GAO

No, really, I want my money back.

About $10 billion has been squandered by the U.S. government on Iraq reconstruction aid because of contractor overcharges and unsupported expenses, and federal investigators warned Thursday that significantly more taxpayer money is at risk.

The three top auditors overseeing work in Iraq told a House committee their review of $57 billion in Iraq contracts found that Defense and State department officials condoned or allowed repeated work delays, bloated expenses and payments for shoddy work or work never done.

More than one in six dollars charged by U.S. contractors were questionable or unsupported, nearly triple the amount of waste the Government Accountability Office estimated last fall.

source: Auditors: Billions squandered in Iraq

$10 billion. Think about it folks. This is what it looks like with its "wheels" on: $10,000,000,000. The Bush administration has already spent $350,000,000,000 on this fiasco and is passing the golden gallon-sized chalice, looking for an additional handout in the amount of $100,000,000: of your money. My money. Our money.

Maybe it's unseemly to speak in terms of "wasted" lives--3,000-plus, not counting the destroyed and devastated lives of family members now grieving those fallen, not counting the lives that will never be, uh, "quite the same" (read the War Amputees Blog lately?). PTSD? Put The Sonsabitches on Depakot!

When it comes to the wounded-or shall we just call them the "walking dead"? (oh, I guess that doesn't work either, cause too many of them can't even walk)--we really have no idea how many lives are involved because the U.S. lacks mechanism to accurately track troops wounded in Iraq. What the hell else does the U.S. lack? Universal health care. Adequate funding for public schools. A social safety net to bring anywhere from 2.3 to 3.5 million homeless people in from the cold.

And the civilian body count? By the time I am finished typing this sentence, the stats will already be "dated," so you may as well just see for yourself, here: "We don't do body counts,"-so sayeth CentCom.