MNpublius.com

The New York Times published a piece this morning on the one in every five dollars that goes to the the businesses of war in Iraq:

The United States this year will have spent $100 billion on contractors in Iraq since the invasion in 2003, a milestone that reflects the Bush administration’s unprecedented level of dependence on private firms for help in the war, according to a government report to be released Tuesday.

The Pentagon’s reliance on outside contractors in Iraq is proportionately far larger than in any previous conflict, and it has fueled charges that this outsourcing has led to overbilling, fraud and shoddy and unsafe work that has endangered and even killed American troops.

The entire article is worth reading. Al Franken released a statement regarding it this morning:

Whenever Norm Coleman is put in charge of Minnesota tax dollars, you can be sure there are corporate special interests getting a big payday. But it’s simply unconscionable that he allowed our troops to be put at risk just so that his cronies could cash in. Instead of being a watchdog, Norm Coleman was a lapdog – and every day, we learn more about the cost of his inaction

Norm Coleman, who was also the Chairman of the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, let all of this plus more fly by under his nose. And, well, after receiving money from places such as Halliburton’s PAC.