the 3rd JUST TRUST ME Iraq budget request - & still unarmored Humvees

[papau]

COMMENT - this is the 3rd JUST TRUST ME Iraq budget request! - after we were already shooting it was $75 billion for the Iraq Freedom Fund, then the "mission accomplished" $87 billion, and now this request - and our kids still do not have armored Humvees, bullet proof jackets, and indeed the we never funded for the 300000 troops that the first General in charge said were needed - as we do this war on a very expensive version of "the cheap".

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/05/18/opinion/18KRUG.html?hp

The Wastrel Son
By PAUL KRUGMAN

There was a stock character in 19th-century fiction: the wastrel son who runs up gambling debts in the belief that his wealthy family, concerned for its prestige, will have no choice but to pay off his creditors. In the novels such characters always come to a bad end. Either they bring ruin to their families, or they eventually find themselves disowned.

George Bush reminds me of those characters — and not just because of his early career, in which friends of the family repeatedly bailed out his failing business ventures. Now that he sits in the White House, he's still counting on other people to settle his debts — not to protect the reputation of his family, but to protect the reputation of the country.

<snip>Last week Mr. Bush asked Congress for yet more money for the "Iraq Freedom Fund" — $25 billion for starters, although Paul Wolfowitz, the deputy defense secretary, says that the bill for the full fiscal year will probably exceed $50 billion, and independent experts think even that is an underestimate. And you know what? He'll get it.<snip>

It ran to less than a page, with no supporting information. Of the $25 billion, $5 billion is purely a slush fund, to be used at the secretary of defense's discretion. The rest is allocated to specific branches of the military, but with the proviso that the administration can reallocate the money at will as long as it notifies the appropriate committees. <snip>

... disowning Mr. Bush and his debts... will mean settling for an outcome in Iraq that, however we spin it, will look a lot like defeat — and the nation's prestige will be damaged by that outcome. But lost prestige is better than ruin.

[jean]

1. How does that go? Trust me one, shame on you, twice- shame on me

but after that what? We should just flush ourselves down the toilet with bush and gang?

[papau]

2. I hope the Dems have a spine - but I doubt it will show until after

a Kerry election.