Iraq War Cost
Was the U.S Iraq and Afghanistan War Worth the Cost?
Introduction
The U.S led Iraq and Afghanistan wars have received praises and criticisms of different measures. The war was fought for almost a decade, starting back in 2003. In the case of Iraq war, the cause of the conflict was suspicion by the United States and United Kingdom that Iraq had in its possession Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD) that it intended to use in case of war between nations. This was based on the past experience where Iraq had used WMD against Kurds. Despite the fact that an investigation by the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) found no evidence of claims that Iraq indeed had WMD, The United States and United Kingdom went ahead and invaded Iraq on the 20th of …show more content…
March, 2003. On the other hand the U.S Afghan war involved the pursuit of the Al Qaeda insurgents and the perceived Afghan government support of this terrorist group. The war had its social and economic effects on both the local citizens and those of United States. There was tremendous loss of life and the cost was mind boggling. It is estimated that approximately between $5 trillion to $6 trillion (Tirman, nd). To make matters worse, there are reasons to believe that this amount may not be the exact figure as some of the funds were misappropriated. Was the loss of human life justified? Did the war serve its purpose, which was to ensure more security to the people of Iraq and America? Was the amount of money used in the war sensible? This paper looks at the implications of the Iraq-Afghanistan war and tries to show that the war was not worth the cost.
Implications of the War
Just like any other war, the Iraq-Afghanistan war resulted in loss, both in human life and money. There were an estimated 98,000 deaths in the first eighteen months of the war, 650,000 by the year 2006 and extra 400,000 mortalities by the time the war culminated (Tirman, nd). The U.S government dedicated trillions of dollars to the course, as opposed to 100-200 billion dollars estimate that was made by Lawrence Lindsey, the then President George Bush’s National Economic Council Director (Shah, 2013). Additionally, the trust that other nations had in the U.S deteriorated as they viewed this act as bullying. There have been calls from the nations that opposed the war for a reduction of the U.S’s and U.K’s veto powers as they are seen to be misusing the same. The war did impact a negative cost the United States and its allies including political, economic instability and loss of global trust.
Economic Cost-to the U.S
The rough estimations of the cost of the Iraq-Afghanistan war are up to a staggering 6 trillion U.S Dollars. Indeed so hard was the funding the war that the United States had to borrow to up to about 2 trillion U.S Dollars. A report by the Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government says that the United States has paid about 260 billion dollars (Shah, 2013).
Logically, the amounts being mentioned concerning the war are overwhelming.
Taking a look at the state of the United States economy, this debt proved to be a burden to the already struggling economy. So much could have been done with the amount to help the economy of the United States to grow. As at now, the combined debt of the United States adds to trillions of dollars that continue to attract interest. Long after the end of the war, additional costs that are related to the aftermath continuer to pile. These include rebuilding Iraq and Afghanistan, re-armoring the military, recruiting new soldiers and servicemen and war veteran’s payouts. Various categories of healthcare expenditure continue to cripple the taxpayer. The soldiers who suffered injuries continue being on treatment, which adds to the cost of the war. Some will continue to need lifetime support, like the ones who suffered brain injuries or other related injuries. This means that the government will continue to commit resources through round the clock care, rehabilitation and support to the veterans (Stiglitz, 2006). Analysts have put the total cost of the Iraq war to be less than 0.1% of the GDP. This means that no stimulus would be provided to the present day economy. Looking at the Bush administration’s commitment to the fiscal status of the country, it meant that what was committed to other sectors like health, education and research had to be cut down. This transferred the pain to the people whose living …show more content…
standards would be lowered. America therefore will be poorer (Abrams, 2003). The country and the world altogether suffered recession and is yet to fully recover. This makes the Washington to go into wishful thinking, hoping that they had in the first place avoided war so as to be in a better off position in such hard economic times.
Were the goals of the war achieved? The answer to these questions is relative, whether from the responsible politicians’ views or from the civilian’s point of view. The major reasons of the Bush administration back in 2003 to invade Iraq were to bring peace and disarm the Iraq government of Weapons of Mass Destruction. Were any of these achieved? No. By the time the United States decided to withdraw its troops in 2011, Iraq and Afghanistan remained in crisis as ever. Up to the end of the war, no single weapon of mass destruction was recovered. This was contrary to the claims that the Bush administration so repeatedly argued and pushed the United Nations to give them the green light to initiate invasion. Another reason for the attack was security. The United States had used the 2001 terrorist attacks on American Soil that claimed almost 3000 lives as reason to pursue terrorists (Stiglitz, 2006). This could have been possible by other means, other than going into a costly war. By the time the United States troops were removed from Iraq in 2011, the insurgents had grown almost double fold and their networks spread, even to areas that they had previously not occupied. One can say that the United States did succeed in tracking down the al-Qaeda leader, Osama bin Laden. The two questions that rise are, did the administration that used almost 85% of the money in war succeed in doing it, and, was war the only mean to bring down al-Qaeda? The Obama administration was the one responsible for bringing down the insurgent’s leader in May 2011. To add to this, the man was not brought down war, rather intelligence was used and he was hunted down from a command back in the Washington D.C. the cost of the operation that fulfilled the task that was a reason for invasion and war cost an understandably little amount of money. This could have been done and the trillions of dollars spared and used in other areas meant good to the economy.
The most affected citizens of U.S due to the Iraq and Afghanistan war are the middle and the lower class. The greater population is composed of middle class and the lower class earners, whose largest ratio of tax supports the United States economy. All the money that was used in this war was obtained from the taxes collected from these groups of citizens. Whenever extra funds were needed to keep the war going, the treasury used its reserves from the taxpayers. So as to have enough money, other sectors of the economy suffered due to reduced investment by the government to them. This included education, health, social services amongst others. The quality of the services that the middle and low class earners received became low due to lack of enough funds. The few gainers were the private military contractors and publicly listed firms that made a fortune from providing logistics and general service to the troops. This means that the middle and low class earners suffered economically while the upper class gained from the war (prorev.com, 2013).
Global Cost
The allies of United States in this war too suffered economic loss. These were the United Kingdom and Australia. The war in Afghanistan cost Britain an estimated 37 billion pounds, which translated to about 2000 pounds per every taxpaying household. It is estimated that by the year 2020, Britain would have spent about 40 billion pounds in regards to the Afghanistan war. This amount would have been used on other meaningful purposes like recruiting police officers to enhance security in Britain or be used to pay for the tuition of all British students pursuing higher education in Britain for a decade (Norton-Taylor, 2013).
The countries of Iraq and Afghanistan have plenty of oilfields which serve the whole world.
The “Financial Times” magazine in 2007 revealed that Iraq could have almost double the reserves of oil than it had earlier been thought. The war thus meant that it could be hard in the future to deal with Iraq’s security even to matters that concerned its oil and by products. This means that the global prices of oil could be affected by the war as it had a direct affect to its production (Gafarli, 2007). The oil prices have since increased steadily and have continued to sell high since the war began. The prices of crude oil do not affect just the United States, but the entire world. A good example of a country that is suffering from this is India. India’s oil demand increases at a steady rate of 4-5 percent annually. Iraq has since ruled out any subsidized oil prices to India, stating that the law of the land does not allow them to do so. This has adverse effects on the economy of India as it imports about 20 million tons of oil from Iraq every year. This means that Iraq is the second largest supplier of oil crude oil to India (Lee,
2013).
Some people suggested that the motive of United States going into war with Iraq was to secure oil reserves for its own benefit. Very few people have contrary opinion to the fat that Bush had oil interests in Iraq. There were uncertainties about the trends of the oil prices once the United States engaged Iraq in war, but no anymore. The consequences have been dire and the full effect is yet to be felt (Abrams, 2003). Not just India, but many nations, United States and Britain included, depend on the oil that is supplied from Iraq. This means double trouble for the United States as it has to recover the money it spent on war and yet struggle with the consequences of the war. The justifiable motive of the United States government when it engaged in the Iraqi war was to end Saddam’s dictatorial regime in Iraq. This was seen as a way of enhancing freedom and democracy. In the case of Afghanistan the war was thought to successfully lead to getting rid of Al Qaeda adherents in Afghanistan as well as helping in capture of Osama Bin Laden. This they say was to make Iraq a better country and in addition make the world a better place to live. The result of the war was an exact opposite. Iraq and Afghanistan remained in chaos and even worse as the war had a toll on their infrastructure, which cost equally mind boggling amounts of money to rebuild. The world also suffered on the aftermath of the war, in two major ways. First, the cost of living has gone higher due to the increased prices of crude oil. Second, as the terrorists who were being pursued escaped, they dispersed and formed various factions and sleeper cells which continue to rein havoc on nations with brutal acts of terrorism (Lee, 2013). This has in turn meant that governments are spending so much money in trying to fight off or hunt the terrorists. The fight against these terrorists was the reason the United States of America and the United Kingdom spent trillions of dollars in the Iraq-Afghanistan war. Were these the results that were anticipated? Does that mean that the war was a waste of funds? The answer is to the negative as the war was not worth the cost.
Cost to international relations
Both the United States of America and the United Kingdom hold veto powers in the United Nations, meaning that they have a big say on the manner that the international community conducts its business. One of the reasons for the invasion of Iraq was to dispose Dictator Saddam Hussein. This was achieved, but the collateral damage in terms of loss of human life and livelihoods amongst others overshadowed the intent. Nations have viewed the United States and the United Kingdom as countries that have misused their status in the United Nations. The war damaged U.S’s credibility and caused instability in Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan and other Arabian countries (Hinnebusch, 2006).
Defenders of the war action argue strongly that indeed the world has been made a better place without Saddam Hussein. Only a few of these defenders have considered the cost of Saddam’s removal and what was lost in the course of his ousting. What must be remembered that trillions of dollars were spent to pursue claims that were non-existent? These were the claims that the Bush administration was pursuing weapons of mass destruction and links of Saddam Hussein to al-Qaeda (Bacevich, 2013). When the world trusted the United States and the United Kingdom on sensitive matters like terrorism, democracy and transparency, they expected a little more than the outcome of the war. Since then, there has been a deep divide between the supporters of the two countries and their critiques. The war proved to be a very expensive way of losing trust.
Conclusion
The United States under the Bush administration remain liable for the misappropriation of funds on a course that was in the first place not justified. The budget estimates that the government gave back in 2003 were overwhelming, yet they ended up increasing more than twelve-fold. This is not logical and totally unacceptable. The economic consequences of the war were felt by the middle class and lower class citizens, whose tax was used to fund the war. The only beneficiaries were a few upper class citizens and warmongers who supplied weaponry to rebels. Besides, other costs came in in form loss of human life, reconstruction costs and trust cost that left the world even more divided than before. The lesson has been learnt and people slowly come to agree on the fact that the war was not worth the cost.
References
Abrams, I., Gungwu, W. (2003). The Iraq War and its Consequences: Thoughts of Nobel Peace Laureates and Eminent Scholars. Singapore: World Scientific Publishing.
Hinnebusch, R. (2006). The Iraq war and International Relations: Implications for Small States. Cambridge Review of International Affairs 19(3): 451-463.
Stiglitz, J.E., Bilmes L. (nd). The Economic Costs of the Iraq War: An Appraisal Three Years after the Beginning of the Conflict. Retrieved on October 4, 2013 from: http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article11495.htm
Gafarli, H. (2007). The Impact of War on Oil Price. Retrieved on October 4, 2013 from: http://www.turkishweekly.net/op-ed/2225/the-impact-of-iraq-war-on-oil-price.html
Lee, J. (2013, August 17). Iraq Rules Out Special Oil Prices for India. Retrieved on October 4, 2013 from: http://www.iraq-businessnews.com/tag/oil-prices/
Bacevich, A.J. (2011, December 15). Was the Iraq War Worth it?. Retrieved on October 4, 2013 from: http://www.cfr.org/iraq/iraq-war-worth-/p26820
The Progressive Review. (2013). Costs of the Iraq War. Retrieved October 4, 2013 from: http://prorev.com/iraqcosts.htm
Tirman, J. (nd). Iraq: The Human cost. Retrieved on October 4, 2013 from: http://web.mit.edu/humancostiraq/
Shah, S. (2013, September 20). US Wars in Afghanistan, Iraq to Cost $6 Trillion. Retrieved from: http://www.globalresearch.ca/us-wars-in-afghanistan-iraq-to-cost-6-trillion/5350789
Norton-Taylor, R. (2013, May 30). Afghanistan War has Cost Britain More than £37 bn. New Book Claims. Retrieved of October 4, 2013 from: http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/may/30/afghanistan-war-cost-britain-37bn-book
Introduction
The U.S led Iraq and Afghanistan wars have received praises and criticisms of different measures. The war was fought for almost a decade, starting back in 2003. In the case of Iraq war, the cause of the conflict was suspicion by the United States and United Kingdom that Iraq had in its possession Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD) that it intended to use in case of war between nations. This was based on the past experience where Iraq had used WMD against Kurds. Despite the fact that an investigation by the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) found no evidence of claims that Iraq indeed had WMD, The United States and United Kingdom went ahead and invaded Iraq on the 20th of …show more content…
March, 2003. On the other hand the U.S Afghan war involved the pursuit of the Al Qaeda insurgents and the perceived Afghan government support of this terrorist group. The war had its social and economic effects on both the local citizens and those of United States. There was tremendous loss of life and the cost was mind boggling. It is estimated that approximately between $5 trillion to $6 trillion (Tirman, nd). To make matters worse, there are reasons to believe that this amount may not be the exact figure as some of the funds were misappropriated. Was the loss of human life justified? Did the war serve its purpose, which was to ensure more security to the people of Iraq and America? Was the amount of money used in the war sensible? This paper looks at the implications of the Iraq-Afghanistan war and tries to show that the war was not worth the cost.
Implications of the War
Just like any other war, the Iraq-Afghanistan war resulted in loss, both in human life and money. There were an estimated 98,000 deaths in the first eighteen months of the war, 650,000 by the year 2006 and extra 400,000 mortalities by the time the war culminated (Tirman, nd). The U.S government dedicated trillions of dollars to the course, as opposed to 100-200 billion dollars estimate that was made by Lawrence Lindsey, the then President George Bush’s National Economic Council Director (Shah, 2013). Additionally, the trust that other nations had in the U.S deteriorated as they viewed this act as bullying. There have been calls from the nations that opposed the war for a reduction of the U.S’s and U.K’s veto powers as they are seen to be misusing the same. The war did impact a negative cost the United States and its allies including political, economic instability and loss of global trust.
Economic Cost-to the U.S
The rough estimations of the cost of the Iraq-Afghanistan war are up to a staggering 6 trillion U.S Dollars. Indeed so hard was the funding the war that the United States had to borrow to up to about 2 trillion U.S Dollars. A report by the Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government says that the United States has paid about 260 billion dollars (Shah, 2013).
Logically, the amounts being mentioned concerning the war are overwhelming.
Taking a look at the state of the United States economy, this debt proved to be a burden to the already struggling economy. So much could have been done with the amount to help the economy of the United States to grow. As at now, the combined debt of the United States adds to trillions of dollars that continue to attract interest. Long after the end of the war, additional costs that are related to the aftermath continuer to pile. These include rebuilding Iraq and Afghanistan, re-armoring the military, recruiting new soldiers and servicemen and war veteran’s payouts. Various categories of healthcare expenditure continue to cripple the taxpayer. The soldiers who suffered injuries continue being on treatment, which adds to the cost of the war. Some will continue to need lifetime support, like the ones who suffered brain injuries or other related injuries. This means that the government will continue to commit resources through round the clock care, rehabilitation and support to the veterans (Stiglitz, 2006). Analysts have put the total cost of the Iraq war to be less than 0.1% of the GDP. This means that no stimulus would be provided to the present day economy. Looking at the Bush administration’s commitment to the fiscal status of the country, it meant that what was committed to other sectors like health, education and research had to be cut down. This transferred the pain to the people whose living …show more content…
standards would be lowered. America therefore will be poorer (Abrams, 2003). The country and the world altogether suffered recession and is yet to fully recover. This makes the Washington to go into wishful thinking, hoping that they had in the first place avoided war so as to be in a better off position in such hard economic times.
Were the goals of the war achieved? The answer to these questions is relative, whether from the responsible politicians’ views or from the civilian’s point of view. The major reasons of the Bush administration back in 2003 to invade Iraq were to bring peace and disarm the Iraq government of Weapons of Mass Destruction. Were any of these achieved? No. By the time the United States decided to withdraw its troops in 2011, Iraq and Afghanistan remained in crisis as ever. Up to the end of the war, no single weapon of mass destruction was recovered. This was contrary to the claims that the Bush administration so repeatedly argued and pushed the United Nations to give them the green light to initiate invasion. Another reason for the attack was security. The United States had used the 2001 terrorist attacks on American Soil that claimed almost 3000 lives as reason to pursue terrorists (Stiglitz, 2006). This could have been possible by other means, other than going into a costly war. By the time the United States troops were removed from Iraq in 2011, the insurgents had grown almost double fold and their networks spread, even to areas that they had previously not occupied. One can say that the United States did succeed in tracking down the al-Qaeda leader, Osama bin Laden. The two questions that rise are, did the administration that used almost 85% of the money in war succeed in doing it, and, was war the only mean to bring down al-Qaeda? The Obama administration was the one responsible for bringing down the insurgent’s leader in May 2011. To add to this, the man was not brought down war, rather intelligence was used and he was hunted down from a command back in the Washington D.C. the cost of the operation that fulfilled the task that was a reason for invasion and war cost an understandably little amount of money. This could have been done and the trillions of dollars spared and used in other areas meant good to the economy.
The most affected citizens of U.S due to the Iraq and Afghanistan war are the middle and the lower class. The greater population is composed of middle class and the lower class earners, whose largest ratio of tax supports the United States economy. All the money that was used in this war was obtained from the taxes collected from these groups of citizens. Whenever extra funds were needed to keep the war going, the treasury used its reserves from the taxpayers. So as to have enough money, other sectors of the economy suffered due to reduced investment by the government to them. This included education, health, social services amongst others. The quality of the services that the middle and low class earners received became low due to lack of enough funds. The few gainers were the private military contractors and publicly listed firms that made a fortune from providing logistics and general service to the troops. This means that the middle and low class earners suffered economically while the upper class gained from the war (prorev.com, 2013).
Global Cost
The allies of United States in this war too suffered economic loss. These were the United Kingdom and Australia. The war in Afghanistan cost Britain an estimated 37 billion pounds, which translated to about 2000 pounds per every taxpaying household. It is estimated that by the year 2020, Britain would have spent about 40 billion pounds in regards to the Afghanistan war. This amount would have been used on other meaningful purposes like recruiting police officers to enhance security in Britain or be used to pay for the tuition of all British students pursuing higher education in Britain for a decade (Norton-Taylor, 2013).
The countries of Iraq and Afghanistan have plenty of oilfields which serve the whole world.
The “Financial Times” magazine in 2007 revealed that Iraq could have almost double the reserves of oil than it had earlier been thought. The war thus meant that it could be hard in the future to deal with Iraq’s security even to matters that concerned its oil and by products. This means that the global prices of oil could be affected by the war as it had a direct affect to its production (Gafarli, 2007). The oil prices have since increased steadily and have continued to sell high since the war began. The prices of crude oil do not affect just the United States, but the entire world. A good example of a country that is suffering from this is India. India’s oil demand increases at a steady rate of 4-5 percent annually. Iraq has since ruled out any subsidized oil prices to India, stating that the law of the land does not allow them to do so. This has adverse effects on the economy of India as it imports about 20 million tons of oil from Iraq every year. This means that Iraq is the second largest supplier of oil crude oil to India (Lee,
2013).
Some people suggested that the motive of United States going into war with Iraq was to secure oil reserves for its own benefit. Very few people have contrary opinion to the fat that Bush had oil interests in Iraq. There were uncertainties about the trends of the oil prices once the United States engaged Iraq in war, but no anymore. The consequences have been dire and the full effect is yet to be felt (Abrams, 2003). Not just India, but many nations, United States and Britain included, depend on the oil that is supplied from Iraq. This means double trouble for the United States as it has to recover the money it spent on war and yet struggle with the consequences of the war. The justifiable motive of the United States government when it engaged in the Iraqi war was to end Saddam’s dictatorial regime in Iraq. This was seen as a way of enhancing freedom and democracy. In the case of Afghanistan the war was thought to successfully lead to getting rid of Al Qaeda adherents in Afghanistan as well as helping in capture of Osama Bin Laden. This they say was to make Iraq a better country and in addition make the world a better place to live. The result of the war was an exact opposite. Iraq and Afghanistan remained in chaos and even worse as the war had a toll on their infrastructure, which cost equally mind boggling amounts of money to rebuild. The world also suffered on the aftermath of the war, in two major ways. First, the cost of living has gone higher due to the increased prices of crude oil. Second, as the terrorists who were being pursued escaped, they dispersed and formed various factions and sleeper cells which continue to rein havoc on nations with brutal acts of terrorism (Lee, 2013). This has in turn meant that governments are spending so much money in trying to fight off or hunt the terrorists. The fight against these terrorists was the reason the United States of America and the United Kingdom spent trillions of dollars in the Iraq-Afghanistan war. Were these the results that were anticipated? Does that mean that the war was a waste of funds? The answer is to the negative as the war was not worth the cost.
Cost to international relations
Both the United States of America and the United Kingdom hold veto powers in the United Nations, meaning that they have a big say on the manner that the international community conducts its business. One of the reasons for the invasion of Iraq was to dispose Dictator Saddam Hussein. This was achieved, but the collateral damage in terms of loss of human life and livelihoods amongst others overshadowed the intent. Nations have viewed the United States and the United Kingdom as countries that have misused their status in the United Nations. The war damaged U.S’s credibility and caused instability in Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan and other Arabian countries (Hinnebusch, 2006).
Defenders of the war action argue strongly that indeed the world has been made a better place without Saddam Hussein. Only a few of these defenders have considered the cost of Saddam’s removal and what was lost in the course of his ousting. What must be remembered that trillions of dollars were spent to pursue claims that were non-existent? These were the claims that the Bush administration was pursuing weapons of mass destruction and links of Saddam Hussein to al-Qaeda (Bacevich, 2013). When the world trusted the United States and the United Kingdom on sensitive matters like terrorism, democracy and transparency, they expected a little more than the outcome of the war. Since then, there has been a deep divide between the supporters of the two countries and their critiques. The war proved to be a very expensive way of losing trust.
Conclusion
The United States under the Bush administration remain liable for the misappropriation of funds on a course that was in the first place not justified. The budget estimates that the government gave back in 2003 were overwhelming, yet they ended up increasing more than twelve-fold. This is not logical and totally unacceptable. The economic consequences of the war were felt by the middle class and lower class citizens, whose tax was used to fund the war. The only beneficiaries were a few upper class citizens and warmongers who supplied weaponry to rebels. Besides, other costs came in in form loss of human life, reconstruction costs and trust cost that left the world even more divided than before. The lesson has been learnt and people slowly come to agree on the fact that the war was not worth the cost.
References
Abrams, I., Gungwu, W. (2003). The Iraq War and its Consequences: Thoughts of Nobel Peace Laureates and Eminent Scholars. Singapore: World Scientific Publishing.
Hinnebusch, R. (2006). The Iraq war and International Relations: Implications for Small States. Cambridge Review of International Affairs 19(3): 451-463.
Stiglitz, J.E., Bilmes L. (nd). The Economic Costs of the Iraq War: An Appraisal Three Years after the Beginning of the Conflict. Retrieved on October 4, 2013 from: http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article11495.htm
Gafarli, H. (2007). The Impact of War on Oil Price. Retrieved on October 4, 2013 from: http://www.turkishweekly.net/op-ed/2225/the-impact-of-iraq-war-on-oil-price.html
Lee, J. (2013, August 17). Iraq Rules Out Special Oil Prices for India. Retrieved on October 4, 2013 from: http://www.iraq-businessnews.com/tag/oil-prices/
Bacevich, A.J. (2011, December 15). Was the Iraq War Worth it?. Retrieved on October 4, 2013 from: http://www.cfr.org/iraq/iraq-war-worth-/p26820
The Progressive Review. (2013). Costs of the Iraq War. Retrieved October 4, 2013 from: http://prorev.com/iraqcosts.htm
Tirman, J. (nd). Iraq: The Human cost. Retrieved on October 4, 2013 from: http://web.mit.edu/humancostiraq/
Shah, S. (2013, September 20). US Wars in Afghanistan, Iraq to Cost $6 Trillion. Retrieved from: http://www.globalresearch.ca/us-wars-in-afghanistan-iraq-to-cost-6-trillion/5350789
Norton-Taylor, R. (2013, May 30). Afghanistan War has Cost Britain More than £37 bn. New Book Claims. Retrieved of October 4, 2013 from: http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/may/30/afghanistan-war-cost-britain-37bn-book