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Editorial comment.

Document Cited in Related
Vincent
AuthorPrickett, Ruth

The dust is settling in Baghdad and soldiers are switching their attention from fighting to law-keeping. Back at home, questions about the cost of war are also shifting: from the cost of sending people and equipment to the Middle East to that of supporting a long-term task force and providing aid to the Iraqi people. It is not surprising that different types of cost come into national focus at different times, but the ongoing real costs of warfare extend further still.

For a start, the prices of modern equipment and military systems are continuing to spiral upwards as new technology comes into play. This is forcing countries to band together in cross-border coalitions to fund research and development that would otherwise be prohibitively expensive. The US may well be the only nation now able to fund new military systems alone (page 16). This, however, does not seem to deter terrorists, who apparently have little difficulty buying weapons and seem to come up with ever more inventive ways of wreaking havoc. Much of their funding comes from crime--whether this is international drug-running or relatively small-scale theft or fraud--and is processed through complex money-laundering scams.

Governments are now taking this problem far more seriously, which has onerous--even alarming--implications for financial managers and accountants (page 20). In the UK, new legislation means that "external" accountants will now be liable to five years in prison merely for failing to report a suspicion of money-laundering activity (14 years for actually participating in money-laundering). Traditionally, accountants have been slow to report suspicions, but they will now be taking a huge...

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