In economics this is what is known as 'Public Finance'. Her use of it is essentially a 'Full Cost Accounting' of the war. This makes several assumptions that are simply not verified and cannot be fully extrapolated.
So, it is not completely 'real reporting'.
Even the starting assumption of $51B is not a confirmed number.
Then the $1T is including things like direct military spending and interest costs, and veteran's costs. These assume that things have to be replaced. For example, a new administration may not rebuild the lost/damaged military equipment as much as another administration might. The veteran's costs are built around assumptions on injury rates, etc. in more normal wars. So far this is not a normal injury-rate situation. Interest costs are certainly not unique to wars. So, if you assume the 'resources could be better spent elsewhere' you would still have that cost to a large degree already.
This is not based on hard spending but assumptions and modeling.
You can see this is where she was off on, say on the Afghanistan War in her assumptions compared to what should be expected in this situation with veteran's benefits and interest costs.
So, if you were to take other economists that use various other approaches then you see a different view of the total cost.
For example, Cochrane from Stanford will point out the interest should not be counted as a separate cost of the war itself. He considers the longer term to be less of a consideration than what is known as 'direct fiscal outlays'.
Even someone like Barro would point out that the better way to look at the economic impact is to examine the GDP impact instead of lifetime budget totals.
Then another viewpoint that someone like Korb, who used to actually work for the Pentagon, would also argue that is being too 'assumption-heavy' and that near-term budget effects should be the better way to look at it.
So, a lot of economists will disagree over what should be considered 'costs'.
Those would be using more of a 'cash flow budgeting' consideration.
Time horizon, inflation, growth and replacement costs are all dynamic considerations.
So, to just choose an economist that uses 'narrow accounting' as opposed to a view such as Bilmes view which would be using 'full cost accounting' would not be correct either.
You have to see multiple views and not just choose one that supports a 'political view' that you like.
It will come down to how economists view 'future obligations' as being counted as 'war costs' or 'general government spending'.
For example, if you are already paying some of those things you cannot now count those costs and now include the increase of those amounts to say that is the total cost caused by the war for that item. It is almost double counting based an over-exaggerated assumptions that may or may not be true.
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