Cost of the "war on terror" keeps rising

July 19, 2007 | Editor's note: The nonpartisan Congressional Research Service has prepared a new estimate on the price tag for the "war on terror." The appraisal includes military operations, base security, reconstruction, foreign aid, embassy costs and healthcare for returning veterans. The cost since Sept. 11: $610 billion. That number will rise to $758 billion if Congress approves the White House request for fiscal year 2008. Operations in Iraq are eating up 74 percent of all the money -- meanwhile, the amount going to veterans' healthcare? Less than 1 percent. The CRS also cites a February report from the Congressional Budget Office, which estimated that -- assuming that U.S. troop strength in Iraq is down to 30,000 by 2010, or to 75,000 by 2013 -- the total cost of the war on terror, including Iraq and Afghanistan, could be anywhere from $1 trillion to $1.45 trillion by 2017. As late as January 2003, two months before the invasion of Iraq, the Bush administration was downplaying speculation that the war there could cost as much as $50 billion to $60 billion.