Keep this handy. You could even print out a few pages and you know, just leave them lying around your workplace or church. Most of it isn't news to you, but I bet it is to your friends who watch the TV news:

When an Inspector General was finally appointed for reconstruction and when the U.S. Government
Accountability Office finally started to examine these issues, it found ìsubstantial evidence of
widespread mismanagement, waste, and corruption in the spending and disbursement of over $19.6
billion in Iraqi funds during the period of U.S. control.

The lack of control is most vivid with boondoggle over the spreading of hard cash. Loading up
planes directly from the Federal Reserve, the United States shipped nearly $12 billion in U.S.
currency to Iraq between May 2003 and June 2004, the largest international cold cash currency
transfer in recorded history. Nearly half of the U.S. currency shipped into Iraq ó more than $5
billion ó flowed into the country in the final six weeks before control of Iraqi funds was returned
to the interim Iraqi government on June 28, 2004.42

• The U.S. government shipped to Iraq more than 281 million individual bills, including more
than 107 million $100 bills. Total U.S. cash shipments weighed 363 tons.43

After the funds arrived, the money went out, but few records were kept of who got it or what for.44

• One contractor received a $2 million payment in a duffel bag stuffed with shrink-wrapped
bundles of U.S. bills.

• One official was given $6.75 million in cash and ordered to spend it in one week, before the
interim Iraqi government took control of Iraqi funds.

Clearly, I'm doing something wrong. I'm pretty sure I could spend that much in a week, but only if I got to buy some Manolos. And Goddess bless the intertubes, you learn something every day. Is it just me, or do the Republicans remind you of one, big, incestuous family, complete with child marriage and sister sharing?

14
When Blackwater staff were massacred in Fallujah, Blackwater turned to the Alexander Strategy
Group to help weather the media firestorm.60 Blackwater and Alexander already had a relationship
developed by lobbying on regulations on private militias in war zones,61 and Alexander had all the
right relationships on the Hill:

 Ed Buckham, former Chief of Staff for former House Majority Leader, Tom DeLay.
Buckham is Alexanderís chairman.
 Tony Rudy, former DeLay operative.
 Karl Gallant, former head of DeLayís leadership PAC.

Additionally, Blackwater has direct ties with the Republican Party. Erik Prince, founder of
Blackwater, is a staunch Republican and closely tied with the religious right. His sister, Betsy
DeVos, is the Chairman of the Michigan Republican Party. His father helped Gary Bauer, religious
right leader, develop the Family Research Council in the late 1980s.

I knew there was a reason not to like the Devos family. Ick.