Pentagon, White House express doubt about economist's report on Iraq cost

WASHINGTON (CNN) - Bush administration officials on Monday expressed doubt about an economist's column over the weekend saying the war in Iraq will wind up costing the United States more than $3 trillion.

That number "seems way out of the ballpark to me," said Pentagon spokesman Geoff Morrell. But, he told reporters, "I'm not an accountant. I'm not an economist. And I think that those who are have questioned the methodology of this particular survey."

The op-ed piece published in Sunday's Washington Post was authored by Joseph E. Stiglitz, a Nobel Prize-winning economist and Columbia University professor who served as chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers under President Clinton, and Linda J. Bilmes, a former chief financial officer at the Commerce Department who now teaches at Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government.