U.S. costs of Iraq, Afghan wars top $900 billion

The cost of any war will always be expensive. That’s why it’s also a big business opportunity and therefore worth fighting for especially among the vested-interest establishment in the US administration. If ten of thousands of civilians are killed in between the process it’s called “collateral damage”; unfortunate but necessary. As far as “they” who are killed, not us, it’s ok.

U.S. military operations, including the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, have cost $904 billion since 2001 and could top $1.7 trillion by 2018, even with big cuts in overseas troop deployments, a report said on Monday.

A new study released by the nonpartisan Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, or CSBA, said the Iraq conflict’s $687 billion price tag alone now exceeds the cost of every past U.S. war except for World War II, when expenditures are adjusted for inflation.

With another $184 billion in spending for Afghanistan included, the two conflicts surpass the cost of the Vietnam War by about 50 percent, the report said.