First released in 2011, the Costs of War report which has been compiled and updated by more than 30 economists, anthropologists, lawyers, humanitarian personnel, political scientists, the United National and other oragnizations was published in advance of the 10th anniversary of the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq on March 19, 2003.

According to the report’s findings, more than 70 percent of those who died of direct war violence in Iraq have been civilians — an estimated 134,000 while that number is estimated to be several times higher.

Also, the Iraq war will ultimately cost U.S. taxpayers at least $2.2 trillion.-a figure that far exceeds the initial 2002 estimates by the U.S. Office of Management and Budget of $50 to $60 billion.

The report concluded the United States gained little from the war while Iraq was traumatized by it as terrorism in Iraq increased dramatically as a result of the invasion and tactics and fighters were exported to Syria and other neighboring countries.

Iraq has also exhibited a troubling trend towards sectarian conflict and violence, although historically sectarian identity has not been the sole or even the primary foundation for Iraqis’ political identities, the report finds.

In addition, following the US-led invasion, the number of Iraqi women reduced to impoverished widowhood and refugee status skyrocketed.

Iraq’s health care infrastructure remains devastated from sanctions and war as more than half of Iraq’s medical doctors left the country during the 2000s, and tens of thousands of Iraqi patients are forced to seek health care outside the country, the report adds.

Meanwhile, findings show the $60 billion spent on reconstruction for Iraq has not gone to rebuilding infrastructure such as roads, health care, and water treatment systems, but primarily to the military and police while the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction has found massive fraud, waste, and abuse of reconstruction funds.

In releasing the report, Lutz said, “The staggering number of deaths in Iraq is hard to fathom, but each of these individuals has to count and be counted.”

“Nearly every government that goes to war underestimates its duration, neglects to tally all the costs, and overestimates the political objectives that will be accomplished by war’s violence,” Crawford said.

The project also assesses claims made as part of the rationale for invading Iraq: increased U.S. security, enhanced democratic governance in Iraq, and improved conditions for Iraqi women.

In 2011 the group released figures for a range of human and economic costs associated with the U.S. military response to the 9/11 attacks.

It estimated the total combined costs of the wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Pakistan at $4 trillion and total direct war casualties at minimum oft 330,000 men, women, and children.