WASHINGTON - Up to 507,000 people have been killed in the US-initiated wars in three countries after the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks against the United States, according to a report released by Brown University’ Cost of War Project.
“Between 480,000 and 507,000 people have been killed in the United States’ post-9/11 wars in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan,” the report said.
The report explained that the tally of the counts and estimates of direct deaths caused by war violence does not include the more than 500,000 deaths from the war in Syria. While the war in Syria raged since 2011, the United States joined the conflict in August 2014.
The report said a total of 147,000 fatalities - including those among US military and other allied troops, civilians, opposition forces and others - occurred in Afghanistan between October 2001 and October 2018,.
About 65,000 deaths were caused by war violence in conflict zones in Pakistan and some 295,000 deaths were caused by war violence in Iraq, the report said. Nearly 7,000 United States military personnel have been killed in the wars and more than 53,700 have been listed as wounded, according to the report.
Suicide among the veterans of these wars stood at more than 6,000 per year from 2008-2016.
The US wars have also accounted for the displacement of more than 12 million people from Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq and Syria in 2017, the report pointed out.
The post-September 11 military campaign, also known as the War on Terror, was launched by former US President George W. Bush after the September 11 terrorist attacks against the United States.
The Congressional Research Service has since 2015 stopped releasing updates on these wars.
Cost of US War on Terror to Top $6 Trillion Soon
The cost of the United States’ war on terrorism in the Middle East and South Asia since September 11, 2001 will soon exceed $6 trillion, the Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs at Brown University said in a new report on Wednesday.
“The United States has appropriated and is obligated to spend an estimated $5.9 trillion (in current dollars) on the war on terror through Fiscal Year 2019,” the annual Costs of War project report said.
The figure differs substantially from the Pentagon’s own estimates because it includes not only the direct spending in war zones in Iraq, Syria, Afghanistan, Pakistan and elsewhere, but also the costs incurred by the entire federal government as a consequence of the wars, the report noted.
Indirect costs include war-related spending by the Department of State, long-term care for war veterans and appropriations for the Department of Homeland Security, the report said.
The base estimate for war-on-terror spending during the 18-year period comes to $4.9 trillion, to which the report added $1 trillion to cover US obligations to pay for care of post-9/11 veterans throughout their lifetimes.
Moreover, the report warned that costs are likely to be higher due to future interest costs since all of the money is borrowed.