Study finds German Afghanistan mission suffering budget blowout

[FarCenter]

Großansicht des Bildes mit der Bildunterschrift: Germany's deployment is facing ballooning costs, the study saysA new study has found that Germany's troop deployment in Afghanistan is costing the country more than three times the yearly mission budget.

Maintaining a military presence in Afghanistan is costing Germany roughly three times as much as forecast under the country's Defense Ministry budget, according to a study by the German Institute for Economic Research (DIW).

The official yearly budget for the Bundeswehr mission in the war-torn country stands at 785 million euros ($981 million). But the DIW paper says the costs have ballooned by as much as 3 billion euros a year.

The study put the total cost of the war effort at between 25 and 46 billion euros, assuming Germany maintained a troop deployment of around 5,350 soldiers and began pulling out of the country from 2013.

<SNIP>http://www.dw-world.de/dw/article/0,,5594326,00.html

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Can Germany both bail out Greece and stay in Afghanistan?