With the US military presence in Afghanistan ending, and more than $2 trillion spent in two decades, the cost of the war in Afghanistan, the US government will continue to bear some of the financial costs of -9/11 wars, according to researchers at Brown University.
LIVE: The Costs of War Project presents updated estimates on the most comprehensive and widely-cited assessments of the financial and human costs of the past #20YearsOfWar. https://t.co/6HwzJL9mBF
— The Costs of War Project (@CostsOfWar) September 1, 2021
US President Joe Biden said, on Wednesday, in justifying the decision to withdraw from Afghanistan and the cost of war in Afghanistan incurred to the United States, that he does not believe that “security and security in America will be enhanced by the continued military presence in Afghanistan,” noting that he had implemented an electoral pledge he had made to end the war. He added, “After 20 years of war, I refuse to let a new generation go there… We spent 2 trillion dollars[the cost of war in Afghanistan]… About 300 million dollars were spent daily during the war in Afghanistan . More than 27,000 soldiers were wounded and more than 2,400 died .”
According to a report published on the Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs website, issued Wednesday, by the Project Costs of War at Brown University , the cost of war in Afghanistan has reached 2.3 trillion dollars so far, according to what was reported by the newspaper USA Today .
The report indicates that this figure, the cost of the war in Afghanistan, does not include the huge airlift that the Biden administration conducted to evacuate 123,000 people from Afghanistan before the end of the final US military departure from the country, end of the war.
Researchers at Brown University have estimated that the war in Afghanistan cost $5.8 trillion to the United States, and other conflicts stemming from the September 11, 2001 attacks. This includes direct and indirect spending on everything from military equipment to homeland security to bounties for families of dead American service members during the war in Afghanistan.
The report shows that the conflicts in Iraq and Syria, after Afghanistan, have cost the United States an additional $2 trillion, the cost of war on Syria, and other counterterrorism operations in places like Somalia and other parts of Africa have cost nearly $355 billion.
The report added that despite the end of the military presence in Afghanistan, some costs will continue, such as continuing medical care for veterans of the war in Afghanistan, noting that taking care of the veterans has cost the state 456 billion dollars, so far[cost of war in Afghanistan].
The report indicated that the total number of war costs rose to more than 8 trillion dollars, noting that the cost of caring for veterans, for example, would cost the United States $ 2.2 trillion through 2050.
“Every country goes to war with the belief that it can win, that the fighting and its consequences will be under control, that the costs of war will be less expensive than diplomatic efforts or sanctions, and that there will be few casualties, but the war rarely goes as planned,” Joe Biden justifies the cost of war to the Americans.
Over the course of the 20-year of US-Taliban conflict , the Brown University report said, more than 46,000 civilians have been killed. Human lives lost during the war is the heaviest cost of war the United States had to face.
“There is nothing low-risk or low-cost in any war,” Biden said Tuesday.
