two million in 2008, the documents show. Yearly bed days for military children age 14 and under increased from 35,000 to 55,000 over the same period.

Overall, the number of children and spouses of active-duty personnel and Guard and Reserve troops seeking mental-health care has been steadily increasing for several years. Last year’s increase in child hospitalizations coincided with the “surge” of tens of thousands of additional U.S. troops into Iraq to stabilize the country.

But the reasons for the treatment increases are not clear from the documents. Besides the impact of service members’ repeated tours in overseas war zones – and the severe economic recession – the military has been encouraging troops’ family members to seek mental-health help when needed.

The military plans additional research. Still, the statistics seem to reinforce the concerns of military leaders and private family organizations about the strains of the wars.

Along with issues of separation, some families must deal with injuries or the deaths of loved ones. And military families move, on average, nearly every three years, which adds more stress…

The rest here.

The Bush/Cheney “war on terror” is already one of the longest wars in our history, in terms of days of combat.  It will be, before it’s over, the most expensive in terms of dollars spent (and wasted).

It will obviously be even more costly for even longer, in so many ways that cannot necessarily be quantified.