Outrageous - Read how $20B to be spent in Iraq . (WP Story)

[cthrumatrix]

In GOP, Concern Over Iraq Price Tag
Some Doubt Need For $20.3 Billion For Rebuilding


By Jonathan Weisman and Juliet Eilperin
Washington Post Staff Writers
Friday, September 26, 2003; Page A01


A new curriculum for training an Iraqi army for $164 million. Five hundred experts, at $200,000 each, to investigate crimes against humanity. A witness protection program for $200,000 per Iraqi participant. A computer study for the Iraqi postal service: $54 million.

Such numbers, buried in President Bush's $20.3 billion request for Iraq's reconstruction, have made some congressional Republicans nervous, even furious. Although the GOP leadership has tried to unite publicly around its president, cracks are beginning to show.

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Those details include $100 million to build seven planned communities with a total of 3,258 houses, plus roads, an elementary school, two high schools, a clinic, a place of worship and a market for each; $10 million to finance 100 prison-building experts for six months, at $100,000 an expert; 40 garbage trucks at $50,000 each; $900 million to import petroleum products such as kerosene and diesel to a country with the world's second-largest oil reserves; and $20 million for a four-week business course, at $10,000 per student.

snip

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A2213-2003Sep25.html

The war on Iraq has turned into a "pay off"...a "business" that WE will pay for ..... for years to come.

[cthrumatrix]

1. Bremer said that we even need to import "cement" ......for prisons

Already, the administration's request for $400 million to build two 4,000-bed prisons at $50,000 a bed has raised enough questions in Congress to force Provisional Authority Administrator L. Paul Bremer to explain that cement must be imported to make concrete.

"We're not talking sanity here," Dyer said. "The world's second-largest oil country is importing oil, and a country full of concrete is importing concrete."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A2213-2003Sep25.html

[cthrumatrix]

2. $20B in "pork"....I'm waiting for "In-Sanity & Limpball" to discuss this

"Many members of the general public are being led to believe this money is just to turn the lights back on in Iraq," Sepp said. "Once word gets out about the nature of some of these projects, it will pose a real dilemma for a number of policymakers who believe U.S. foreign aid is already suffering from administrative problems as well as overambitious goals. These are the kinds of things that radio talk show hosts love to chew up and give to their listeners."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A2213-2003Sep25.html

[saigon68]

3. Halliburton (with 2 LL's ) stock has to go up.

This outrageous behavior detailed in this article has to be shown to everyone.

The next time any rePuke wants to cut an educational or social program put this article right in their face.

I intend to send this to everyone I know.

First they blow the shit out of the place--- Now they are going to rebuild it to where --it may not be better than it is in the USA ---but the corporate PROFIT (Read kick backs, payoffs and Graft) will be stunning

The Mother Fuckers !!!!!!

[cthrumatrix]

6. Good thing Cheney owns 433,000 stock options....coincidence I guess

[MarianJack]

8. cheyney Owns Stock Options?

You mean that our VP would actually tell a fib about not having financial interest in hellabustin? Gee, I thought that this administration was going to bring intagrity back to the white house so we could be proud of our leaders again. I'm sooooo crushed!

(Perhaps my most sarcastic post ever!)

[The Lone Liberal]

4. The one I absolutely love

Is the $9.5 million to develop zip codes in Iraq. Now, I know that getting the mail fast is nice, but, it gets by me how that gets us out of Iraq faster. Afterthought, maybe moving the mail faster is so our troops can write home with the message "HELP!"

[izzie]

7. Zip codes? One more step for mankind.

This is madness

[Ediacara]

12. I'm actually surprised Iraq doesn't already have them

Most industrialized nations got postal codes after the 1960s, and let's not forget, Iraq was the most industrialised nation in the Middle East in the 1980s. I don't see any reason why they were never implimented then.

[cthrumatrix]

5. Wolfy thinks spending $54M on Iraq Post Office "study" is Nat. Security

For conservatives pushing for less spending in the United States, such comparisons hold little value. It is not the dollar totals but the targets. "A $54 million study for their post office?" asked Dan Mitchell of the Heritage Foundation.

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"These are national security decisions; they have to be made on that basis," he said. Wolfowitz said that does not mean that "we're not trying to, in fact, get more Iraqis on the front lines, get them dying for their country so fewer Americans have to."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A2213-2003Sep25.html

[izzie]

9. Did you hear the GOP calls on c-span?

Wild only a few were mad. I loved the one that said we should send money to gov for it.

[Don_G]

10. $900 Million To Import Gas

Into a country with the second largest oil reserves in the world? Another Million for a Saddam atrocity museum?

When we can't even provide our troops with adequate food, water and housing?

[Plaid Adder]

11. Planned communities?

Boy, I don't see any subtle cultural imperialism THERE.

This is ludicrous. Instead of finding out what Iraq would need, we're just sending it loads of what we've got, because that's what Cheney's buddies know how to make.

Planned communities. When does Starbuck's move in, and how much will it cost?

:grr:

The Plaid Adder

[RUMMYisFROSTED]

15. American settlements?

[nostamj]

13. billions for "iraq" = BILLIONS for bushies

and little else.

when BushCo spends 4B a month, what percentage of that goes directly into the pockets of Halliburton, et al. ???

it's time that citizens, with crumbling roads and bridges and schools and mass transit (ask me about my decaying station station in Brooklyn) and a power grid and while city, state and local taxes rise (along with transit fares) ask:

WHAT
ABOUT
U.S.
?

[Mari333]

14. and here at home my elderly mother just filed Bankruptcy

because she cant afford medicine AND food at the same time.