The cost of the Iraq war has also been driven up by the equipment used. The roadside bombs and sandstorms of Iraq have destroyed very expensive, often high-tech equipment at far more rapid rates than the military expected.
U.S. forces are fielding some of the best and most sophisticated forces of any military. But all of that high-tech equipment is more expensive than the hardware used in previous conflicts.
War costs have also been driven up because the Pentagon has used post-Sept. 11 funding to modernize U.S. forces. For instance, the budget request sent to Congress this week would replace lost F-16 and F-15 fighters with four of the far more expensive F-22s, at a cost of $600 million.
Questions remain over the accuracy of comparing the costs of wars across decades, and scholars warn of the potential for distortion.
"The world has gotten steadily more expensive," said Anthony H. Cordesman of the Center for International and Strategic Studies, a think tank. "How do you relate the cost of an old Sherman tank to a modern M1 tank?"
But Cordesman agreed that the Iraq war has been very expensive, and in some ways has cost more than it should have.
By trying to do reconstruction projects while fighting a war, U.S. officials wasted millions of dollars, Cordesman said. Similarly, the failure to build up the Iraqi army and police quickly enough allowed the security situation to grow ever worse in the early years of the war, he said.
Although the cost of the war in 2009 will shrink compared with 2008, the cost of the Afghanistan war has begun to increase.
The U.S. spent $34 billion in Afghanistan in 2008. This year, the Obama administration, which is sending additional forces to the country, plans to spend $47 billion.
Military analysts believe Iraq war costs will continue to decline and the Afghanistan war costs will increase.
President Obama intends to withdraw most U.S. forces from Iraq by the end of August 2010, but that plan would leave 35,000 to 50,000 in the country in largely supportive roles.
Under a security agreement with Iraq, the U.S. is supposed to withdraw all of its forces by the end of 2011.
But Biddle said that agreement could be renegotiated.
"The pace of cost reductions will be driven by the drawdown," he said. "If all Americans are out of Iraq by 2011, it will cost zero. But I am not sure that is written in stone."
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julian.barnes@latimes.com
