President Bush sold America the idea of invading Iraq, but future administrations will have to pick up most of the tab. And it's going to be a shocker.

At the outset, Mr. Bush claimed the war would be a bargain. His economic adviser, Larry Lindsey, estimated the cost at between $100 and $200 billion, and he was fired for suggesting such a huge bill. The real cost, the administration insisted, would be no more than $50 or $60 billion, and all that Iraqi oil would pay for much of it.

Well, the final bill, according to Joseph Stiglitz, is likely to be 60 times higher. Mr. Stiglitz did not pick that colossal estimate out of the air. In his long and distinguished career, he has been the chief economist of the World Bank and a winner of the Nobel Prize for economics. The book he has just published is called The Three Trillion Dollar War: The True Cost of the War in Iraq.

Joseph Stiglitz

Stiglitz had to use the Freedom of Information Act to force a reluctant administration to reveal discrepancies between its official claims and the real cost of the war. Take American war casualties, for example. He says, “It turns out that the true number of those injured is over twice the number they admit to.” And he found that the ratio of injuries to fatalities, which the administration claimed is 7:1 (well above the ratio in a normal war), was actually 15:1. He says: “That is part of why this war is going to be so costly. The upfront costs have turned out to be much higher than $50 billion; it turns out we are now spending every three months $50 billion. But the downstream costs in terms of disabilities and health care costs are going to be enormous.”

He adds to that the costs that are squirreled away in the Pentagon budget for defense contractors and weapons that are not needed to fight the war on terror, the increasing costs of maintaining the strength of a wartime army without the draft, and the cost of what is called the “reset” of the military because its equipment has been run down faster than it can be replaced.

Other parts of the government will bear huge costs. Stiglitz estimates 40 percent of the military returning from the war will qualify for Social Security disability payments. He found another shocker in the Labor Department, which requires that private contractors working in Iraq be insured for death and disability. Since regular insurance policies do not cover injuries in hostile actions, taxpayers have to pay both the insurance premiums and the benefits as well. The degree of privatization of the war in Iraq is one of the reasons it is so costly. A private security guard who does the same work as an army sergeant earns $400,000 or more a year.

Stiglitz also calculates the macroeconomic costs – such things as the world price of oil, which the war has pushed up by $5 or $10 a barrel. He notes that the war and the economy are the two main issues in the American presidential election, but says there is really only one issue because the war has weakened the economy. He points out that unlike previous wars, the government has been paying for this one by deficit financing. That has already added a trillion dollars to the national debt.

He has a lot more to say, and I recommend his book as bedside reading for the next president. It might keep him or her awake at night, but it would inject some realism into the debate over whether the United States should pull out of Iraq now or later. Stiglitz estimates that spending another two years in Iraq will cost a half-trillion dollars, and says you have to ask whether another two years will make things that much better.