The other costs

An editorial in the July 27 edition of the Capital Times included these words:

"'Osama bin Laden doesn't have to win; he will just bleed us to death.'

"That was the prediction last week of Michael Scheuer, a former counterterrorism official at the CIA who was in charge of the pursuit of bin Laden before retiring last year. Scheuer's remarks were made to a reporter for the San Francisco Chronicle who last week added up what the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have cost the American taxpayers so far.

"The total now stands at $314 billion and if things continue, costs will amount to another $450 billion over the next 10 years. That would make what the Bush administration calls the "war on terror" the most expensive U.S. military effort in the last 60 years, according to the Chronicle's report."