The costs of disability and health care for returning troops, which
will continue even if the fighting stopped today, will be staggering.
For the 1991 Gulf War under the first George Bush, disability claims
for 159,000 veterans are running more than $2 billion a year even
though the conflict lasted only five weeks.

Consider what it will be like for well over 500,000 veterans of this
war. Bilmes says the cost could be $7 billion a year for 45 years.

According to Linda Bilmes, a former assistant secretary of commerce
who now teaches public finance and budgeting at Harvard, many of the
war-related costs are hidden from the average citizen.

Jagmedic wrote: