A solider
assigned to Bravo Battery, Field Artillery Squadron, 3rd Cavalry Regiment,
pulls the lanyard to fire a an M777A2 howitzer at Firebase Saham in Iraq on
Oct. 24, 2018. A new report estimates the cost of the "war on terror"
so far to be approaching $6 billion. (Spc. Gyasi Thomasson/Army)
WASHINGTON
— The price tag of the ongoing “war on terror” in the Middle East will likely
top $6 trillion next year, and will reach $7 trillion if the conflicts continue
into the early 2020s, according to a new report out Wednesday.
The annual Costs of War project report, from the
Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs at Brown University, puts
the full taxpayer burden of fighting in Iraq, Afghanistan and Syria over the
last 17 years at several times higher than official Defense Department
estimates, because it includes increases in Homeland Security and Veterans Affairs spending, as well as new
military equipment and personnel.
“Because the nation has tended to focus its attention only on
direct military spending, we have often discounted the larger budgetary costs
of the post-9/11 wars, and therefore underestimated their greater budgetary and
economic significance,” the new report states.
Direct military spending in Iraq and Afghanistan make up nearly
$1.8 trillion in costs, but researchers estimate the long-term health care of
veterans from those wars could equal or surpass that figure in coming decades.
They also charge that the Defense Department’s base budget has
grown more than $900 billion over the last 17 years because of increased
missions, recruiting costs and service member benefits brought on by the
conflicts overseas.
“High
costs in war and war-related spending pose a national security concern because
they are unsustainable,” study author Neta Crawford said in the report. “The
public would be better served by increased transparency and by the development
of a comprehensive strategy to end the wars and deal with other urgent national
security priorities.”
She also blasted current U.S. national security policy as “no
strategy to end the wars other than more of the same.”
About 23,000 U.S. and NATO forces are currently operating in
Afghanistan in a non-combat, training-and-support role. About 14,000 of that group
are American troops.
More than 4 million veterans in America today served during the
Iraq and Afghanistan war era.
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