The Iraq war, which has entered its sixth year and recorded its 4,000th fatality, hasn’t been a topic for the first 145 columns I’ve written for Inside Tucson Business.

It should have been. It has had more influence on the economy of Southern Arizona than our chambers of commerce, other business groups, city councils, county supervisors or state legislators.

We’ve read about the human losses. Thirty Southern Arizonans, ages 18 to 43, had died through March 25. Almost all were killed after President Bush’s "Mission Accomplished" declaration on that aircraft carrier in 2003.

Ten were from Greater Tucson. We don’t know how many have been wounded or injured in Iraq.

I wrote a column last summer about Jesse Latas, an Oro Valley soldier who didn’t make the official Iraq fatality list. He died after his service there prompted his leukemia - which doctors thought was in remission - to return. Others who died in Iraq or after coming home also haven’t been counted.

Additionally, the war has hit us in the pocketbook.

Aside from some defense contracts and expanded activity at Davis-Monthan Air Force Base and Fort Huachuca, the rest of the economy has suffered.

Personal debt, bankruptcies, unemployment, repossessions and foreclosures are up. So are prices for gas, utilities, food, clothing, materials, health care and almost everything else.

A war that costs our nation $411 million a day is a major reason federal funding for educational programs, college scholarships and research, veterans’ services, elderly programs, unemployment aid, highway and bridge projects and scores of other programs either has dipped or not kept up with growth and inflation.

University of Arizona researcher Tanis Salant reported last week that Arizona’s four border counties spent nearly $27 million in 2006 to process criminal undocumented immigrants through their law enforcement and justice systems.

But the federal government reimbursed only $3 million of that, piling a $24 million expense onto state and local taxpayers. Money for other local federal programs has been cut. Some are no longer funded at all.

There’s more bad news. Social Security trustees say their fund will begin spending more in 2017 than it takes in. Medicare will reach that point this year.

Trustees estimate the two funds could go broke in 2041 and 2019, respectively, even though Social Security has large surpluses now. The extra money is helping to fund the rest of government.

Two major "rest-of-government" items are the war and interest on the national debt to finance it.

So Arizona, Pima County and local municipalities, along with our public schools, community colleges and universities, are facing budget crises.

More Southern Arizonans lack health care or good jobs.

The federal government, which once could soften the effects of economic dips, has no money to help out ... unless it goes deeper into debt to other nations.

Comedians rightly called the new federal "stimulus package" a scheme where the U.S. borrows more money from China so Americans can buy more things from China.

The Iraq war has lasted longer than the Civil War, both World Wars, and the Korean Conflict. Short of immediate withdrawal, there seems to be no end in sight.

And although the federal government hasn’t rationed fuel or food, levied any war taxes, urged us to buy "war bonds," reinstated the draft or called upon every citizen to contribute, we have indeed made indirect and often unnoticed sacrifices.

The war’s impact on Southern Arizona will be felt for a very long time.

The stock market, retail sales, car sales, financial institutions, real estate, schools, construction firms, non-profits and local governments all need help.

But the president who shouldn’t have gone into Iraq won’t pull out.

His successor must.

Surely we will pick our new president on his or her stands on important issues like the war and the national economy ... and not on verbal slips, faulty recollections or what a preacher said.

E-mail comments for publication or contact Steve Emerine at editor@azbiz.com. Emerine, a Tucson resident since 1960, has run Steve Emerine Strategic Public Relations since 1994. He is a former local newspaper reporter, editor and columnist and served as Pima County Assessor from 1973 to 1980. He is a regular Monday guest on the John C. Scott radio talk show, which airs from 6 a.m. to 7 a.m. weekdays on The Voice KVOI 690-AM. This column appears weekly in Inside Tucson Business.