By JAMES RISEN

WASHINGTON — The United States has discovered nearly $1 trillion in untapped mineral deposits in Afghanistan, far beyond any previously known reserves and enough to fundamentally alter the Afghan economy and perhaps the Afghan war itself, according to senior American government officials.

The previously unknown deposits — including huge veins of iron, copper, cobalt, gold and critical industrial metals like lithium — are so big and include so many minerals that are essential to modern industry that Afghanistan could eventually be transformed into one of the most important mining centers in the world, the United States officials believe.

An internal Pentagon memo, for example, states that Afghanistan could become the “Saudi Arabia of lithium,” a key raw material in the manufacture of batteries for laptops and BlackBerrys.

The vast scale of Afghanistan’s mineral wealth was discovered by a small team of Pentagon officials and American geologists. The Afghan government and President Hamid Karzai were recently briefed, American officials said.

While it could take many years to develop a mining industry, the potential is so great that officials and executives in the industry believe it could attract heavy investment even before mines are profitable, providing the possibility of jobs that could distract from generations of war.

“There is stunning potential here,” Gen. David H. Petraeus, commander of the United States Central Command, said in an interview on Saturday. “There are a lot of ifs, of course, but I think potentially it is hugely significant.”

The value of the newly discovered mineral deposits dwarfs the size of Afghanistan’s existing war-bedraggled economy, which is based largely on opium production and narcotics trafficking as well as aid from the United States and other industrialized countries. Afghanistan’s gross domestic product is only about $12 billion.

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Well, who'd a thought it? For thousands of years, everyone from Alexander the Great to Queen Victoria fought battles in Afghanistan, on their way to somewhere important. Nobody wanted Afghanistan, because it was a barren, mountainous land of impoverished, nasty people who grew opium poppies and stole from passing caravans as a hobby.

Now we find out they've got all these minerals we really need... If we hadn't already spent so much money on the war we could just buy the freaking country from them and strip mine it.

If Jimmy Carter hadn't cancelled the Neutron Bomb back in 1979, we could have relocated the friendly Afghanistanis to Idaho (all 1,200 of them) and neutroned the rest and taken over the country by now.

This war is getting important now. It's time to get our GI's out of there. They can't do anything under the bullshit "rules of engagement" anyway. Let American Industry bid for participation in the war, and they get to keep what they take and hold.