Iraq, the money pit

For a moment, forget the politics of Iraq votes in Congress, incompetent civilian leadership, dubious military advice and cherry-picked intelligence reports. Choke back the anger about spilled blood, and focus on epic sums of wasted money.

One can hardly imagine so much treasury being squandered without a certain amount of premeditated effort. Simply shoveling so much cash down a rat hole would take a measure of planning. Congress was told at least $10 billion of $57 billion for Iraq reconstruction contracts has been squandered by contractors or has disappeared without explanation. Federal auditors caution the figure is likely to go higher. The Associated Press reported the figure is nearly triple the amount of waste reported by the Government Accountability Office last fall.

Here is the witheringly naive question that no doubt brings tears to the eyes of number-crunchers who know how to cook a nice set of books: How could this happen? The numbers are big, but why is there no expectation of results and receipts in this setting?

This rip-off brings to mind Paul Bremer's riposte to querulous congressmen about the fate of $12 billion in cash disbursed by his Coalition Provisional Authority. There are no perfect solutions in a war zone, Bremer said. He and his minions let 363 tons of money in shrink-wrapped blocks of $400,000 skitter through their fingers with barely a fare-thee-well.

Giving away pallets of cash in a war zone pretty well defines the level of American civilian expertise in post-invasion Iraq.

The malfeasance described to Congress last week is an entirely different variety of insult. The $10 billion that went missing was doled out to Halliburton, the oil-services company, and other major contractors from whom taxpayers have every right to expect and receive accountability.

The financial debacle of Iraq is a scandal all its own, and is wholly worthy of the full, bipartisan attention of Congress.