[SGT T.]

First of all, I have to tell you, I am a big fan of deal or no deal, and I occasionally watch American idol. Hells Kitchen is my new personal favorite, I like to watch the regular cooks get yelled at and stressed out by the quasi-military head chef.

As for whats going on in Iraq with the re-construction projects that are just playing fast and lose with the money, let me tell you that working with the MiTT team, I have some knowledge of how that all works. We get three estimates on a project, for example, to get all the windows replaced in the Iraqi Army Dining Facility. As soon as the Iraqis find out its for the Iraqi Army, the price goes up 200%. The reasons for this are two fold. One, they know that the Iraqi Army is bankrolled by the rich imperialist Americans, and two, they are risking their lives by "helping" the Iraqi Army, who are widely seen as puppets of the occupiers. So, because we have no choice, we pay the 200% mark-up, then the contractor buys the windows, and takes his finders fee, then pays the labor guys, who also use the "risking our lives" line to justify a huge fee, and they of course do the work, but they do it badly, because they know that when those windows break again, or fall out, or are stolen, guess who gets another contract to fix it all again? And then theres the Iraqi Army themselves. For example an IA Commander might decide that those windows would look better at his house, so he will order his troops to do a little covert action late one night, and then complain to us about a missing window the next day.
Bottom line...
It's a money pit. No amount of Government oversight is going to fix that. The only way to fix it is to change the mindset of the Iraqi people.

As for KBR, its a necessary evil. We need them to run our bases, but they need to do it better. For every example we have of them fleecing the Government, we need to fine them that ammount plus 200%. That would just about do it.