Wherein I Round Up Some Horrors From Iraq

Now that it's as clear as mud why we went to Iraq, maybe we should take a look at what's been happening there over the past few days.

• Turns out the Iraqi government is modeled on American democracy after all. Just as the Coalition Provisional Authority lost $8 billion dollars when they were in power, so too has the Iraqi government misplaced the same amount.

Iraq's top corruption fighter said Wednesday that $8 billion in government money was wasted or stolen over the past three years and claimed he was threatened with death after opening an investigation into scores of Oil Ministry employees.

Radi al-Radhi, who runs the Public Integrity Commission, leads one of the more dangerous missions in the country. He said in an interview with The Associated Press that 20 members of the organization have been murdered since it began its work.

In perhaps the most publicized recent case, an estimated $2 billion disappeared from funds to rebuild the electricity infrastructure.

Former Electricity Minister Ayham al-Samaraie, who holds both U.S. and Iraqi citizenship, was convicted in that case and sentenced to two years in prison. He escaped from an Iraqi-run jail in the Green Zone on Dec. 17 and turned up in Chicago on Jan. 15. Al-Samaraie has said the Americans helped him escape.

Al-Radhi said the commission has investigated about 2,600 corruption cases since it was established in March 2004, a few months before the United States returned sovereignty to Iraq. He estimated $8 billion has vanished or been misappropriated.

This kind of corruption is endemic to a war zone. When warlords can kill anyone who questions them, of course they're going to steal and dare anyone to say different. Al-Radhi is a special kind of hero, while the Iraqi government is the kind of kleptocracy you'd expect to be nominally in charge of such chaos.

• We've lost 8 soldiers in the past 3 days in Iraq, and four British soldiers died as well in an ambush. Meanwhile, a report from an incident in February suggests that two Americans died from friendly fire, both of whom were rushed into the field without adequate training. Here's Nitpicker:

For those of you with no military experience, imagine your kid gets her driver's license having spent only the bare minimum of time behind the wheel of a car. Wouldn't you feel better if, before she got out on the interstate, you could give her four weeks of realistic test driving with a car made of rubber, highly-skilled instructors and ready access to the latest info on how to survive in different types of traffic?

Now add guns. And IEDs.

• In the war at home, Rudy Giuliani is now urging compromise like the statesman he is, a statement he must have made before saying that the President has an inherent authority to fund the troops even if Congress doesn't give up the money. I'm a bit confused on his rhetoric. And a big story on Wednesday revealed that unrelated pork has been a part of Iraq spending bills since the war began, which doesn't necessarily make it right, but does add context. Particularly of interest are the number of earmarks inserted into these bills by the President himself.

"Frankly, I don't see a lot of vote-buying here. And if that was what they were after in some cases, it didn't seem to work," said Scott Lilly, who was a longtime senior House Appropriations Committee aide and is now at the liberal-leaning Center for American Progress.

The president's own request last year for emergency war spending included $20 billion for Gulf Coast hurricane recovery, $2.3 billion for bird flu preparations, and $2 billion to fortify the border with Mexico and pay for his effort to send National Guardsmen to the southern frontier.

Sadly, that's pretty much how the sausage is made in Washington, and while I objected to some of the spending because it gave the Republicans a talking point, I understand that you sometimes try to get worthwhile projects into bills that you know will eventually pass. The dishonesty of the White House, meanwhile, who put up a list of earmarks from the 109th Congress WITHOUT INCLUDING THEIR OWN, is predictable but saddening.

Now you can get on with your day.