$806 Billion Spent for Hundreds of Thousands to Be Killed and Wounded: The Staggering, True Costs of the Iraq War

The war was intended to show the extent of America’s power. It succeeded only in showing its limits.
December 14, 2011

The United States is withdrawing the last of its troops from Iraq this month, which makes now an appropriate time to begin weighing the costs and benefits to U.S. national security from our intervention there.

On May 1, 2003, President George W. Bush stood aboard the deck of the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln and declared to the country and to the world that “Major combat operations in Iraq have ended. In the battle of Iraq, the United States and our allies have prevailed.”

As Americans would quickly find out, President Bush’s declaration of victory was severely premature. Iraq would soon be in the throes of a violent insurgency and, eventually, a full-blown sectarian civil war.
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