WASHINGTON, Dec. 15 (UPI) — The U.S. war in Afghanistan has cost nearly $1 trillion with several hundred billion yet to be spent after the U.S. presence officially ends.
The calculations by the British newspaper Financial Times, citing independent researchers, indicate over 80 percent of the spending came after 2009, when the Obama Administration increased U.S. military presence in Afghanistan.
The cost of the 13-year war, the longest in U.S. history, has never been quantified by the U.S. government. It is officially scheduled to end Dec. 31 with the final withdrawal of NATO combat troops.
Special inspector-general John Sopko, whose agency monitors spending on reconstruction projects in Afghanistan, noted billions of dollars have been wasted on, or stolen from, projects that made little sense.
“We simply cannot lose this amount of money again,” he said. “The American people will not put up with it, noting that, adjusting for inflation, the Afghan war cost the United States more than the Marshall Plan to rebuild Western Europe after World War II.
The funding for wars in Iraq and Afghanistan was entirely borrowed, and the United States has paid $260 million in interest, the Financial Times said, citing calculations by Ryan Edwards of the City University of New York. Yet to be paid are the costs of maintaining 10,000 U.S. troops in Afghanistan in non-combat roles, estimated at $56.4 billion, and $836 billion in estimated care for veterans of the two wars.
President Barack Obama will travel to Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst, N.J., Monday for a ceremonial thanking of returning troops. “Our war in Afghanistan is coming to a responsible end,” he said in his weekly radio address.
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