Joel Brinkley
American combat forces have left
Now, however, the sentiment is growing among senior government officials that
After all, in a report published last week, U.S. government analysts found that
If only it were that simple.
Apprised of the auditors' findings,
Not even Iraqi authorities are buying that dubious claim. An amount equal to the state budgets of
One untraceable expense the Iraqis claimed was
"I find that hard to believe, actually," said
By now it's no secret that
"Literally, I saw handwritten ledgers in the
Remember, American auditors found this budget surplus. Publicly,
Even if you accept that the
"We agree" with the goal of "ensuring that
The U.S. has spent hundreds of billions of dollars, almost all of it deficit spending, while Iraqi officials purloined sums so grand that some of them probably outrank
Other countries where American troops are stationed share the costs, including several that are far poorer than
Why not
Joel Brinkley, a professor of journalism at Stanford University, is a former Pulitzer Prize-winning foreign correspondent for the New York Times.
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- Millennium Development Goals for Women Largely Unmet
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- Global Human-Rights Cause Gets a Shot in the Arm
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- A Numbers Game in the Middle East
- Middle East Peace Talks: Here We Go Again
- Obama and Clinton Revive Middle East Peace Talks
- Guess Who's Coming to the Table
- Iraq: Unanswered Policy Questions on U.S. Troops
- Iraq: Implications of a Pointless War
- Iraq: Book Review
- Iraq: No Drums and No Bugles: None Dare Call It Victory
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- The Dangerous Dog Days of Summer
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- Islamism Unveiled: From Berlin to Cairo and Back Again
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- Middle East Peace Talks: Pointless Talks
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- How to Handle Hamas
- Bringing Israel's Bomb Out of the Basement
- Iraq: Anxious Iraqis Look at Uncertain Future
- Iraq: U.S. Combat Troops' Departure Leaves Uncertainty in its Wake
- Iraq: A Promise Kept?
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- Afghanistan Timetable Remains a Factor of Uncertainty
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- The War Drones On
- When the 'Right War' Goes Wrong
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- Obama Wasting Opportunities in Latin America
- Stopping Nuclear Proliferation Before It Starts
- Veiled Truths: The Rise of Political Islam in the West
- Steps to Stop Iran From Getting a Nuclear Bomb
- Iran: The Nuclear Containment Conundrum
- Iran: The Right Kind Of Containment
- China Is the Key to Handling Nuclear North Korea
- Coping With China's Financial Power
- What China's Currency Reform Means For Investors
- Russian-American Obstacles Overshadow Obama-Medvedev Meeting
- Russia's Courtship of Silicon Valley
- Ukrainian Blues: Viktor Yanukovych's Rise and Democracy's Fall
- Russia: Prisoners of the Caucasus
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- New Guard, Old Policy on Afghanistan
- Fear and Uncertainty in Afghanistan
- Afghanistan: Bribing the Enemy
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- Mexico: The New Cocaine Cowboys
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- Latin America's Rich Should Be More Generous
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(C) 2010 Joel Brinkley