The war in Afghanistan will end up costing taxpayers £20billion, it emerged last night.
At a Nato summit in Chicago, David Cameron and other world leaders will tomorrow draw up a firm timetable for pulling combat troops off the frontline against the Taliban.
But official figures show that the war had already cost £17.3billion by the end of March this year on top of regular defence spending since 2001.
The true cost of the war was revealed by the House of Commons Library and will be formally published by the Ministry of Defence later this year.
It puts Britain on course for a bill approaching £20billion by the time British troops hand over responsibility for combat operations in Helmand province.
A total of 414 British servicemen have lost their lives in the country, more than 20 of them at the hands of the Afghan security forces they are supposed to be training to take over.
The Government has said British troops will have ended combat operations by the end of December 2014.
But Mr Cameron has also signalled that a large number of troops will pull back from the frontline and begin coming home next year.
© Daily Mail, London |
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