United States Has Added $10 Trillion+ In Debt Since March 20th, 2003

March 20th, 2013 is the 10 year anniversary of the start of the Iraq War.

This war, which was led by the United States and the United Kingdom, resulted in the overthrow of the Ba'ath Party and the eventual execution of Saddam Hussein. Unfortunately for the US, UK and other countries involved in the invasion, the primary objective of the operation was never completed, as Iraq didn't end up possessing any weapons of mass destruction.

--

The Iraq War ended up being a costly and lengthy operation for the United States. The entire operation, from start to finish, ended up lasting nearly 9 years, which was much, much longer than what was originally forecast. In addition, the operation was most costlier than first anticipated, resulting in a significant amount of money being added to the nation's debt load.

Over the past 10 years, a mind-boggling $10 trillion plus has been added to the nation's debt load. Here are the exact numbers:

US Debt Load on March 20th, 2003 - $6,460,712,491,314.69
US Debt Load on March 20th, 2013 - $16,736,188,026,047.86

There were a number of contributing factors to the sudden explosion in US debt over the past decade, namely the "Great Recession" and the sudden drop in revenues that the nation experienced from 2008 onwards. However, other factors, including the military operations in Afghanistan and Iraq, certainly helped contribute to the nation's deteriorating finances.

If you had been told in March of 2003 that the United States would add $10 trillion to its debt load over the next decade, would you have believed it? Would you have believed that the nation would post a string of four consecutive trillion dollar plus deficits just after a decade of posting a "surplus"? Would you have believed that people would cheer the fact that the country was finally (we hope) going to post a deficit of less than $1 trillion?

It's almost unbelievable to think about how much the country has changed since the start of the Iraq war in March of 2003.

Filed under: The Economic Meltdown