Wednesday, Feb. 22, 2006 | 7:13 a.m.
Not only do we bleed billions a month in Iraq, but we have also lost billions on "reconstruction." All of Iraq's wealth, about $19 billion, is gone. Our $18 billion appropriation is gone, but there is no reconstruction.
Halliburton got an $11 billion contract and all they did was paint a few buildings blue. Some billions were literally handed out in cash to military officers for "projects" without accountability. That's really supporting the troops!
Now the Bush administration wants $439 billion for the Pentagon budget, which will end up being a $580 billion total defense budget. I'm for a strong military but do we have to spend as much as the rest of the world combined?
Russia is now an ally, China is a trading partner and the "Axis of Evil" spends only $9 billion together. We lost that much in the first year of the Iraq occupation.
It seems to me that with so many needs at home and what with already being in debt, we could cut some fat out. Do we really need $10 billion for a missile defense that does not work? Do we really need more Cold War hardware when we have no state enemy? We defeated the Soviet Union by bankrupting them in an arms race. Why should we do that to ourselves?
Jerry Bitts, Las Vegas
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