One of the Republicans' talking points against the just passed Senate appropriation for the Iraq war containing withdrawal language is that it also contains "pork". Both Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) and Minority Whip Trent Lott (R-MS) have complained. Spending provisions for pet projects back home are not new baggage for military appropriation bills. Just one year ago they both supported a $106 million emergency military spending bill that included a $700 million earmark sponsored by Senator Lott (the largest ever) for Mississippi's "railroad to nowhere". One of their Republican colleagues tried to eliminate the earmark, but the amendment was tabled thanks to 18 Republican senators who also opposed the Iraq war funding bill. Its simply the pot calling the kettle black, again
Weekend Update: If Congress was not spending money on the military and pork, we could spend it on making terrorism at home less effective. Iraqi insurgents recently blew up trucks carrying chlorine gas for treating potable water. Hundreds in Baghdad were made seriously ill. If the large explosions had been better engineered, the chlorine gas clouds would have been bigger and more toxic. Essentially, in high dosages chlorine gas burns the lungs causing death. The President's Homeland Security Counsel drafted a worse case scenario in 2004 that envisioned 17,000 deaths, 10,000 injuries and 100,000 hospitalizations if a large tanker was bombed in a high population density area of the U.S. Granted, chlorine gas is not invisible and is heavier than air, but its effective enough as a weapon to have been used in WWI. Tons of chlorine gas are transported daily by truck and rail. The American Center for Progress made a study of rail transportation of chlorine gas called "Toxic Trains" . The study found that only 24 drinking water and 13 waste water facilities use chlorine gas transported by rail. However, chlorine tank cars travel long distances and through metropolitan areas to reach these facilities from the 16 suppliers that use rail transport. There are other ways to disinfect water such as ultraviolet rays or safer chemicals like liquid bleach. A single days expenditure in Iraq could easily pay for the conversion of the twenty plants without plans to covert to safer means.
There are hundreds of chemical manufacturing facilities in the United States making tons of explosive and toxic chemicals besides chlorine gas every day. The Department of Homeland Security recognizes they are vulnerable to attack, but their corporate owners are resisting any rules to improve their facilities' security. Remember that the next time you have to take off your shoes at the airport. War on terror? Not so much.