(Updated: Originally published October 26, 2006)
One reason: Moolah!
"More reconstruction money was spent on housing and feeding employees, completing paperwork and providing security than on actual construction... [Contractors were] paid to sit idle for months at a time... shoveling money out the door... in some cases more than half of the money padded corporate coffers (New York Times, October 26, 2006)."
[And the lead offender? KBR Inc, the Halliburton subsidiary! What a shock!]
Melinda Norcross, spokeswoman for KBR Inc:
"All of these costs were incurred at the client's direction and for the client's benefit."
[Yeah, thanks!
You ripped me and other taxpayers off at the government's direction, and the Army is going to pay anyway!
Where's the OUTRAGE!?!]
Meanwhile, forget about all the false machinations about withdrawals and timetables from Iraq, and see what was buried in this piece about events yesterday:
"General Says Troop Increase Not Part of Baghdad Plans" by JOHN F. BURNS
BAGHDAD, Oct. 25 — In Falluja on Monday, American troops, responding to a report that a fire truck had been hijacked by insurgents, stopped a fire truck matching the description, the command reported. As the truck’s four occupants “exited quickly,” the statement said, the troops opened fire, killing them.
American troops later found that the men were actually firefighters responding to an emergency call and were not riding in the hijacked truck.
In Baghdad, an intensive military search continued Tuesday for an American soldier who was reported missing late Monday. Military officials said that the soldier, who is of Iraqi descent and works as an interpreter, appeared to have left the fortified Green Zone on Monday afternoon to visit with family members in Baghdad. A military statement, citing witnesses, said the soldier was at a relative’s house when men wearing “dark-colored rags over their noses and mouths” pulled up in three cars, handcuffed the soldier and took him away in one of the vehicles.
The kidnappers later called a relative of the soldier using the victim’s cellphone, the statement said.
Hundreds of American and Iraqi security forces, backed by attack helicopters and pilotless aerial surveillance drones, surged into the central Baghdad neighborhood of Karada on Monday night, sealing off roads and bridges, searching vehicles and raiding homes and offices.
The sweep continued all day Monday, snarling traffic throughout the center of the capital. The American military said that among other locations, its troops had raided Al Furat television station, which is owned by the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, a powerful Shiite party; and a Shiite mosque, Saeed Adrees.
American officials vowed to continue the search until the missing serviceman was rescued.
General Thurman: “We will leverage all available coalition resources to find this soldier.”
How's that for FREEDOM in Iraq?
Did they ever find him?
WE NEED TO LEAVE NOW (written a year ago)!
We are not helping in any way, shape or form.
Gunning down firefighters responding to an emergency?
The violation of Iraqi dignity to get "one" guy?!
Raiding homes, offices and MOSQUES?
No wonder Iraqis reject our "freedom."
So would I!
