Insomnia

I was stuck awake last night, staring straight up at the ceiling tiles, almost hoping yet another one would fall--at least 4 or 5 have in the five years I've lived in the damned place. Old apartment. I think I was pissed off because yet another leak in the plumbing has developed, this time the cold water tap in the kitchen sink. This will be the third major leak I confront. Anyway, as I tried to come up with SOMETHING, ANYTHING that would cause me to nod off, I began to calculate the cost of "security" in Iraq, particularly as it relates to the overall budget for reconstruction. Unfortunately, thinking about numbers didn't quite do the trick--I managed to come up with a $6.8 billion dollars, and I was no more tired--damn, normally thinking about budgets, outlays, etc., can put me to sleep quite rapidly.

Imagine my surprise upon seeing this article, which largely confirms my math. The New York Times doesn't QUITE come up with the same figure: they're saying about 25% of $18 billion dollars (or $4.2 billion per year--maybe they're outsourcing), still a substantial chunk of change. My own calculation was 20,000 folks at $1,000 a day. The Times hedges the bet, noting that the going rate is $500-$1,500 a day for "[the] most skilled operators."

The reporters managed to discover that security itself had been budgeted at 10% of the reconstruction funds, which is one of the few recent figures I've come across that actually seems to confirm that SOMEONE, SOMEWHERE, is doing the job the taxpayers have hired her or him to do, namely, analyze trends and come up with figures (sarcasm for the irony challenged. Something tells me they have some figures, both pre and post invasion, but refuse to release the latter. IIRC, the pre-invasion figures were ridiculously lowballed).

The writers came across the plum contract: $100 million to guard the Green Zone, although why am I guessing it's a "cost plus" agreement? A hundred mil is big money, to be sure (and some in the Pentagon are grumbling that particularly Special Ops guys are opting out, of low level government pay in exchange for some real money when putting their lives on the line, even if the equipment isn't always up to standard. Of course, given that we're STILL having trouble putting all the troops in body armor, up to standard might be a relative thing. Besides, I assume the brass can always issue more "stop loss" orders, i.e., the draft-that-isn't-a-draft).

The article is pretty long at five pages, but take a look: this is yet another example of the dunderheaded decision making that went into the invasion. The level of security required for folks like Bremer is outrageous, and how can we possibly expect that businesspeople would require less? Considering the situation on the ground, i.e., kidnappings, ambushes, etc., "business as usual" would be laughable if it wasn't tragic.