If you are like many Americans who perceive geometrically escalating costs of the wars in Afghanistan and especially Iraq, unaccountably greater now than in recent years, you might look ahead at cost projections and just drop your jaw. There appears to be a very serious misunderstanding. Many Americans are suffering under the misapprehension that current troops levels in Iraq are unsustainable and that, in any case, the weight of political sentiment strongly militates against maintaining current troop strength and increases in American treasure expended on the war going forward. But with the "success of the surge" and the Administration's eye-popping, record-breaking $200 billion request for war funding in 2008, one is safer to assume a stay-the-course strategy. A Joint Economic Committee report released today assesses the cost of stay-the-course:

• What the Bush Administration Said the War in Iraq Would Cost: $50-$60 Billion
• Total Economic Costs of Iraq War Through 2008: $1.3 Trillion [JEC Report, "War at Any Price?" 11/13/07]
• Projected Costs of Iraq and Afghanistan Wars Through 2017 Even If U.S. Does Drawdown to Korea-Like Levels: $3.5 Trillion [JEC Report, "War at Any Price?" 11/13/07]
• Cost to a Family of Four to Fund Iraq and Afghanistan Wars Through 2017: $46,400 [JEC Report, "War at Any Price?" 11/13/07]