$8.8 Billion Is Unaccounted For

I have been sitting on this post for a couple of weeks now. This is from an NPR morning program I heard on my way to work one morning. It's art of a two part series on what went wrong with the reconstruction of Iraq.

What caught my attention was Paul Bremer's (the head of the Coalition Provisional Authority) suggestion that it was "naïve to try to impose Western-style accounting practices in Iraq during a war". Right. $12 billion cash was requested and shipped to Iraq. "We have no idea where that money went. Of the $12 billion, $8.8 billion is unaccounted for."

As soon as the Mission Accomplished sign came out, billions of dollars were awared, often sole-source awards to singel companies, such as Haliburton.

"U.S. officials once described reconstruction aid for Iraq as a gift from the American people. But after four years and tens of billions of dollars invested in reconstruction, Iraqis have less electricity, less clean water and fewer jobs than they did before the U.S. invasion."

I wonder what that money would have been used for if we hadn't gotten into this war.

Seventeen

No, not the teenage girls' magazine.

No, not an average score in footbal (two touchdowns and a field goal).

No, not the Kip Winger song.

The miles per gallon on the new flagship hybrid Lexus. They boast 28.7 mpg, but a test driver only got 17 mpg. Shameful.

One Week Later

I can't believe a whole week has gone by and I have not added a post to my blog. I guess other things took priority this week, whether I wanted them to or not (e.g., work). But I did spend a lot of the week coming up with good posts. The news was full of them.

Stuff

Well, I finally have a blog. I used to have one but it crashed a few years ago and I am finally coming around to starting a new blog. There have been many times when I wish I had a blog (mostly to whine about stuff), so I am glad that I nowhave one.

I don't know how often I will post, but I intend to do so at least a few times a week. I will also use this blog to display pictures I like, especially pictures of my adorable cats. All four of them. Right now it is late so I will get to the pictures later.

Test

Will this first post work?