The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have cost U.S. taxpayers nearly $5 trillion so far, and that total could rise even higher in the years to come, according to new calculations released by independent researchers late last week.
Of the $4.79 trillion total calculated in the report, about $1.7 trillion comes from direct war appropriations over the last 15 years. The White House has already requested another $65 billion in overseas contingency funding as part of the fiscal 2017 budget.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Crawford also includes in her costs of war a rise in defense base budget spending related to the overseas conflicts of about $733 billion, and another $565 billion in related State Department and Department of Homeland Security programs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n
And the total also includes more than $1.2 trillion in increased and future costs for veterans\u2019 health care. That doesn\u2019t include other VA benefits, such as the post-9\/11 GI Bill and home loans.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Crawford notes that future interest on debts associated with unpaid war costs “will likely be many trillions of dollars,” further adding to the total.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“Even if the U.S. stopped spending on war at the end of this fiscal year, interest costs alone on borrowing to pay for the wars will continue to grow apace,” she wrote.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The full report is available online at the Institute\u2019s web site<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\nFollow @LeoShane<\/a>\n\n\n\n Leo Shane III covers Congress, Veterans Affairs and the White House for Military Times. He can be reached at lshane@militarytimes.com.<\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The $4.79 trillion total includes not only the costs of equipment and troops, but also of veterans’ care and foreign aid. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":54523,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_yoast_wpseo_meta-robots-noindex":"","_yoast_wpseo_meta-robots-nofollow":"","_yoast_wpseo_canonical":"","_acf":"","_yoast_wpseo_primary_category":69,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","_smg_distribution_targets":[]},"categories":[12,69],"tags":[],"coauthors":[3226],"class_list":["post-25667","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","category-your-marine-corps"],"acf":{"subheadline":"","legacy_arc_id":"BPZYWLHHDRHCLOTA3VGO2J4KYE","arc_canonical_url":"\/news\/your-military\/2016\/09\/12\/report-wars-in-iraq-afghanistan-cost-almost-5-trillion-so-far\/","remove_feature_photo":false,"is_sponsored":false,"subtype":"","redirect_url":"","disable_inline_ads":false,"native_logo_pretext":"Presented By:"},"yoast_head":"\n