Obama: "Oil wars have cost us $1Trillion" -- he's off by about $3Trillion

[txlibdem]

The cost of the wars in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan have been grossly underestimated by politicians on both sides, including the President.

# The human and economic costs of these wars will continue for decades, some costs not peaking until mid-century. Many of the wars’ costs are invisible to Americans, buried in a variety of budgets, and so have not been counted or assessed. For example, while most people think the Pentagon war appropriations are equivalent to the wars’ budgetary costs, the true numbers are twice that, and the full economic cost of the wars much larger yet. Conservatively estimated, the war bills already paid and obligated to be paid are $3.2 trillion in constant dollars. A more reasonable estimate puts the number at nearly $4 trillion.

# As with former US wars, the costs of paying for veterans’ care into the future will be a sizable portion of the full costs of the war.

# The ripple effects on the U.S. economy have also been significant, including job loss and interest rate increases, and those effects have been underappreciated.

# Putting together the conservative numbers of war dead, in uniform and out, brings the total to 225,000.

http://costsofwar.org/

This Brown University Study tells the truth about the full cost of the Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan wars:

By Daniel Trotta, NEW YORK, June 29
When President Barack Obama cited cost as a reason to bring troops home from Afghanistan, he referred to a $1 trillion price tag for America’s wars.

Staggering as it is, that figure grossly underestimates the total cost of wars in june 2011 Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan to the U.S. Treasury and ignores more imposing costs yet to come, according to a study released on Wednesday.

The final bill will run at least $3.7 trillion and could reach as high as $4.4 trillion, according to the research project “Costs of War” by Brown University’s Watson Institute for International Studies.

graphics.thomsonreuters.com/11/06/CostofWar.pdf

Now we've added Libya, Yemen... any more that just started up?