Critics of President Barack Obama’s decision to intervene militarily in Libya have complained about the financial cost, citing the figure of $1 billion.

 

Yes, a billion dollars is a considerable sum of money. However, compared to the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, it’s miniscule. Those wars have cost taxpayers $1 trillion.

 

To put it another way, the Libya campaign is equal to less than four days of warfare in Afghanistan.

 

“Those genuinely concerned about war costs need to go where the money is—Afghanistan,” writes William Hartung, director of the Arms and Security Project at the Center for International Policy.

 

Hartung points out that the Department of Defense has asked for $113 billion to fight the Afghanistan war this year. “To put this in some perspective, the entire Gross Domestic Product of Afghanistan is about $29 billion per year, which means that annual U.S. expenditures on the war are nearly four times the value of the entire Afghan economy,” he says. The Obama administration’s request for FY 2012 is $107.3 billion.

-Noel Brinkerhoff

 

America's Costliest War (by William Hartung, Huffington Post)

Department of Defense FY 2012 Budget (Department of Defense) (page 6-1) (pdf)