One 9/11 Tally: $3.3 Trillion
September 8, 2011 The New York Times
“Al Qaeda spent roughly half a million dollars to destroy the World Trade Center and cripple the Pentagon. What has been the cost to the United States?”
September 8, 2011 The New York Times
“Al Qaeda spent roughly half a million dollars to destroy the World Trade Center and cripple the Pentagon. What has been the cost to the United States?”
September 8, 2011 Christian Science Monitor
“War costs always linger well after the last shot has been fired. But this is especially true of the Iraq-Afghanistan conflicts. The $1.6 trillion or so already spent has been financed wholly through borrowing.”
September 7, 2011 Boston Review
“A report from the Costs of War project at Brown University’s Watson Institute for International Studies estimates that the final bill will be $3.2-4 trillion.”
September 6, 2011 Marketplace
“The fact is that we have now spent trillions of dollars in Iraq and Afghanistan, all of which has been borrowed. The consequences of that have been, of course, an enormous run-up in our national debt.”
September 6, 2011 WGBH News
“As in the past, wars are never over when they’re said to be over. So, in the lives of veterans and the lives of civilians in the war zones, recovery takes a very long time, and in some cases, is a lifelong process.”
September 6, 2011 Here&Now
“The group also calculated the human and social costs, both in lives lost and the cost of caring for the nearly 100,000 wounded service members.”
September 6, 2011 The Independent
“The most comprehensive study of the military actions in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan concluded that the price tag is $4 trillion and rising… The US has already paid $185bn in interest on its debt-funded war spending, and another $1 trillion could accrue in interest alone through 2020.”
September 3, 2011 The Economist
“The costs-of-war project at Brown University thinks that on a ‘very conservative’ estimate about 137,000 civilians have been killed in Afghanistan, Iraq and Pakistan and that the wars have created more than 7.8m refugees in these countries.”
August 30, 2011 Star Tribune
“The more disturbing finding, however, is that in the coming years the wars threaten to cost the nation another $2 trillion – in interest payments on war debt as well as continuing medical expenses for 150,000 wounded veterans.”
August 21, 2011 Detroit Free Press
“When congressional cost-cutters meet later this year to decide on trimming the federal budget, the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq could represent juicy targets. But how much do the wars actually cost U.S. taxpayers?”
August 20, 2011 Euronews
“While Crawford admits that Americans were united in their desire for revenge against the attackers, the choice to go to war was made out of ‘fear and anger.’… And the path of war, she says, is more costly and more bloody than the path of law enforcement.”
August 19, 2011 The Dallas Morning News
“We were particularly alarmed by reports last week outlining military expenses exceeding $1.3 trillion since the 9/11 attacks. A Brown University study… puts the Iraq and Afghanistan wars’ cost at something closer to $4 trillion.”
August 18, 2011 AFP
“Osama bin Laden failed in his lifetime to achieve his goal of ‘bleeding America to bankruptcy,’ but 10 years after 9/11 the United States is still paying a steep economic price.”
August 15, 2011 The Gazette
“Sweeping new policing powers, the tacit acceptance of torture and a backlash against Muslims that has grown fiercer 10 years after the September 11 attacks have made the United States a less free and open society.”
August 11, 2011 KPFA 94.1
Listen to several of the Costs of War researchers interviewed for a live 3-1/2 hour broadcast on KPFA in San Francisco.
August 9, 2011 PRI
“What's concerning, Crawford adds, is unlike previous wars which were paid for by taxes or war bonds, the US has borrowed most if not all of the money to cover the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.”
July 27, 2011 The New York Times
"Ending the current wars will not lower veterans costs; indeed, they will rise ever more steeply for decades to come as the population of veterans from Iraq and Afghanistan expands, ages and becomes more infirm."
July 25, 2011 The Hill
“The report reminds us that we still don’t know what the total legacy of these conflicts — especially the long-term cost of injury and illness for veterans — will be.”
July 7, 2011 Democracy Now
“While much of the talk in Washington centers on taxes, Social Security and Medicare, far less attention is being paid to the growing cost of the U.S. wars overseas.”
June 29, 2011 Salon
“A research group at Brown including ‘economists, anthropologists, political scientists, legal experts, and a physician’ has tackled the always complex question of the costs of America's post-9/11 wars – economic, human, and political.”