(Baghdad)
(Photos of Detroit, Michigan)
(Baghdad)
(Photos of Detroit, Michigan)
Or as I heard an Iraqi explain it once, “Ours is certainly not the most corrupt government on Earth. It’s merely the most corrupt ELECTED government on Earth.”
Why are we spending our money to rebuild their country? They have oil money, let them pay for it.
What a disaster!
I can’t wait for the IG’s report on how all of OUR stimulus money was spent...
We are upset about 63 billion with good reason...I am sure we would absolutey SH1T big globs if we ever find out whre all that money went.
[Good luck ever knowing...]
I think the military leaders screwed up Iraq, but I can at least understand why we went in there. Libya? I’m still waiting for the Democrats to explain why we went in there.
While the waste of taxpayer money by the government is NOT news (sadly), it does serve the purpose of shining a light on a fire.
As taxpayers and voters we have an obligation to ourselves and our progeny to demand the overhaul of government spending practices. It has been suggested previously (not by me) that EVERY bill produced by the Congress be specifically targeted to a single item and be linked to a provision in the Constitution that is within the authority of the Congress. To that, I would add that every SPENDING bill also must meet that requirement and, further, that an independent, non-government organization be retained to oversee and audit how our money is spent.
Finally, to end the gleeful wasting of our money by the fools in Congress, it is imperative that strict term limits be imposed not only on the elected members of Congress, but also on the bureaucrats who remain from one administration to the next and are as much a part of the problem as the elected vote buyers!
Napalm would definitely improve Detroit.
There are some hidden twists and turns in this situation.
For example, the US military got its hands on a lot of the stockpile of Saddam’s cash, and being very results oriented, they got good results by directly contracting with Iraqis. The Iraqis learned very quickly that US combat officers are not to be trifled with in business matters, either.
This enraged the Washington bureaucrats because it cut them out of the deal entirely, and they were neither able to skim, or waste, or divert funds to other stuff they wanted.
However, US taxpayer funds were a different matter, and the bureaucrats dove into those pools with their usual “launder and squander” attitude. By the time it made it to J. Paul Bremer and company in country, it had already been skimmed by 25-50%.
Then they piled endless rules on top of the legal use of the rest, seemingly designed to waste another 10-20% to insure that it wasn’t used for “bribes or corruption” (which are terrible sins if they are for foreigners), but for things like importing American products that could be bought for a tenth of the price when made in Iraq.
Then, and only then, was it given to the most corrupt, high officials in Iraq, not to the local level where it might have actually done something.
Like, uh, duuuuuuh.
That last "150,000" figure has to be weighed against the 2 million Iraqis (ref. Bernard Kouchner's Saddam's Black Book) that died violently under Saddam in the pre-2013 invasion years. In an average year, average, 15,000 Iraqis have died violently since the US invasion (and many of them terrorists, not innocents, and the number is declining. albeit slowly). Before US/UN intervention, it was 80,000 Iraqis per year.
I'm not saying the argument about cost should not be argued, I just want to say that ALL the numbers should be included.
Bottom line, an innocent Iraqi is far less likely to meet a violent death now than an innocent was under Saddam.