The study, conducted by the Costs of War Project by the WatsonInstitute for International Studies at Brown University, concludedthat the accrued interest on the nearly $2.2 trillion in expenseswould amount to some $4 trillion dollars during the comingdecades, Reuters reports.
At the time of the 2003 invasion, the Bush administration estimatedthe war would cost between $50-60 billion.
Published in advance of the 10th anniversary of the March 19 US-ledinvasion of Iraq, the study also estimated the great human costinflicted by the nearly decade long conflict.
At least 134,000 Iraqi civilians died as a result of the Iraq War,though the Watson Institute says the death toll could be up to fourtimes higher. The report stated that with the inclusion of slainjournalists, aid workers and insurgents, the base level death tollreached an estimated 176,000- 189,000.
A 2006 peer-reviewed Lancet study had found that 650,000 Iraqis –both combatants and civilians – had died up to that point. Otherestimates had previously put total war deaths as high as 1 million.
An estimated 36,000 American military personnel were also killed orinjured during the war.
The Watson Institute study further found that US gains from theinvasion were negligible, while Iraq was still reeling from thewar.
“Despite the US military withdrawal,” the report says,
“Iraq’s health, infrastructure, and education systems remainwar-devastated.” The war further galvanized radical Islamist militants in the regionand set back women’s rights, while
“the $212 billionreconstruction effort was largely a failure with most of that moneyspent on security or lost to waste and fraud.” The study was an update of a 2011 report which estimated the costsof the US military engagements in Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iraq at$3.7 trillion. The latest report puts that cost at some $4 trilliondollars
In the run up to the war, the US and the UK claimed that Iraqpossessed weapons of mass destruction which posed a threat toregional security.
The U.S.‑led Iraq Survey Group would later conclude that Iraq hadended its nuclear, chemical and biological weapons programs in 1991and had no active programs at the time of the invasion.
