Saturday, May 01, 2004
Iraq occupation: It must have been much worse than they told us, from the very beginning.
As always, the numbers tell the story:
Leave aside the fact that Bush rushed the $20 billion dollars through Congress because of the urgency of it.
Leave aside the fact that employing young Iraqi men in public works construction would have made the insurgency far less likely.
Leave aside the fact that a lot of the $2 billion has been stolen, ny the Iraqis themselves, our creatures in the IGC, and of course our own corporations.
Leave aside the fact that the mercenaries and security people that are taking the $2 billion are for all practical purposes a private army, under the control of the CPA/RNC, and outside any constitutional authority, or the Geneva convention.
The point is this: $18 billion dollars for the Republicans to spend, with essentially no Congressional oversight. Can anyone imagine that they would shovel that cash to their friends and campaign contributors the minute they were able to do so? The money must be burning a hole in their pockets! And the fact that they haven't been able to make a dent in the money pile—because their friends and campaign contributors, as much as they like money, don't intend to get killed for it—means that the security situation now is not just a flare-up. It's been bad from the very beginning. For a whole year. And therefore, any talk that the Iraqi security situation was improving was simply a lie, since otherwise the money would have been spent. Yes, the numbers tell the story.
The Bush administration is under fire from U.S. lawmakers who complain that only a tiny portion of the $18.4 billion to rebuild Iraq has been allocated and some funds are being diverted for security and administration costs.
As of March 24, only $2.24 billion has been earmarked according to an early April report prepared for Congress by the White House.
According to the report, $184 million is being diverted away from the water sector to pay for the costs of operating the successor to the Coalition Provisional Authority. A further $29 million is being reallocated "from various lines" to pay for administrative expenses at the U.S. Agency for International Development.
"I have very serious concerns about the pace of assistance funding in Iraq, and the management of those funds," Rep. Jim Kolbe, an Arizona Republican who chairs the House Appropriations foreign aid subcommittee said on Thursday.
(via Reuters)
Leave aside the fact that Bush rushed the $20 billion dollars through Congress because of the urgency of it.
Leave aside the fact that employing young Iraqi men in public works construction would have made the insurgency far less likely.
Leave aside the fact that a lot of the $2 billion has been stolen, ny the Iraqis themselves, our creatures in the IGC, and of course our own corporations.
Leave aside the fact that the mercenaries and security people that are taking the $2 billion are for all practical purposes a private army, under the control of the CPA/RNC, and outside any constitutional authority, or the Geneva convention.
The point is this: $18 billion dollars for the Republicans to spend, with essentially no Congressional oversight. Can anyone imagine that they would shovel that cash to their friends and campaign contributors the minute they were able to do so? The money must be burning a hole in their pockets! And the fact that they haven't been able to make a dent in the money pile—because their friends and campaign contributors, as much as they like money, don't intend to get killed for it—means that the security situation now is not just a flare-up. It's been bad from the very beginning. For a whole year. And therefore, any talk that the Iraqi security situation was improving was simply a lie, since otherwise the money would have been spent. Yes, the numbers tell the story.
