The Cost Of Iraq Afghanistan And Other Global War On Terror Operations Since 9 11

This report analyzes the war funding for the Defense Department and tracks funding for USAID and VA Medical funding.

This report details the total cost of counterterrorism operations in the Global War on Terror (GWOT) since the September 2001 terrorist attacks on the United States. This report also includes descriptions of relevant budgetary legislation.

About 92% of the funds are for Department of Defense (DOD), 6% for State Department foreign aid programs and diplomatic operations, 1% for Department of Veterans Administration's medical care for veterans. In addition, 5% of the funds (across agencies) are for programs and activities tangentially-related to war operations. The FY2015 war request for DOD, State/USAID, and Veterans Administration Medical totals $73.5 billion including $58.1 billion for Afghanistan, $5.0 billion for Iraq, $ 100 million for enhanced security, and $10.4 billion for other war-designated funding. These totals do not reflect the new FY2015 request submitted in November 2014 to cover expenses for Operations Inherent Resolve (OIR) that began with airstrikes launched in late August 2014, to aid Syrian insurgents and the Iraq government to counter the takeover of territory by the Islamic State (IS). The Administration submitted a $5.5 billion FY2015 budget amendment for this operation that Congress is considering. Including the new request, the FY2015 war funding now totals $79.0 billion. In late May 2014, the President announced that troop levels in Afghanistan would fall from 33,000 to 9,800 by January 1, 2015 with the U.S. role focusing on advising Afghan security forces and conducting counter-terror operations. A year later, by January 1, 2016, the President stated that the number of troops in Afghanistan would halve to about 4,900 and then by the beginning of 2017, settle at an embassy presence of about 1,000. Overall U.S. troop levels in Afghanistan and Iraq began to decline with the withdrawal of all U.S. troops from Iraq by December 2011. The troop decline continued with President Obama's announcement in February 2013 that the number of U.S. troops in Afghanistan would halve from 67,000 to 34,000 by February 2014. Annual war costs also decreased from a peak of $195 billion in FY2008 to $95 billion enacted in FY2014. After the reversal of the 2009 Afghanistan surge, the President promised in the 2013 State of the Union address that "our troops will continue coming home at a steady pace as Afghan security forces move into the lead [and] our mission will change from combat to support." He also stated that by "2014, this process of transition will be complete, and the Afghan people will be responsible for their own security." The FY2015 Continuing Resolution (H.J.Res. 124/P.L. 113-164) sets war funding at the FY2014 enacted level of $95.5 billion, which exceeds the FY2015 amended request (with OIR) by about $16.5 billion. The CR expires on December 11, 2014, and Congress is expected to enact another CR or an Omnibus appropriations act for the rest of the fiscal year.

With enactment of the FY2014 Consolidated Appropriations Act on January 1, 2014, Congress has approved appropriations for the past 13 years of war that total $1.6 trillion for military operations, base support, weapons maintenance, training of Afghan and Iraq security forces, reconstruction, foreign aid, embassy costs, and veterans' health care for the war operations initiated since the 9/11 attacks. This book discusses the cost of Iraq, Afghanistan, and other global war of terror operations since 9/11 in detail, and provides information on the FY2015 funding to counter Ebola and the Islamic State (IS).

Orszag has totaled the funding provided through FY 2007 for mil. & diplomatic operations in Iraq & Afghanistan & other activities associated with the war on terrorism, as well as for related costs incurred by the Dept. of Vet. Affairs for medical care, disability compensation, & survivors¿ benefits. Also, he has projected the total cost over the next 10 years of funding operations in support of the war on terrorism under 2 scenarios. Those scenarios are meant to serve as an illustration of the budgetary impact of two different courses in the war on terrorism but are not intended to be a prediction of what will occur. Total spending for U.S. operations in Iraq & Afghanistan & other activities would amount to between $1.2 & $1.7 trillion for FY 2001 through 2017. Tables.

A high-ranking general's gripping insider account of the U.S. wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and how it all went wrong. Over a thirty-five-year career, Daniel Bolger rose through the army infantry to become a three-star general, commanding in both theaters of the U.S. campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan. He participated in meetings with top-level military and civilian players, where strategy was made and managed. At the same time, he regularly carried a rifle alongside rank-and-file soldiers in combat actions, unusual for a general. Now, as a witness to all levels of military command, Bolger offers a unique assessment of these wars, from 9/11 to the final withdrawal from the region. Writing with hard-won experience and unflinching honesty, Bolger makes the firm case that in Iraq and in Afghanistan, we lost -- but we didn't have to. Intelligence was garbled. Key decision makers were blinded by spreadsheets or theories. And, at the root of our failure, we never really understood our enemy. Why We Lost is a timely, forceful, and compulsively readable account of these wars from a fresh and authoritative perspective.

2020 L.A. Times Book Prize Finalist, History A provocative examination of how the U.S. military has shaped our entire world, from today’s costly, endless wars to the prominence of violence in everyday American life. The United States has been fighting wars constantly since invading Afghanistan in 2001. This nonstop warfare is far less exceptional than it might seem: the United States has been at war or has invaded other countries almost every year since independence. In The United States of War, David Vine traces this pattern of bloody conflict from Columbus's 1494 arrival in Guantanamo Bay through the 250-year expansion of a global U.S. empire. Drawing on historical and firsthand anthropological research in fourteen countries and territories, The United States of War demonstrates how U.S. leaders across generations have locked the United States in a self-perpetuating system of permanent war by constructing the world’s largest-ever collection of foreign military bases—a global matrix that has made offensive interventionist wars more likely. Beyond exposing the profit-making desires, political interests, racism, and toxic masculinity underlying the country’s relationship to war and empire, The United States of War shows how the long history of U.S. military expansion shapes our daily lives, from today’s multi-trillion–dollar wars to the pervasiveness of violence and militarism in everyday U.S. life. The book concludes by confronting the catastrophic toll of American wars—which have left millions dead, wounded, and displaced—while offering proposals for how we can end the fighting.