Paying for Iraq

Another $82 billion to pay for the war that was supposed to cost around $50 billion and by now was to be funded by Iraqi oil revenues. The problem is not helping the troops (as we should), but the fact that Bush and company made foolish promises to the American people and poor decision making in the past has let it get to this point.

And there is the already well discussed fact that this supplemental request is not considered part of the budget that was released a couple weeks ago. Meaning this is a surprise expense no one foresaw.

And one has to wonder how much money has been lost or looted with this kind of payment system in place:

U.S. officials in postwar Iraq paid a contractor by stuffing $2 million worth of bills into his gunnysack and routinely made cash payments around Baghdad from a pickup truck, a former official with the occupation government says.

Because the country lacked a banking system, contractors and Iraqi ministry officials were paid with bills taken from a basement vault in one of Saddam Hussein's palaces that served as headquarters for the Coalition Provisional Authority, former CPA official Frank Willis said.

Officials from the CPA, which ruled Iraq from June 2003 to June 2004, would count the money when it left the vault, but nobody kept track of the cash after that, Willis said.

"In sum: inexperienced officials, fear of decision-making, lack of communications, minimal security, no banks, and lots of money to spread around. This chaos I have referred to as a 'Wild West,'" Willis said in testimony he is prepared to give today before a panel of Democratic senators who want to spotlight the waste of U.S. funds in Iraq.