AFGHAN CONFLICT COSTS $45 BILLION A YEAR, SAYS PENTAGON

PENTAGON: Details of the cost of war in Afghanistan revealed in the Senate foreign Relations Committee make an interesting reading.

A Pentagon official told lawmakers the conflict is now costing $45 billion a year.

It is disturbingly exorbitant cost as witnessed by the comments of several senators during a hearing.

It was revealed that $5 billion goes to the Afghan forces and $13 billion for around 16,000 American troops stationed in the country, while a paltry sum of $780 million is for economic assistance.

The remainder of the $45 billion outlay is for logistics support.

The committee was also told that the current cost of war is much less when over 100,000 American servicemen were waging a war on terror in the rigged mountains of Afghanistan.

Then, the bill hit $100 billion a year. That then leads to the question of the total cost of the Afghan war since 2001.

Various factors used to calculate the cost tend to change the net expenditures.

However, different estimates show American taxpayers have paid between $1 trillion to $2 trillion for this obscure war.

[APP]