Iraq War Could Eventually Cost Two Trillion Dollars

Radio Netherlands, The cost of the war in Iraq could eventually climb to two trillion dollars. That is two thousand billion dollars. US economist and Nobel prize winner Joseph Stiglitz and a colleague calculated the amount based on the assumption that US soldiers would be in Iraq until 2010, with a number of the troops being withdrawn each year. 
 
Their calculation takes long-term costs into account such as paying sickness benefit to an estimated 16,000 wounded US soldiers. 
 
A Defence Department spokesperson estimates that the war has cost 173 billion dollars to date. And each month it cost another 4.5 billion dollars. The White House came up with a much lower estimate of the costs before the war.