What Is The True Cost Of the Afghan, Iraq Wars?

True Cost Of Afghan, Iraq Wars Is Anyone's Guess -- Miami Herald/McClatchy News

WASHINGTON -- When congressional cost-cutters meet later this year to decide on trimming the federal budget, the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq could represent juicy targets. But how much do the wars actually cost the U.S. taxpayer?

Nobody really knows.

Yes, Congress has allotted $1.3 trillion for war spending through fiscal year 2011 just to the Defense Department. There are long Pentagon spreadsheets that outline how much of that was spent on personnel, transportation, fuel and other costs. In a recent speech, President Barack Obama assigned the wars a $1 trillion price tag.

But all those numbers are incomplete. Besides what Congress appropriated, the Pentagon spent an additional unknown amount from its $5.2 trillion base budget over that same period. According to a recent Brown University study, the wars and their ripple effects have cost the United States $3.7 trillion, or more than $12,000 per American.

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My Comment: With both conflicts still ongoing .... and casualties still coming in .... the true cost of these wars will probably not be known until a decade or two after these conflicts are finally finished. My prediction .... in the end the medical/social costs will probably approach (if not surpass) the cost of fighting the war itself.

WNU Editor: For anyone who is interested, a good analysis on what the Afghan/Iraq wars were already costing in 2008 can be found here.