How the US tax dollars are being spent in IRAQ... Get a LOAD OF THIS:

Madrid Conference...
So the Madrid Conference is over. Half of the people here weren’t really aware it was going on anyway. No one seems to bother with stuff like that anymore because we have more pressing affairs to attend to.

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Always, there was Aznar’s big teeth and Palacio’s big hair. What struck me in particular was how lavish the whole conference looked. I wonder how much was spent on it… how many schools it could have renovated… how many clinics it could have provided with medication... But that’s not reconstruction, of course- clinics and schools are luxuries what’s really important is making sure the CPA, Governing Council and ministerial cabinet are all housed comfortably in the palaces and hotels they call home.

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Christian Aid have done a fascinating report on some ‘missing billions’. Apparently, there are $4 billion that have gone up in smoke and Bremer & Co. can only account for $1 billion. The report does some explaining on how the CPA spends the money and what committees are gone through. The PDF report asks the CPA to give a ‘transparent account’ of how the billions were spent.But that’s ridiculous- I mean, who can keep track of $4 billion dollars… I’m sure Ahmad Al-Chalabi can tell you first-hand that all those zeros are difficult to manage.

And what is $4 billion anyway?! First off, there are all those snazzy suits being worn by our governing council- I haven’t yet seen Al-Chalabi in the same suit twice… the silk ties, Rolex watches and leather shoes. (I can tell you that canary yellow ties are the rage in men’s fashion because just about every minister/ council member has worn one by now)

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There are rumors that each new minister makes around $40,000 a month. For $40,000, you can build a large house in an elegant area in Baghdad. For $40,000, you can build, and fully furnish, a school. For $40,000, you can stock up a storage room in a hospital. For $40 K, you can feed 80 Iraqi families for a month *lavishly*. (Or you could buy 400 used Sony Play Stations- as my younger cousin calculated)

And then you have the extra expenses of the Governing Council- meals and abode, of course. The majority don’t live in houses because they have homes and families abroad. They live in various hotels like Baghdad Hotel, Al-Rashid, and Palestine Hotel… some of them reside in palaces. One minister, they say, even sends for his staff to meet at the hotel because he refuses to visit the ministry itself. Employees at the ministry know him as ‘il shabah’ or ‘the phantom’ because no one beyond his deputy ministers has ever seen him in the flesh.

There’s also the little matter of the Interim Government jetting about, all over the world… traveling from one place to the next. Every time one of the Puppets is rotated, they make it their immediate business to leave the country. It’s ironic how the Iraqi people hear about the majority of the major decisions (like selling off the country) through foreign media networks and sometimes through a voice-over, translating to Arabic. To see them shaking hands and kissing feet, you'd think our immediate concerns are Iraq's diplomatic affairs outside of the country and not the mess *inside* of it.

MORE: http://riverbendblog.blogspot.com

It ,like all Bushco in Iraq stories , is so ludicrously over the top wack as to be almost unbelievable. I guess this is the strategy; be so blatant no one can believe it's true.

whack