ThinkFast: October 4, 2006

“Tucked away in fine print in the military spending bill for this past year was a lump sum of $20 million to pay for a celebration in [Baghdad] ‘for commemoration of success’ in Iraq and Afghanistan,” the NYT reports. “Not surprisingly, the money was not spent.” But in the spending bill approved last week, conservatives rolled the $20 million over into 2007. [LSB: Too bad as much thought hasn’t gone into planning and executing the war as has gone into planning the victory celebration.]

“Congress has set a 2007 termination date for the special inspector general for Iraq reconstruction,” Stuart Bowen, “at the behest of the Bush administration, removing the source of a series of audit reports that have emboldened critics of the president’s war polices. Bowen has said post-war reconstruction planning in Iraq was “insufficient in both scope and implementation.” [LSB: Another case of killing the messenger. Don’t like what you’re hearing, discard it and find someone who will tell you what you want to hear. That seems to have worked so well in the past.]

“In the second month of a security crackdown” in Baghdad, U.S. military casualties appear to be rising,” according to military officials. “At least 17 troops have been killed in combat since Saturday, including eight U.S. soldiers who died in gun battles and bomb blasts Monday in Baghdad - the most killed in a single day in the capital since July 2005.” [LSB: When is this madness going to end?]