Report: Wars in Iraq, Afghanistan cost almost $5 trillion so far

By: Leo Shane III, Military Times, September 12, 2016

The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have cost U.S. taxpayers nearly $5 trillion so far, and that total could rise even higher in the years to come, according to new calculations released by independent researchers late last week.

That total includes not only the costs of equipment and personnel in those countries, but also State Department spending to help local populations, Department of Homeland Security spending linked to the wars and Department of Veterans Affairs services that expanded as troops returned home.

In a report for Brown University’s Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs, study author Neta Crawford called the total “so large as to be almost incomprehensible,” but noted the dollar figures are only one part of the costs of war.

“A full accounting of any war’s burdens cannot be places in columns on a ledger,” she wrote in the report. “From the civilians harmed or displaced by violence, to the soldiers killed and wounded, to the children who play years later on roads and fields sown with improvised explosive devices and cluster bombs, no set of numbers can convey the human toll of the wars.”

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http://www.militarytimes.com/articles/war-costs-report-brown-university