And how many civilians died during Iraq freedom and Weapons of Mass Destruction hunt?
The final breakdown of every tax dollar spent by the United States to rebuild post-invasion Iraq was presented to Congress earlier this month - a down-to-the-nickel analysis of nine years and $60bn worth of waste, arrogance and ineptitude unequalled in American history.
The conclusive report by Stuart Bowen, the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction (SIGIR), was a 186-page document titled "Learning From Iraq”, which followed that misspent money on a tragic joyride through the expensive and embarrassing mega-blunders that have become synonymous with US"nation-building” efforts in Iraq since 2003.
Clearly a must-read for any official in US-occupied Afghanistan, the SIGIR report was based on 220 audits, 170 inspections, hundreds of investigations, and, most compellingly, candid interviews with 44 senior Iraqi officials and US military and congressional leaders, including US General David Petraeus, Senator John McCain and Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki.
In depth
WATCHDOG WORK: During its congressional mandate, SIGIR was able to secure 104 indictments, 82 convictions and $191m in court-ordered fines.
SECURITY CONTRACTORS: SIGIR identified an explosion in the number of private security contractors, between 25,000-30,000 in Iraq.
STACKS OF CASH: In 2003 and 2004, more than $10bn in cash was flown to Baghdad on US military aircraft in the form of massive, shrink-wrapped bundles of $100 bills stored on large pallets.
BAD BUILDING: In 2010, SIGIR inspected 170 US-funded construction projects valued at nearly $2.1bn. Of 116 ongoing projects, “almost one-half did not meet contract specifications or had major deficiencies”.
Maliki, for example, told Bowen and his staff "$55bn could have brought great change to Iraq”, but the positive impact of that spending was"lost”.
Claire McCaskill, a Democratic senator from Missouri, called the teamwork between the US departments "an utter, abject, failure” and described the agencies' collaborative efforts as a "circular firing squad”.