Monday, June 1, 2015

On Following the Money to Iraq

Here is a sentence from an Al Jazeera report worth considering:
Iraqi security forces lost 2,300 Humvee armoured vehicles when the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) group overran the northern city of Mosul, according to the country's prime minister.
Bearing in mind that it is not particularly easy to "follow the money" in wartime (particularly when it is not your war, or at least not supposed to be), it is worth pondering just who should be taking the financial hit for the expense behind all that fancy hardware. My guess is that the Iraqi government did not pay for the stuff, meaning that it was given to them, presumably by the Department of Defense, rather than the corporation that actually builds the vehicles. In that case this is the sort of thing that amounts to a bad investment. Does that mean that DoD will be able to write it off as a tax loss? (The thought that the DoD is immune from paying taxes is as chilling as it is realistic.) In my own private fantasy world, the bill would be sent to George W. Bush, since he basically created the predisposing conditions behind the loss of the hardware. For better or worse, those, I know that my fantasy world is not a "reality world!"

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