The non-partisan Congressional Research Service has made a new estimate for the costs of the War on Iraq and War on Afghanistan. Like often, the Washington Post, in reporting this buries, the lead and the day’s real headline in the second last paragraph of a page A16 story:

Of the total war spending, the CRS analysis found $4 billion that could not be tracked. It did identify $2.5 billion diverted from other spending authorizations in 2001 and 2002 to prepare for the invasion.

To my knowledge, this makes the CRS report the first official one to confirm the invasion of Iraq has been actively persued since 2001. Old news you may say, but so far there were only anonymous sources and very few named people who had alleged this.

Now this is officialy acknowledged in a non-partisan report to Congress. Why does that fact not deserve an A01 headline?

To answer that question seems to be above my capabilities.

So let us take a look at the reported CRS estimate. It does include some money for diplomatic issues, but not longterm health and benefit costs for veterans like some other recent studies did.

The CRS comes away with $320 billion for Iraq after the recent emergency spending bill will have passed. But that is only the money needed up to this point. Even with troop reductions beginning this year, CRS estimates the total costs for War on Iraq and Afghanistan at $811 billion. Though troop number were much higher then, the inflation adjusted Vietnam total was a cheap $549 billion.

Still, this is only some $6,300 per taxpayer, $105 per month over 5 years. The U.S. will not go bankcrupt spending this, but it is an investment that is unlikely to give a good return, if any at all.

The more important economic impact is through gas prices. The war tax or "risk premium" included in crude prices these days may be some $25 per barrel or, with U.S. consumption at 22 million barrels per day, $550 million per day. Over five years this accumulates to a decent 1 Trillion (that is a one with twelve zeroes) U.S. Dollars.

Part of this sum, like part of the war costs, will go back to U.S. pockets. But only to those people who own Exxon Mobil or Halliburton shares.

This is probably the biggest transfer of wealth from the people to an elite the world has ever seen.

What is most disturbing to me in the CRS study is the intransparency of the spending.

"Although DOD has a financial system that tracks funds for each operation once they are obligated — as pay or contractual costs — DOD has not sent Congress the semiannual reports with cumulative and current obligations for [Iraq] and [Afghanistan], or estimates for the next year, or for the next five years that are required by statute," the CRS noted.

The Defense Department is, illegally, blocking any oversight.

The report goes on to outline a series of "key war cost questions" for Congress to pursue and "major unknowns" that CRS has not been able to answer: How much has Congress appropriated for each theater of war? How much has the Pentagon obligated for each mission per month? What will future costs be? How much will it cost to repair and replace equipment? And how can Congress receive accurate information on past and future troop levels?

CRS is the Congress’ and the people’s controlling element that must find answers to these questions. I find it incredible that they are not able to do so, even if they put specific efforts into it.

Of the total war spending, the CRS analysis found $4 billion that could not be tracked.

Could not be tracked? Four billion? That may be small change in the bigger picture, still, where did Rumsfeld spend that money?

Your guess?