9/11: 15 years onU.S. spending on war on terror since 9/11 to reach $4.79 trillion in 2017
In 2002, Lawrence Lindsey, George W. Bush’s chief economic adviser, estimated that the cost of waging war in Iraq would not exceed $200 billion. As the fifteenth anniversary of the 9/11 attacks approach, the United States has spent or taken on obligations to spend more than $3.6 trillion in current dollars on the wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Syria and on the Department of Homeland Security. The total expenditure for the wars in the Middle East and the war on terror rises to $4.79 trillion when dedicated war spending for the coming fiscal year is added in, along with the nearly $32 billion requested for the Department of Homeland Security for 2017.
Department of Homeland Security emblem // Source: commons.wikimedia.org
As the fifteenth anniversary of the 9/11 attacks approach, the United States has spent or taken on obligations to spend more than $3.6 trillion in current dollars on the wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Syria and on the Department of Homeland Security.
This is according to just-released data in the second of two reports this summer from the Costs of War Project based at Brown University’s Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs. This represents a $300 billion increase since 2015, according to the report, and the amount of the connected expenditures vastly outstrips the 2002 estimate by Lawrence Lindsey, George W. Bush’s chief economic adviser, that the cost of waging war in Iraq would not exceed $200 billion.
Brown University notes that according to the study, the total expenditure for the wars in the Middle East and the war on terror rises to $4.79 trillion when dedicated war spending for the coming fiscal year is added in, along with the nearly $32 billion requested for the Department of Homeland Security for 2017. This number, however, does not include all future interest on debt associated with the wars.
“This is the most comprehensive analysis of the budgetary costs available, produced as part of the Costs of War Project, a large research team assessment of the wider, and also staggering, human and social impact of the wars,” said Catherine Lutz, co-director of the project and the Thomas J. Watson Jr. Family Professor of International Studies and professor of anthropology at Brown University.
Findings on the human costs of the wars in Afghanistan and Pakistan were published in a separate report released in early August. That study, like the new report with aggregate budget data, was written by Neta C. Crawford, professor of political science at Boston University and co-director of the Costs of War Project.
“One of the major lessons of the post-9/11 wars, which applies to all wars, is to beware of promises of quick military victories and inexpensive occupations — wars generally cost a lot of money from start to finish and ultimately to their long aftermath in the lives of veterans and their families,” Crawford said.
The study, U.S. Budgetary Costs of Wars through 2016: $4.79 Trillion and Counting, takes a wide-ranging approach to accounting for the costs of the wars in Iraq, Syria, Afghanistan, and Pakistan and the war on terror, according to Crawford and Lutz.
