Forward Observer: Just Your Money

On this first day of fiscal 2008, it is worth spotlighting the fine print in little-read reports on what President Bush's Global War on Terror is costing us.

A fastidiously prepared report by the Congressional Research Service shows that from Sept. 11, 2001, through Sunday -- the end of fiscal 2007 -- Congress had appropriated $610.5 billion for this strange war of no fronts.

The lawmakers will almost certainly approve about $200 billion more this new fiscal year, for a total of $800 billion plus.

Amy Belasco, a defense specialist at CRS, sifted through Bush administration finding requests for the war on terror since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

She clustered the amounts Congress has already appropriated, plus the additional funds Bush has requested for fiscal 2008, into three categories: Operation Iraqi Freedom, starting with the troop buildup of 2002 for the invasion of 2003; Operation Enduring Freedom, for anti-terrorist operations since Sept. 11, 2001, in Afghanistan and such other hotspots as the Philippines and Djibouti; and Operation Noble Eagle to improve security at military bases and other likely targets in the United States that might be on the terrorists' hit list.

Adding an extra $42.3 billion in emergency funds Bush belatedly requested last week, mostly for operations in Iraq, to the CRS calculations made before his new request went to Congress brings the taxpayers' bill for the government's anti-terrorist efforts to $800.4 billion as of right now.

This is how the anti-terrorist billions were apportioned, according to CRS, before last week's $42.3 billion request came in: Iraq, $566.7 billion; Afghanistan and other hotspots, $157.4 billion; better base security, $28.6 billion; unallocated, $5.5 billion. That total before last week's request came to $758.1 billion.

Senate Appropriations Chairman Robert Byrd, D-W.Va., was so alarmed about those costs that he all but yelled "Fire!" at the committee's hearing last Wednesday. Nobody went for the exits, by the way, except anti-war demonstrators who were ejected.

Byrd railed that Bush sending an extra 30,000 American troops into Iraq in a "surge" was the dumbest thing any leader has done since the British commander ordered the light brigade to charge into the valley of death in the battle of Balaclava on Oct. 25, 1854, during the Crimean War.

"All of this for a war that Gen. [David] Petraeus could not say had made Americans safer," Byrd fumed.

Casualty reports about the charge of the light brigade vary. One claims that 247 of the 637 British cavalrymen who charged were killed or wounded. As of late last week, the number of U.S. military fatalities in Iraq exceeded 3,790.

Alfred Lord Tennyson was inspired to write his famous poem, "The Charge of the Light Brigade," which included these memorable lines about the men who went unquestioningly into the valley of death: "Someone had blunder'd; theirs not to make reply; theirs not to reason why; theirs but to do and die. Into the Valley of Death rode the six hundred. . . ."

Byrd angrily told Defense Secretary Robert Gates and Deputy Secretary of State John Negroponte, sitting at the committee witness table before him, that on top of all the money Bush has already spent in Iraq, "now we hear the president talking about a 50-year commitment in Iraq. You hear that? Similar to our military involvement in Korea. The Congressional Budget Office estimates that such a long-term presence could cost well in excess of $2 trillion. Two trillion! Yes, you heard me. Two trillion. That's quite a burden that this president is leaving to our grandchildren, whose future will have to be mortgaged to pay for it."

Another bit of illuminating but largely ignored fine print about military costs lies in the Pentagon's latest report on the price tags of super weapons like the Air Force's new F-22 fighter, which is not fighting the Global War on Terror.

The Pentagon's Selected Acquisition Report on procurement costs as of June 30, 2007, shows that the Air Force intends to spend $65.3 billion for just 184 F-22 fighters, or $355 million for just one, including research and development costs.

Yet another public document with arresting statistics in it is the "2007 Military Almanac" just issued by the World Security Institute's Center for Defense Information.

It shows that the Defense Department spent more in fiscal 2007, $598.5 billion, than it did in the costliest years of the Vietnam and Korean Wars.

Those earlier costs in comparative fiscal 2007 dollars were $480.4 billion in 1968 during the Vietnam War, and $566.8 billion in 1952 during the Korean War.

The same almanac puts the cost of the Vietnam War at $650 billion and the Korean War at $691 billion in 2007 dollars.

The war in Iraq alone, far less the whole Global War on Terror, is well on its way to becoming the most costly undeclared war in America's history.

But neither the Democratic majority nor Republican minority in Congress seem to know what to do about it except to rant and rave.

Nobody, but nobody, wants to look weak on defense in this runup to the 2008 elections. So stand by for lots more righteous indignation -- but no successful votes to cut off funding for our undeclared wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.