Cost of War

The Iraq and Afghanistan wars have certainly been costly in terms of lives lost, with thousands of U.S. military personnel dead, and hundreds of thousands of Iraqis and Afghans who have been killed. But the economic costs are far greater than most people imagine, with the combined operational costs for both wars approaching $1 trillion.

But operational costs, as represented by the series of supplemental bills passed by Congress, represents only about 33-40 percent of total costs. In groundbreaking research, Nobel Prize economist Joseph Stiglitz and Harvard researcher Linda Bilmes, calculated that many other present and future costs were not included in operational costs. The additional costs include:

•  Paying interest on the debt, since all operations have been paid for with borrowed money
• Future medical costs which could soar to the tens of billions as severely wounded vets return from multiple tours of duty
• Added war costs to the Pentagon budget and costs to reset military equipment destroyed in the wars.

This breaks down to $720 million spent each day on Iraq only, or $500,000 per minute.   The cost of sending one soldier to Afghanistan is $3 million per year when these additional costs are added.

The taxpayer money spent on the war is displacing millions of Iraqis and Afghans and destroying their hospitals and schools instead of supporting health care, education and housing for people in our own communities.

The American Friends Service Committee’s Cost of War project develops exhibits, resources and actions to highlight the economic cost of the wars and demand that Congress shift war funding to support human needs here and real solutions in Iraq and Afghanistan.