Coalition of the Willing to Be Paid

If we’re failing to win hearts and minds, it’s not because we’re cheapskates.

Recently, the US Army paid 1,000 Iraqis $320,800 each for “Services Other Than Personal” based on one signature and no further explanation. Such largesse is cited in a new audit of $8.2 billion that finds, according to the New York Times, “almost none of the payments followed federal rules and that in some cases, contracts worth millions of dollars were paid for despite little or no record of what, if anything, was received.”

In addition, the audit showed “a sometimes stunning lack of accountability in the way the United States military spent some $1.8 billion in seized or frozen Iraqi assets…often doled out in stacks or pallets of cash.”

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