Last night, President Obama said that the U.S. will be sending 30,000 new troops to fight in Afghanistan. From a financial perspective, this will add an estimated $30 billion in costs, according to news.yahoo.com--or roughly the same amount the government bailed GM out with (wsj.com). In light of that, I decided that today's stat blog will break down the cost and size of the wars being waged in Afghanistan and Iraq.
- U.S. military operations began in Afghanistan in October 2001 (state.gov) and in Iraq in March 2003 (state.gov). U.S. troops are slated to begin pulling out of Afghanistan in summer 2011 (news.yahoo.com) and all U.S. troops in Iraq are to be pulled out by Dec. 31, 2011 (msnbc.com).
- U.S. military personnel total more than 2.6 million (bls.gov). The number of troops in Iraq at one time peaked at 160,000, according to President Obama, and with the additional 30,000 troops, Afghanistan will have nearly 100,000 troops at the height of the surge (news.yahoo.com).
- $501,031,750,000 in total expenditures were racked up by the Department of Defense in 2008. Of this, payroll totaled $146,780,817,000, contracts totaled $349,557,369,000, and grants were $4,693,564,000.
- Lockheed Martin received a total of $28,316,370,000 (the highest amount) in contracts with the Dept. of Defense in 2008, according to the Department of Defense.
- 906 troops have died in Operation Enduring Freedom (Afghanistan) and 4,345 in Operation Iraqi Freedom (Iraq).
U.S. military involvement in Afghanistan and Iraq have been an everyday reality for the last eight years. Now you know the scope of involvement and the costs.
--Jens
Post new comment