The Best Iraqi Army American Taxpayers Can Buy And Insurgents Can Kill

As part of his "surge" (aka "escalation) in Iraq, President George W. Bush is using $41 billion (at least, that's all he has requested so far) to recruit and train members of the "new" Iraqi Army.

For argument's sake, let's for the moment put aside these small but weighty details:

• We've been trying to create an Iraqi military for several years now and it hasn't exactly worked
• Scads of Iraqi soldiers - and their colleagues, the Iraqi police - are frequently killed the day they register OR the day they graduate (or anytime in between)
• These same uniformed Iraqis frequently see their homes and families badly injured or outright destroyed in retribution for their "loyalty" to the Bush occupation
• Iraqi civilians and experts tell us that those Iraqi soldiers/cops who DO survive seem to be aligning themselves with torture and death squads

With these nasty, bloody details aside, consider this: for a force of just 40,000 Iraqi soldiers, this means American taxpayers will shell out about $350K to train and prep EACH and EVERY one of these soldiers.

Sound odd to you?

And, mind you, I haven't even factored in here all the graft and sweetheart contracts that adhere themselves to each and every single operation the Bushies become involved in with Iraq. In other words, the total per head fee could end up much higher (maybe a half million per, at the very least) and the number of trained (and surviving) soldiers might show up as far lower.