Back in November 2007, I noted that the United States had spent roughly $1550 per person — American man, woman, child — on the war in Iraq. It won’t come as surprise that we’ve spent a great deal more in the interim.
According to the Congressional Research Service, the cumulative total for Iraq (including FY 2010 projections) is something on the order of $748.2 billion. Add to that the cost of what officials still call “Operation Enduring Freedom” (or, inevitably, “OEF”): $299.6 billion. Throw in a another $33 billion for “enhanced security” and miscellaneous costs, and we end up with the tidy little sum of $1,082.4 billion. Or just a hair (if you can bring yourself to think of $82 billion as a hair) over a trillion dollars.
That now works out to $3,526 per American. Ouch.
We have now spent $26,349 per Iraqi in Iraq. Iraqi per capita GDP is $3600; that works out to $24,576, more or less, since March 2003,
And $10,350 per Afghani in Afghanistan. Afghani per capita GDP is $800; that works out to roughly $6735 since October 2001.
Think about this.
In a little over eight years in Afghanistan, our war has cost more than the GDP of the country we’re supposed to be saving.
Since March 2003, when the “Coalition of the Willing” went after the WMD or whatever it was after (don’t ask the British Labour Party to remember what our reasons were, please), we’ve spent more than the GDP of the other country we’re supposed to be saving.
And we’re not counting lives. Those don’t figure in these statistics.
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