US War on Terror spent nearly $5 trillion

US War on Terror spent nearly $5 trillion – report

A report by the Cost of War Projects has claimed that the US spent $4.79 trillion on wars in the Middle East and on the ‘War on Terror’ after the September 2001 terrorist attacks.

The report which is run by Brown University’s Watson Institute, counted the total budgetary cost of the wars America waged in Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan and Syria as well as on counter-terrorism and includes future obligations to spend budgetary money through 2053, estimated future spending on veterans, interest already paid for money borrowed for the war effort and other commitments.

“Interest costs for overseas contingency operations spending alone are projected to add more than $1 trillion to the national debt by 2023. By 2053, interest costs will be at least $7.9 trillion unless the US changes the way it pays for the wars,” wrote report author Neta Crawford, professor of political science at Boston University and co-director of the Costs of War Project.

“This paper’s estimate of current and future costs of war greatly exceeds pre-war and early estimates. Indeed, optimistic assumptions and a tendency to underestimate and undercount war costs have, from the beginning, been characteristic of the estimates of the budgetary costs and the fiscal consequences of these wars,” the report said.

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