Where did that Iraq money go anyway? $87 billion + +++ Pitiful!

[bigtree]

Associated Press

WASHINGTON -- Senate Republicans and Democrats on Wednesday denounced the Bush administration's slow progress in rebuilding Iraq, saying the risks of failure are great if it doesn't act with greater urgency.

"It's beyond pitiful, it's beyond embarrassing, it's now in the zone of dangerous," said Sen. Chuck Hagel, R-Neb., referring to figures showing only about 6 percent of the reconstruction money approved by Congress last year has been spent.

>>>>>

Congress approved the $18.4 billion in November as part of an $87 billion package mostly for military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. At the time, administration officials said the reconstruction money was just as important as the military funds. But only $1.14 billion had been spent as of Sept. 8.

"It's incompetence, from my perspective, looking at this," said the panel's top Democrat, Sen. Joseph Biden Jr. of Delaware.

http://www.trivalleyherald.com/Stories/0,1413,86~10669~2405283,00.html

[Atman]

1. Try this, for starters...$9 bil to RUMMY!

http://slate.msn.com/id/2089674

Rumsfeld's $9 Billion Slush Fund
By Fred Kaplan
Posted Friday, Oct. 10, 2003, at 2:42 PM PT

For all the debate over President Bush's $87 billion supplemental request for military operations and economic reconstruction in Afghanistan and Iraq, no one seems to have noticed that the sum includes a slush fund of at least $9.3 billion, which Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld can spend pretty much as he pleases.

Last week, the congressional armed services committees—and this week the House Appropriations Committee—marked up the supplemental, excising a few hundred million that Bush had requested for new hospitals, housing, and sanitation. But the committees didn't touch a nickel of the slush fund—and there's a cravenly wink-and-nudge reason why they didn't.

Most of the supplemental request is fairly straightforward: $32 billion to maintain the tempo of military operations, $18 billion for military personnel, $5.1 billion for security and a new Iraqi army, $5.7 billion for electrical power, and so forth.

But deep within, the document proposes the following allowance:

Not less than $1.4 billion, to remain available until expended, may be used, notwithstanding any other provision of law, for payments to reimburse Pakistan, Jordan, and other key cooperating nations, for logistics, military and other support provided, or to be provided, to United States military operations.

First, look closely at those first three words: Not less than. In other words, Rumsfeld could transfer more than $1.4 billion for this purpose—how much more, who can say? The section goes on to say that Rumsfeld must notify the appropriate congressional committees whenever he uses any of this money, and that the payments must be made with the concurrence of the secretary of state. But otherwise, the bill emphasizes that he alone determines how to spend this money "and such determination is final and conclusive."

<snip>

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Read the link for how Rummy got to spend the rest of the $9 billion. It'll blow your mind.

[Atman]

3. kick

something tells me I shouldn't have started a new thread with this Rummy $9 bil thing.

[yardwork]

2. Imagine how much "loyalty" one tenth of that money could buy

Loyalty in very high places. Loyalty in the press. Loyalty in Congress. Loyalty on the boards of major corporations, that make advertising decisions, that influence what the press will report.

Check my new sig line.