Pentagon War Spending Hits $685.7 Billion

March 30, 2009 

WASHINGTON – Pentagon spending on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and to fight terrorism elsewhere has reached $685.7 billion since 2001, a U.S. government watchdog agency said on Monday.

The Government Accountability Office, or GAO, said the Iraq war accounted for $533.5 billion in Defense Department spending obligations through last December, while spending on operations in Afghanistan, the Horn of Africa and the Philippines totaled $124.1 billion.

The remaining $28.1 billion was for operations to defend the U.S. mainland, the GAO said in a letter to Congress dated March 30.

The spending total equals about 85 percent of the $808 billion that Congress has appropriated for military operations in the global war on terrorism since the Sept. 11 attacks on New York and Washington, the GAO said.

The $122.3 billion difference reflects multiyear contracts for procurement, military construction, research, development and other programs, the watchdog agency said. …

Congress has appropriated $65.9 billion for 2009 so far and the Obama administration is seeking another $75.5 billion, suggesting $141.4 billion in total appropriations for the year, down from 2008. …

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Conflict in Iraq video

GAO: Iraq pullout ‘massive and expensive’ (NBC Nightly News, March 25, 2009) — A report by the Government Accountability Office says the U.S. pullout from Iraq will be a massive and expensive effort. NBC’s Steve Wende on the cost of packing people and equipment. (02:01)

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Security Developments in Iraq

Following are security developments in Iraq on Monday, March 30, 2009, as reported by Reuters.

BAQUBA – A bomb attached to a bicycle killed three laborers and wounded eight others in Baquba, 40 miles northeast of Baghdad, police said.

MOSUL – A roadside bomb killed one soldier and wounded two others, including a major, when it struck their patrol in western Mosul, 240 miles north of Baghdad, police said.

MOSUL – Gunmen in a moving car shot dead a civilian in western Mosul, police said.

MOSUL – A bomb targeting a police patrol killed one policeman and wounded four others in western Mosul, police said.

MOSUL – Gunmen shot dead a senior official in the Mosul branch of Displacement and Migration Office and seriously wounded his aide as they left their office in northern Mosul, police said.

BAGHDAD – A bomb attached to the car of an intelligence officer in the interior ministry killed him and another passenger and wounded eight passers-by on Sunday in Adhamiya district, northern Baghdad, police said.

MOSUL – Gunmen in a car shot dead Abdullah Al-Sebaawi, a local leader of the Iraqi Islamic Party, on Sunday in the city of Mosul, 240 miles north of Baghdad, police said.