War is hell — on the budget: Congress Daily reports that a congressional study found that spending on the war in Iraq, the war in Afghanistan and the war on terror will total more than $500 billion next year. Here’s the breakdown:

The nonpartisan Congressional Research Service said in a report that through the current fiscal year ending Sept. 30, the government will have spent $437 billion on overseas military and foreign aid funding. That includes the latest supplemental spending bill signed into law this month, which provided $69 billion for the war effort.

Congressional analysts are a bit mystified at the rapidly escalating costs.

Add in roughly $1.5 billion in fiscal 2007 Foreign Operations funds for Iraq and Afghanistan; $50 billion in Pentagon “bridge” funds for the first half of fiscal 2007, plus as-yet-undetermined supplemental funds for the remainder of the next fiscal year, and total war-related costs will easily soar over $500 billion one year from now.

At least $37 billion or so will have gone to the State Department and the U.S. Agency for International Development for Iraq and Afghanistan reconstruction, embassy operations and other foreign aid programs. War costs alone are expected to be at least $450 billion, not including the expected supplemental request early next year.

Even assuming an eventual troop drawdown to 74,000 by fiscal 2010, war costs between fiscal 2007 and fiscal 2016 could total another $371 billion, the report said. Adding that to the $437 billion appropriated through the end of this fiscal year, total costs would reach $808 billion by fiscal 2016.

Since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks military spending has been pretty much unchecked. In 2006 Congress will appropriate to the military about $115.8 billion — a 72 percent increase over fiscal 2004, according to CRS. The monthly “burn rate” of spending in Iraq and Afghanistan is averaging $9.7 billion this year, an 18 percent jump from 2005. One major problem with this runaway spending is that the people studying it can’t figure out why it’s happening.

Congressional analysts are a bit mystified at the rapidly escalating costs. Most of the increases are due to operations and maintenance costs, which have jumped from $42.7 billion in fiscal 2004 to $60.9 billion in fiscal 2006, and a threefold increase in procurement funds, to $24.4 billion in fiscal 2006 from $7.2 billion, CRS said.

They said some of the operational increase is due to expected factors, such as fuel price hikes, body armor purchases and training of Iraqi and Afghan security forces. “These factors, however, are not enough to explain a 50 percent increase of over $20 billion in operating costs,” the report states.

Likewise, while increases were expected for force-protection equipment like armored humvees and night-vision goggles, as well as to replace damaged equipment, “These reasons are not sufficient, however, to explain the level of increases or predict whether these procurement levels are temporary or likely to rise still further,” CRS argues.

Meanwhile, the Pentagon claims that it will be 2012 before it untangles its Byzantine accounting processes to give more transparency to its spending and maybe better justify to Congress its requests for mo’ money, mo’ money, mo’ money. Until then, Congress — and the rest of us footing the bill — is just going to have to trust Rumsfeld & Co. that they really need the dough, honest.