MOSCOW – Since late 2001, the United States has appropriated and isobligated to spend an estimated $6.4 trillion through Fiscal Year 2020 inbudgetary costs related to and caused by the post-9/11 wars,” the Costs ofWar Project reportedlinkina November 13 paper.
The Brown University-based project went on to note that the cost figurecomprises “an estimated $5.4 trillion in appropriations in current dollarsand an additional minimum of $1 trillion for US obligations to care for theveterans of these wars through the next several decades.”
A separate study published the same day by Costs of War reportedlinkthehuman cost of those wars had reached between 770,000 and 801,000. The warsincluded in the total include Afghanistan and Pakistan, Iraq, Syria andYemen, as well as an “Other” category that lumped together a host ofsmaller conflicts, including Operation Enduring Freedom in Guantanamo Bay(Cuba), Djibouti, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Jordan, Kenya, Kyrgyzstan, Pakistan,Philippines, Seychelles, Sudan, Tajikistan, Turkey and Uzbekistan.
Last year’s reports recordedlinka$5.9 trillion price tag and an estimated 500,000 deaths.
The tallied bill includes not just raw Pentagon spending, but also theextensive measures taken by the Department of Homeland Security ($1.05trillion), additional tack-ons to the defense budget like supplementalspending bills ($803 billion), the new “Overseas Contingency Operationslink”category ($100 billion), interest paid on borrowing for said spending ($925billion), US State Department expenses such as USAID ($131 billion) andmedical and disability care for post 9/11 veterans ($437 billion atpresent, but with more than $1 trillion projected through 2059).
Brown political science professor and author of the study Neta Crawfordtold Military.comlinkthetotal was “a very rough estimate,” noting, “I think it’s low balling,honestly.”
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The Pentagon’s estimate last year was a mere $1.5 trillion, Sputnik reportedlink.
Unsurprisingly, the vast majority of deaths in wars waged by the US havebeen in the countries subjected to attack. The largest numbers come fromIraq, where the US has had a continuous military presence since early 2003and in which it waged a brutal occupation war against an insurgentmovement.
Costs of War estimates that between 184,382 and 207,156 Iraqi civilianshave died as a result of the US war there, constituting the vast majorityof the 312,971 to 335,745 estimated civilians killedlinkinall US wars since 2001, Sputnik has reported.
