I heard an interesting story on NPR during the last few days about this very subject ... just the $$$ costs, but they were staggering. Whoever was doing the research included current costs, interest on government loans, costs of longterm care of the wounded, rising oil costs, ... etc. and came to the unbelievable conclusion that over a trillion $$$ have been or will be spent as a direct result of the war, and that was just in the USA. I can only say that their research methods sounded credible to me in that short feature. There's a very good chance that the financial future of the next generation could be seriously comprimised by a mistaken reaction to "falty intelligence". Scary, huh?
Maybe somebody knows how to find a link to this data through the Morning Edition NPR site. That's beyond my technical abilities.