New Study Unveils High Cost of US War in Iraq

Findings of a new study showed that the US war in Iraq has cost $2 trillion and total expenses in the unavailing conflict may rise to $6 trillion over the next 40 years.

According to the Costs of War Project by the Watson Institute for International Studies at Brown University, the US war on Iraq has cost more than $two trillion, including $490 billion in benefits owed to war veterans.

The report stated that the amount owed to veterans may rise to $6 trillion over the next four decades if interest is included.

The report, drawn up by about 30 academics, also said at least 189,000 people have been killed since the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003.

It said the war left 134,000 Iraqi civilians dead and may have contributed to the deaths of as many as four times that number.

The Costs of War Project concluded that Washington has gained but little from the years of conflict and occupation in Iraq.

A 2006 peer-reviewed Lancet study had found that 650,000 Iraqis – both combatants and civilians – had died up to that point. Other estimates had previously put total war deaths as high as 1 million.

An estimated 36,000 American military personnel were also killed or injured during the war.

In the run up to the war, the US and the UK claimed that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction which posed a threat to regional security. The Iraq Survey Group would later conclude that Iraq had ended its nuclear, chemical and biological weapons programs in 1991 and had no active programs at the time of the invasion.