What Are the Costs of War in Iraq?

Question: What Are the Costs of War in Iraq?

Iraq war costs are often cited inaccurately. Some people confuse the costs of the war in Iraq with total funding for the war in Afghanistan and the "global war on terror." Some people confuse the president's requests for "supplemental" war funding with what Congress has actually appropriated. Some confuse Pentagon's regular annual budget with war costs when, in fact, the annual budget excludes "supplemental" war appropriations. So what are the actual, latest costs of the war in Iraq?

Answer: On Dec. 26, 2007, the U.S. Congress approved the latest “supplemental” war-spending bill — a $90.9 billion package for operations in Iraq, Afghanistan and the “war on terror.” That brought the total appropriations for the wars to $700 billion.

Of those $700 billion, Iraq will have received $526 billion by mid-2008, or 75% of total war appropriations. In late 2007, the Bush administration requested an additional $105 billion for 2008 war costs. On Feb. 4, 2008, the administration added yet another “placeholder” request for $70 billion. Congress has yet to act on the two requests, which would bring total war funding to $875 billion, with the Iraq war accounting for about $657 billion of that.

Without further appropriations, the Pentagon estimates that it has enough money in regular and “supplemental” funds to finance war costs until July 2008. War costs in Iraq have increased sharply every year—from $50 billion in 2003 to $135 billion in 2007. Costs are projected to keep rising.

In October 2007, the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office estimated that additional war costs over the next 10 years would range between $570 billion and $1.1 trillion, depending on troop levels, with overall costs for the wars in Iraq, Afghanistan and the “global war on terror” reaching $1.2 trillion to $1.7 trillion by 2017.