|
Faithful husband, soccer dad,
basset owner, and former cowboy
Return to TboggHomePage
FELLOW TRAITORS
*The Nether-Count*
100 Monkeys Typing
Ain't No Bad Dude
Alicublog
Americablog
American Leftist
Attytood (Will Bunch)
Bad Attitudes
Balloon Juice
Better Inhale Deeply
Bitch Ph.D
Bloggy
Bob Harris
Brilliant At Breakfast
BusyBusyBusy
Byzantium's Shores
Creek Running North
Crooked Timber
Crooks and Liars
Cursor
Daily Kos
Dependable Renegade
David Ehrenstein
Democratic Veteran
Dohiyi Mir
Down With Tyranny
Echidne of the Snakes
Edicts of Nancy
Elayne Riggs
Eschaton (Atrios)
Ezra Klein
Failure Is Impossible
Feministe
Feministing
Firedoglake
First Draft
Freewayblogger
The Garance
The Group News Blog
Guano Island
Hairy Fish Nuts
Hammer of the Blogs
Hullabaloo(Digby)
I Am TRex
If I Ran the Zoo
I'm Not One To Blog
Interesting Times
James Wolcott
Jesus' General
Jon Swift
Juan Cole
King of Zembla
Kung Fu Monkey
Lance Mannion
Lawyers Guns and Money
Lean Left
Liberal Oasis
Main & Central
Majikthise
Making Light (Nielsen Hayden)
Mark Kleiman
Martini Revolution
MaxSpeak
MF Blog
MyDD
Needlenose
The Next Hurrah
Nitpicker
No More Mr. Nice Blog
Norbizness
Norwegianity
Oliver Willis
One Good Move
Orcinus
Pacific Views
Pam's House Blend
Pandagon
Pharyngula
Political Animal(K.Drum)
The Poorman
Progressive Gold
Right Hand Thief
Rising Hegemon
Roger Ailes
Rude Pundit
Rumproast
Sadly, No
Seeing The Forest
Shakesville
Sisyphus Shrugged
Skippy the Bush Kangaroo
Slacktivist
SteveAudio
Suburban Guerilla
TalkLeft
The American Street
The Left Coaster
The Road To Surfdom
The Sideshow
The Talking Dog
The Talent Show
Tom Tomorrow
Tom Watson
Whiskeyfire
UggaBugga
Wampum
Wonkette
World O'Crap
TOSS ME
A BONE
Amazon Wish List
SOURCES
MSNBC
CNN
The Washington Post
Media Matters
The New York Times
The Guardian
Yahoo News
Salon
The Raw Story
Common Dreams
Media Transparency
The Nation
Alternet
Joe Conason
Talking Points Memo
THE VAST WASTELAND
Captain Corndog & Friends
Cheerleaders Gone Spazzy
80% True
Corner of Mediocrity and Banality
Village Idiots Central
Darwin's Waiting Room
News for Mouthbreathers
Mailbox
Your e-mail may be reprinted sans name and e-mail address. Think about how stupid you want to appear.
Blogroll Me!
Site Feed
|
Wednesday, April 23, 2003
So much for Operation Iraqi Freedom
What? Do they think this is a democracy or something?
BAGHDAD, Iraq, April 23 — The American military moved today to strip Baghdad's self-appointed administrator of his authority and warned Iraqi factions not to take advantage of the confusion and the political void in the country by trying to grab power.
Lt. Gen. David McKiernan, the commander of ground forces in Iraq, issued a proclamation putting Iraq's politicians on notice, saying, "The coalition alone retains absolute authority within Iraq." He warned that anyone challenging the American-led authority would be subject to arrest.
Freedom's just another word for you ain't ready for it yet.
Meanwhile....
Ever hear the expression "he could f*** up a wetdream"? Here's America screwing up giving away money:
By the time angry Iraqis called the town councilmen liars and the councilmen began shouting at their American and British sponsors, it was clear that the U.S. attempt to deliver dollars to unpaid Iraqi government workers was not going well.
The idea was simple enough. The Bush administration, to buy time and goodwill, would pay $20 to Iraqis who have gone without salaries since the war to overthrow Saddam Hussein began five weeks ago. The cash would help the wheezing economy and boost faith in the U.S.-led occupation.
But nothing worked out as planned today in the southern port town of Umm Qasr. The giveaway was abandoned, and the U.S. money caravan retreated with its cargo of $130,780 in small bills.
[snip]
The first part of the mission went well: The cash arrived under U.S. guard in neat bricks of ones, fives and tens. U.S. officials chose the allotment after reasoning that the smaller bills would be easier to spend. But they were soon informed by Iraqis that single dollar bills are difficult for average people to use. Iraqis in Umm Qasr, it emerged, are most likely to change the dollars for Iraqi dinars, the currency in use before the war. And because money-changers prefer bills that are larger and more portable, a $20 bill is worth 25 to 50 percent more on the informal currency market than 20 $1 bills.
"All right, we learned a lesson," Buck Walters, head of the U.S. postwar effort in southern Iraq, told an Iraqi official as they studied a black footlocker containing the bills.
All workers in Umm Qasr who worked for the government or the many government-controlled industries were entitled to a payment of $20, using rolls active when the war began. The new town council, which volunteered to fill a power vacuum after the Baath Party government fell, decided that payments would take place simultaneously at six different schools.
But the council members forgot to choose people to keep records and hand out the cash. Then they came up with 210 more names than the Americans had. After the Iraqis huddled, exactly 210 names disappeared. Lt. Col. Peter A. Jones, the British commander who has been pressing the Iraqis to handle matters themselves, reported to Walters, "Democracy in action, sir, 210 people have been taken off the list."
Such unanticipated delays kept men in trousers and women in black head-to-toe robes waiting at the schools in 90-degree heat for money they had been told they would receive today. After helping to count the money into six piles, a British soldier did a quick calculation and reckoned it would take 29 hours to empty the largest box of cash if a worker claimed a payment every 30 seconds.
It was after 1 p.m. when the well-guarded motorcade reached one school, only to find the worst of two worlds. Not enough people were present to justify setting up a table, but those who showed up were furious. Tensions rose on both sides of the gate as the outsiders blamed the town council and the council blamed the foreigners.
Call them the Coalition That Couldn't Shoot Straight.
|
|
