Over 60,000 U.S. Troops Have Been Killed or Injured in Post-9/11 Wars: Report

More than 60,000 U.S. soldiers and sailors have been killed or injured in post-9/11 wars, according to a Thursday report from Brown University’s Watson Institute of International and Public Affairs. That tally only includes casualties that occurred during wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan—and does not include indirect deaths like starvation or lack of medicine—meaning that the true total is likely much higher. Overall, the report notes, wars in those three countries have caused between 480,000 and 507,000 deaths on all sides of the conflicts, about half of which occurred in Iraq alone. “This update just scratches the surface of the human consequences of 17 years of war,” the report notes. “Too often, legislators, NGOs, and the news media that try to track the consequences of the wars are inhibited by governments determined to paint a rosy picture of perfect execution and progress. The US has made some effort to increase transparency, but there are a number of areas—the number of civilians killed and injured, and the number of US military and veteran suicides, for instance—where greater transparency would lead to greater accountability and could lead to better policy.”