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Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wagn'nagl fhtagn ("In his house at R'lyeh dead Cthulhu waits dreaming."). --HP Lovecraft, The Call of Cthulhu

The stars hath turned in the heavens once more: Mighty Cthulhu stirs. His dreams reacheth forth, communing with those with ears to hear. Iä! Shub-Niggurath! His thoughts trample down along the pathways of thy mind; thou knowest His footprints, each of which is a wound...

Wednesday, July 21, 2004


What are they supposed to fight with? Harsh language?

Once again, ShrubCo™ shows that they're still trying to fight their dirty little war on the cheap. And once again, it's up to Congress to fix Chimpy's shoddy accounting:


The U.S. military has spent most of the $65 billion that Congress approved for fighting the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and is scrambling to find $12.3 billion more from within the Defense Department to finance the wars through the end of the fiscal year, federal investigators said yesterday.


So let's review:

March, 2003, Paul Wolfowitz, among others, tells us that the war will by heavily subsidized by Iraqi oil profits:


"There’s a lot of money to pay for this that doesn’t have to be U.S. taxpayer money, and it starts with the assets of the Iraqi people…and on a rough recollection, the oil revenues of that country could bring between $50 and $100 billion over the course of the next two or three years…We’re dealing with a country that can really finance its own reconstruction, and relatively soon." -- [Source: House Committee on Appropriations Hearing on a Supplemental War Regulation, 3/27/03]


April, 2003, Shrub asks for $79 Billion to fund the invasion of Iraq.

November, 2003, Shrub comes back for an emergency supplement of $87 Billion more.

And now we're looking at yet another funding shortfall for the military--The GAO reports that the Army alone is looking at a $9 Billion defecit:

The hard-hit Army faces a $5.3 billion shortfall in funds supporting deployed forces, a $2 billion budget deficit for the refurbishing of equipment used in Iraq and a $753 million deficit in its logistics contract. The Army also needs $800 million more to cover equipment maintenance costs and $650 million to pay contractors guarding garrisons.


So why is it that our men and women still can't afford the beans, bullets, and band-aids they need to do the job?


The Army, which is overspending its budget by $10.2 billion for operations and maintenance, is asking the Marines and the Air Force to help cover the escalating costs of its logistics contract with Halliburton Co. But the Air Force is also exceeding its budget by $1.4 billion, while the Marines are coming up $500 million short. The Army is even having trouble paying the contractors guarding its garrisons outside the war zones, the report said.


Ah, I get it now: The Army is spending money too quickly. And why is that?


When Bush requested that money, the Pentagon assumed that troop levels in Iraq would decline from 130,000 to 99,000 by Sept. 30, that a more peaceful Iraq would allow the use of more cost-effective but slower sea lifts to transport troops and equipment, and that troops rotating in would need fewer armored vehicles than the service members they replace.

Instead, troop levels will remain at 138,000 for the foreseeable future, the military is heavily dependent on costly airlifts and the Army's force has actually become more dependent on heavily armored vehicles. The weight of those vehicles, in turn, has contributed to higher-than-anticipated repair and maintenance costs. Higher troop levels have also pushed up the cost of the Pentagon's massive logistical contract with Halliburton subsidiary Kellogg Brown & Root.


And it's no better for the Air Force, Marines, or Navy. Go read the rest, but be prepared for some eye-rubbing and teeth-clenching. Shrub will continue to starve the military just to avoid increasing the massive defecit that he created in the first place--god forbid that Congress revoke the tax-cuts the rich received just to pay for the disaster Dumbya™ created in Iraq. No, better to let the guys on the sharp end pay the price.

At least the GAO is doing their job; fat chance that the Commander-in-Thief™ will ever do his.

Posted by: Great Cthulhu / <$BlogItemDateTime $>
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