Between murderous Astronuts driving all night in diapers and the US loosing $12 billion in shrink rapped bills in the Iraqi den of thieves, it's hard to know where to start. People are so numbed to the incompetence, mendacity and corruption, they simply shrug their shoulders and move on. Still, it would be a folksy concession if our politicians at least appeared to be doing the people's business instead of their own. Now they don't even bother to fly commercial flights like the rest of you frightened plebes. Ms. Pelosi wants a Pentagon jet to fly home to see her grandkids and a non-stop 757-200 to boot, thank you very much.
The money story epitomizes the catastrophe wrought by the current US regime in the Middle East. Congressmen Henry Waxman's committee on Government Oversight started doing some belated overseeing and confirmed the reports of plastic wrapped cash floating around Iraq.
363 tons of money were shipped to Iraq with precious little accountability involved. Money was handed out from the back of pickups, stashed in bags in the basement, and $2 million contract payments made Mafia style by a duffel bag stuffed with wads of cash. The supposed auditor of for the Coalition Provisional Authority's giveaway was a contractor cryptically named North Star Consultants, Inc that operated out of a San Diego living room. Seems mind boggling to me and Representative Waxman. But outrage is worn out on Capitol Hill, and irony is dead as we have already established. What was important to the Admiral in charge is that it was not appropriated money--it was the Iraqi people's money being held for redevelopment. I wonder how many Iraqi civil servants that did not get paid because of the rampant plundering grabbed their Kalashnikov and started shooting at Americans? Yeah, Rummy, stuff happens in a democracy.
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