by James Glaser
September 25, 2003

The 87 billion dollars that President Bush wants for Iraq, will have to be borrowed, because we don't have any money to spend. We are now over 500 billion in the hole for this year. The first 77 billion that Congress spent on Iraq was borrowed too.

One looks at this level of spending and the first question you have is what are they going to buy with this much money? When you find that out you have to wonder what the heck George and Donald are thinking of.

9 Million dollars so that Iraq can have a Zip Code system. Yes this is true, they want to spend $9,000,000.00 dollars, so that Iraqi mail can be delivered faster. Those people still don't have clean drinking water.

I am getting these numbers from a report by Alan Fram, an Associated Press Writer. This report was distributed to Congress by the Bush administration. Here is another one, 30 million dollars to give half-day English classes to 5,000 workers. I am assuming that is Iraqi workers which comes out to $6,000.00 for each worker to go to school part time in a country that you can hire a teacher for about ten dollars a day.

$1,000,000.00 to build a museum and information center to document past atrocities by Saddam Hussein. I would think in the future if Iraq wants this, they could pay for it with oil profits and not our grandchildren's tax money.

$100 million dollars to pay for a witnesses protection program. Why are we paying for this? Aren't we trying to get Iraq a constitution and elections so we can get out of there.

I am not making these costs up, Bush is asking Congress to pay for these and they probably will. $67 million to hire guards to protect Iraqi government offices. Those offices were already looted and so what are they going to protect? If Iraq is going to open new offices, that means they have their own government and they can guard them.

This is the worst one yet! 100 million to hire experts to investigate crimes against humanity by Saddam's government. Isn't it a little late to look for proof now?

99 million to pay for jails and prisons.

55 million for oil pipeline repair. This will be part of the $2,100,000,000.00 we are going to spend on Iraq's oil industry so that some big oil companies can make money.

This list goes on and on, but I see nothing about fixing the electricity or water treatment system. We did destroy Iraq in the first gulf War and this War too, so we should repair everything we bombed. We can't pay for the tens of thousands of innocent people we killed in the two wars no matter how much money we give.

David Brooks a conservative writer said it today and the whole Bush administration along with most of those Democrats running for President say, we can't just walk away from Iraq. They all say, we have to finish the job. Only three guys in this group that I can think of were ever in a war and all of them were officers, so none of these guys have any idea of what they are asking of our troops. Officers are not sitting out in the sun and heat day after day manning check points. Officers are not getting killed and wounded. Officers are not putting their friends into body bags. Officers don't have to carry guys that have just lost a leg or arm. Not one of these guys know what it is like to be one of the Troops.

These guys tell us we have to stay and get the job done, but not one of them are going to be doing that job, nor will any of their children. Not one of these guys ever were there to, "Get the job done." Except for Colin Powell, John Kerry, and Wesley Clark, none of these people have ever been to war. Our government is clueless when it comes to what they are asking our troops to do.

We can't leave yet, because not enough money has been made off this war. If we can just spend a few hundred billion more, then those in Power and those that they really work for, will be able to rake off the billions in profit we started this war for

Heck, if we are going to all the trouble to kill thousands of people and have hundreds of our own people get killed, the least we can do is make a few Americans richer.

Does anyone ever wonder why we can ask the troops to sacrifice their time and their lives for America, but the companies that sell war materials make huge profits, their CEOs get paid millions, and every American has to foot the bill?

I have said it before, America's wars are fought so that a few people can make billions. Soldiers and Marines are dying for the profit margins of American Corporations.

Yes, Wave your flag.