new thing

Lots to do. We'll be trying to clean up any of the broken links over the next few days. And we'll be trying to get thru our overflowing inbox.

Everyone is talking about the $87 billion dollars that the White House is requesting. It was formally submitted today and is rumored to be 59 pages long. Hopefully more details will be forthcoming over the next week.

Where is it going? How is it being spent? And who is going to be accounting for it?

The 59-page document Bush sent lawmakers contained no major changes in his proposal but did provide a first look at some of its details. It's a random list: $13 million for mobile X-ray searching devices, $345 million for soldiers' housing units, $73 million to bolster anti-drug efforts in Afghanistan, $20 million for Hellfire missiles and much more.

Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld would be given authority to transfer more than $7 billion to different accounts after notifying Congress. Before approving a $79 billion package for operations in Iraq and elsewhere last spring, lawmakers limited a similar Bush request.

[...]

Bush called for $66 billion for military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, and $21 billion to rebuild the two countries -- all of which would be U.S. expenditures that are not repaid. Of the reconstruction funds, all but $800 million are for Iraq.

Does the above mentioned $345 million for soldiers housing units fall under the LOGCAP III contract that Halliburton holds? Someone ask Wendy Hall.

If that much is being spent on housing units, does it really sound like the US will be leaving anytime soon?