Costs of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan to reach $549 billion this year

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http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/news/politics/15623530.htm

WASHINGTON - The total cost of military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan and enhanced security at military bases since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks could reach $549 billion this year, a new report to Congress concludes.

The projection by the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service is based on an update in July from the White House Office of Management and Budget, which estimated that war costs will total $110 billion for fiscal year 2007, which begins Sunday.

In fiscal year 2005, the Pentagon spent an average of $6.4 billion a month in Iraq and $1.3 billion a month in Afghanistan. During fiscal year 2006, it's projected that those costs will have increased to about $8 billion a month in Iraq and $1.5 billion per month in Afghanistan.

"Everybody expects that troops will come home and that next year will be cheaper, but it just never happens that way," said Winslow Wheeler, the director of the Straus Military Reform Project at the Center for Defense Information, a policy-research group in Washington.