The Longest US War Has Already Cost $1 Trillion
The Afghanistan war, the longest overseas conflict in American history, has cost the US taxpayer nearly $1tn and will require spending several hundred billion dollars more after it officially ends this month, according to FT.
This is on top of the Iraq wa, whichr has cost the US $1.7tn, according to one study.
The money to finance both the Iraq and Afghan wars was borrowed and according to Ryan Edwards at City University of New York, the US has already paid interest of $260bn on that war debt. Under FT calculations based on funds appropriated, $125bn of those interest costs have been allocated to the Afghan conflict.
According to FT, the future bill from the Afghan war is likely to run into hundreds of billions of dollars more.
The Pentagon has indicated it wants funding of $120bn for 2016-2019 for operations in Afghanistan, although the eventual cost will depend on the future mission that the White House decides on.
As well as further interest payments, the health bills will start to rise dramatically, especially once veterans from the war reach their 60s and begin to use more medical services.
Linda Bilmes, a Harvard economist who has done extensive research on the war costs, estimates that medical spending on veterans from both Iraq and Afghanistan has so far reached $134bn.
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