It is not as grim a milestone as the number dead and wounded, but Pentagon officials say the latest accounting of dollars spent on the war in Iraq now exceeds $100 billion, CBS News National Security correspondent David Martin reports. That's about double the cost the White House predicted before the first U.S. soldier entered Iraq. But no one expected the world's most powerful military to be run ragged by an insurgency of perhaps 12,000 fighters armed with nothing more sophisticated than rocket-propelled grenade launchers. The cost has gone up each year and is expected to go up again next year when the Pentagon estimates it will need another $100 billion for the wars in both Iraq and Afghanistan. War, of course, is a wasteful business in which a multi-million dollar helicopter can be destroyed in the time it takes to launch a shoulder-fired missile. Humvees shot up in ambushes need to be repaired. Trucks with too many miles on them must be overhauled. With no front lines and no lulls between battles, this guerrilla war is chewing up equipment at five times the normal rate. Compare that to the first war with Iraq, which cost about $80 billion, most of it paid by Saudi Arabia. The difference is that then the U.S. did not attempt to occupy another country. [more]
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