The Daily Background
| “We are not going to outsource the business of handling the war in Iraq”
by Arlen Parsa
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President Bush has walked a fine line between embracing the mission of a bipartisan, high-profile advisory panel on Iraq and maintaining enough distance not to be bound by all - or even most - of its upcoming recommendations.
[…]
Aware the study group could recommend some bitter prescriptions, the White House has indicated it will take the advice seriously but not accept it automatically. The president says the report will be only one of many he will consider and still insists that American troops should stay in Iraq until the country can take care of itself.
The article was mostly about this sort of thing, but there was another intersting snippit:
“We are not going to outsource the business of handling the war in Iraq,” press secretary Tony Snow said in October when questions began arising about the panel.
Oh no? Not like they did in Afghanistan and outsourced the job of capturing Osama bin Laden in Tora Bora (after he had been virtually cornered), to Afghani warlords who let him get away? Of course, outsourcing this war in Iraq has become a business, and US corporations have gotten billions of dollars from it. Whether it’s private security forces that the Pentagon has hired for special jobs including interrogation, or jobs that the military normally has done in the past, such as providing meals for soldiers or constructing Army bases. Naturally in the process, corporations like Halliburton manage to get the best contracts, and manage to charge US taxpayers 22 bucks for ice trays. It’s ridiculous.
