questionable reliability” and “should be considered approximations.” The auditors at GAO are well practiced at understatement on such subjects.

Rather than just curse the darkness, CRS has attempted to sort through the morass to make estimates of what has been available to DoD for Afghanistan under the moniker Operation Enduring Freedom. The latest results, from CRS’ “The Cost of Iraq, Afghanistan, and Other Global War on Terror Operations Since 9/11, Updated July 16, 2007,” are shown in the table above.

Being a professional and ethical piece of work, the CRS study explains its own limitations and uncertainties.  Those include the unknown amounts for Operation Enduring Freedom that are not for Afghanistan but for the Horn of Africa, the Philippines, and “elsewhere.” They also include an apportionment of costs for Congress’ extraneous appropriations for aircraft and other items unlikely ever to be deployed, pre-existing Army reorganizations, and such. Thus, for an accounting of strictly defined war costs in Afghanistan, the CRS study actually is an approximation.

On the other hand, DoD’s assertion of just $78.1 billion for the Afghan war is so full of holes and misinformation that it has no credibility. Based on the far more complete and transparent CRS analysis, DoD’s numbers are literally about half right.

The Chinese war philosopher, Sun Tzu, said:

If you know others and know yourself, you will not be imperiled in a hundred battles;

If you do not know others but know yourself, you win one and lose one;

If you do not know others and do not know yourself, you will be imperiled in every single battle.

Even with the help of CRS’ analysis, our knowledge of a fundamental element of the war in Afghanistan, its cost, is quite imperfect. Based on Sun Tzu’s prescription, it would appear that one of the biggest impediments to a favorable outcome in Afghanistan is the misinformation to Congress and the nation from the Department of Defense.