Pretty soon you're talking real money

via TPMCafe: The Cost of The War:

A new study by two leading academic experts suggests that the costs of the Iraq war will be substantially higher than previously reckoned. In a paper presented to this week’s Allied Social Sciences Association annual meeting in Boston MA., Harvard budget expert Linda Bilmes and Columbia University Professor and Nobel Laureate Joseph E. Stiglitz calculate that the war is likely to cost the United States a minimum of nearly one trillion dollars and potentially over $2 trillion.
...
“Shortly before the war, when Administration economist Larry Lindsey suggested that the costs might range between $100 and $200 billion, Administration spokesmen quickly distanced themselves from those numbers,” points out Professor Stiglitz. “But in retrospect, it appears that Lindsey’s numbers represented a gross underestimate of the actual costs.”

What's an order of magnitude among friends, eh?

Got a feeling I've been here before
Watching as you cross the killing floor
You know you'll have to pay it all
You'll pay today or pay tomorrow
You fasten up your beaded gown
Then you try to tie me down
Do you work it out one by one
Or played in combination
You throw out your gold teeth
Do you see how they roll

(Note cost of war counter added to right sidebar)