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jducote

A friend just showed me this site and I thought some people may be interested to check it out.....

www.costofwar.com

 

Inhousecounsel

An attorney I know joined the Navy reserves about six years ago to make his dad proud. Then came the war. At 34, with a two-year-old son, a pregnant wife and an underpaid public sector law job, he got shipped out to a Marine base just outside of Fallujah. He was in the Seabees as part of the 'reconstruction' effort, negotiating 'contracts' with Iraqis to build schools and other public projects.

Since there are no courts in Iraq, the deals were little more than handshakes with unknows, who were often later killed for doing business with Americans. Since there is no banking system in Iraq, the deals were (and are) paid for in cash. Iraqis would come to the base, my friend would meet them in a room with two Marine guards and strong box full of cash, wrapped in $100,000 blocks. Once, a contractor came to get paid and brought nothing to carry the cash in. My friend went and found a garbage bag and put $700,000 in it. While he was there, he passed out over $25,000,000 in cash the same way.

The Seabeas are mostly engineers and are supposed to go inspect the projects that are being financed with garbage bags full of cash, but the projects often become war zones, preventing inspection and preventing construction, and when there is construction, the Americans are (of course) getting ripped off with second hand supplies and the kind of construction you would expect in a war zone.

I thought this was eye-opening insight on how the money's getting spent exporting democracy and winning hearts and minds.