War in Afghanistan Costs America $4 Million an Hour - Study

Nearly $715 billion has been spent on the US military campaign in Afghanistan since 2001, according to figures from a non-governmental organization that does research on the federal budget and US military spending.

The US-led war in Afghanistan is costing American taxpayers $4 million per hour despite the withdrawal of most American troops from the country at the end of last year, according to a study just released by the National Priorities Project (NPP).

The $715 billion figure is deceptive though, the NPP study noted, because it does not include a full accounting of all the costs of the war, including future spending on medical care for wounded soldiers and veterans, Press TV reported on Wednesday.

The cost of deploying just one soldier to Afghanistan is approximately $1 million a year, which twice exceeds the $390,000 estimate by congressional researchers in 2006.

Harvard economist Linda Bilmes calculated in 2013 that the Afghan and Iraq wars have become “the most expensive wars in the US history.”