Incredibly good article on corruption of the Iraq rebuilding

Usually it isn't too hard to pick 4 paragraphs to excerpt, but for real, this article is too good to pick from. It hits so many important points:

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/EJ24Ak02.html

...Meanwhile, each American will now be giving away $300 for the continued control of Iraq. According to independent estimates, this total amount is more than enough to wipe all of the budget deficits now plaguing a number of state governments; enough to pay for all of the country's unemployment benefits for two years; seven times what the US federal government spends for low-income schools and 10 times the total spent for environmental protection...

Those who are hoping for at least a little prudence in the way that the fund will be used can take comfort from what a lawyer for companies hoping to strike gold in Iraq recently said...By "less formal", the lawyer must have meant spending $6,000 for a mobile phone that normally costs $495 only per set, $33,000 for a pickup truck that normally costs half that, and $55,000 for a prison bed that usually costs only $14,000 - as current details provided in Bush's budget request for Iraq shows when compared with actual market prices of these items...

With no less than the chairman of the US joint chiefs of staff admitting that the US military is now overstretched, the US has been pleading with other countries to pledge non-monetary contributions to Iraq in the form of warm bodies that will attempt to stabilize the occupied country and make it safe for corporations like McDonald's. Once in Iraq, these soldiers and neo-Gurkhas will be moving targets for Iraqis who - for some incomprehensible reason - are mad enough to resent being colonized and mad enough to fight back...

Senator Edward Kennedy has asserted that the US has been bribing foreign governments to induce them to go against domestic popular opinion against the war. He says that up to half of the $4 billion that the US spends monthly on Iraq could not be accounted for by the Congressional Budget Office...

I read this last night and it is right on! :)

:kick: Thanks, Woodstock!