UK spending on Iraq hits £6.6bn

[Robbien]

Source: Financial Times UK

The conflict in Iraq and efforts to rebuild the country have cost British taxpayers about £6.6bn ($13.3bn), almost a third more than the funds Prime Minister Gordon Brown set aside for the military to fight the war.

Public accounts show that departmental spending on aid, debt relief and security adds about £1.6bn to the most commonly referenced estimate of UK war costs – a £5bn calculation based on money drawn down by the military from a Treasury contingency reserve.

. . .

Vince Cable, deputy leader of the opposition Liberal Democrat party, said that while the costs of the war are “primarily human and political”, the financial costs were “staggering”. “Even this figure is almost certainly an understatement,” he said. “There are continuing legacy costs, including caring for servicemen who have a lifetime of mental and physical disability.”

Iraq is probably the most costly overseas conflict for the UK since the second world war, according to the Iraq Analysis Group, a research organisation monitoring war costs.

Read more: http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/41cd77a4-53f8-11dc-9a6e-0000779fd2ac.html

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Six point six billion pounds being labeled staggering. And thats for the entire period of invasion and occupation!