How much has the iraq war cost

Since then, war costs haven't been included in the regular defense budget, experts have noted. This meant that Congress and the Pentagon had to make trade-offs within the defense budget," Linda Bilmes, a lecturer in public policy and finance at Harvard's Kennedy School told Congress in That additional funding approved by Congress to pay for U.

Another hidden cost: military personnel. The U. Nonetheless, Lindsey was unceremoniously combat-booted from the White House three months later.

In April , just after the U. But the numbers were squishy. By , the Congressional Research Service said that the U. But even that eye-watering sum misses the mark. Its latest calculation , released in November, says the U. This article originally reported only Department of Defense casualties from the global war on terrorism. It has since been adjusted to include the estimate of U. But we can only continue to do this with your help. Center for Defense Information.

But a surprising amount of the costs are to pay off the interest on the debt the US has accrued since going to war. The financing method departs from previous international conflicts, where the federal government either raised taxes or issued war bonds to finance war-related expenses.

Sherwood said that the department's costs go towards war-related operational costs, such as trainings and communications, support for deployed troops, including food and medical services, and transportation of personnel and equipment. The US invaded Iraq in on the belief that Saddam Hussein had, or was attempting to make, "weapons of mass destruction" and that Iraq's government had connections to various terrorist groups, including al-Qaeda.

Although the invasion initially had overwhelming support from the American public and the approval of Congress, it is now considered one of the greatest foreign policy blunders in US history. Meanwhile, the deaths of hundreds of thousands of service members due to war-related hardships remain difficult to track. The Costs of War Project believes calculating the total costs of war — economic, political, and human — is important to ensure that Americans can make educated choices about war-related policies.

In and leading up to , President Donald Trump has campaigned on a promise of pulling American troops out and ending "these ridiculous wars" in the Middle East. However, Trump deployed more troops to the country after an attack on the US embassy in Iraq. But that budget may already be blown. Earlier this month, the U.

Project co-director Neta C. Crawford, professor and chair of political science at Boston University, explains the major implications of the Iraq War for the federal budget. By Neta C. Crawford, Boston University.