Here Comes Santee Claus--Taking, Not Giving

Uh-oh, word is starting to leak about how much money Bush is going to ask for in his supplelemtal appropriation for Iraq war funding. Remember this is the appropriation they wouldn't include in the budget because it would have pushed the $400 some billion deficit well over $500b. The not-so-well kept secret is that they would ask for $75b. Now, well, you read:

But some analysts and government officials said the request is expected to run as high as $100 billion, bringing the total cost of operations in Iraq alone to well over $200 billion since the March 2003 invasion.

What does it remind me of? It reminds me of one evening when I was watching Ted Koppel interview Andrew Natsios of the USAID and Natsios made what I believed, on behalf of the administration, one of the most absurd comments I have ever heard. It is well scrubbed on the web, but I found a summary here:

White House officials were steamed when Andrew S. Natsios, the administrator of the U.S. Agency for International Development, said earlier this year that U.S. taxpayers would not have to pay more than $1.7 billion to reconstruct Iraq -- which turned out to be a gross understatement of the tens of billions of dollars the government now expects to spend.

Now I know that reconstruction costs are not necessarily war costs, but I believe it was all a part of the administration's misinformation efforts. Let me tell you, Natsios was adamant that reconstructing Iraq would cost us only $1.7b.
As long as I'm blogging, that is one lie we won't let go into the black hole.
Just a friendly reminder.