Ten Years After the Invasion of Iraq

March 19, 2013

A decade to the day after the US-led invasion of Iraq, car bombs and suicide blasts rocked Baghdad and areas to the south, killing some 50 people and wounding many others. At the same time, media references to the Costs of War project, which days ago released the first comprehensive analysis of direct and indirect human and economic costs of the Iraq War, abound -- including NPR Blog, HuffPost Live, Christian Science Monitor, Democracy Now, NBC News, and more. 

According to the report, the war has killed at least 190,000 people, including men and women in uniform, contractors and civilians and will cost the U.S. $2.2 trillion – a figure that far exceeds the initial 2002 estimates by the U.S. Office of Management and Budget of $50 to $60 billion. Catherine Lutz, the Thomas J. Watson, Jr. Family Professor of Anthropology and International Studies at the Institute, co-directs the project with Neta C. Crawford, professor of political science at Boston University. The project's complete findings are available at costsofwar.org.