The Legacy Of Bush's War of Lies

A sobering and powerful ad for Tom Udall, candidate for Senate in New Mexico. The young soldier's name is Erik Schei.

No More War

John McCain wants to be a war president, just like George W. Clusterfuck. He expects more wars. He wants more wars in more places. He thinks there is a military solution to every problem.

No to more wars. No to four more years. No to McCain. (Warning, graphic scenes of violence in this five minute film. The violence the Pentagon has erased from the media for six years now.)

John McCain's Daily Bald-Faced Lie

McCain has a new campaign ad out attacking Obama. It's getting a lot more attention in the media than he's paid for, as it is only running in a few markets:

“Barack Obama never held a single Senate hearing on Afghanistan,” the ad’s announcer says. “He hadn’t been to Iraq in years. He voted against funding our troops. And now, he made time to go to the gym, but cancelled a visit with wounded troops. Seems the Pentagon wouldn’t allow him to bring cameras. John McCain is always there for our troops. McCain: Country first.” It concludes with the candidate’s voice: “I’m John McCain and I approve this message.”

Of course, Obama has attended more Afghanistan subcommittee meetings in the last two years than McCain.

Both McCain and Obama have voted against troop funding bills that contained provisions they didn't like.

It was McCain came out against the new GI Bill and its increased educational benefits for veterans, then didn't bother to vote when the final bill passed, while Obama made a special trip in from the campaign trail to vote for increased funding for veterans.

McCain voted against improved health care for disabled veterans.

McCain is against the very concept of VA healthcare and wants to shunt veterans into the private healthcare system where they will stand in line with (or behind) the rest of us.

Obama only canceled the hospital visit at the last minute after the Pentagon said at the last minute that he could only go with Senate staff (nothing was said about cameras, and Obama had visited wounded troops a couple of weeks ago at Walter Reed -- with no cameras present.). Since Obama was on a campaign visit and traveling with campaign staff, that was impossible.

(And on a related note, when John McCain was in Europe in March, he didn't go to the hospital in Landstuhl either, even though he was just as close to the hospital as Obama was.)

On the whole, the lowest point yet of a very low campaign.

hat tip to
Carpetbagger Report: When the going gets tough, McCain gets disgraceful where I got a lot of these links.

An actual truthful headline from the corporate media: New McCain Ad Bashes Obama for Not Visiting Troops Using Footage of Obama Visiting Troops (credit where credit is due, it's Jake Tapper of ABC News).

Completely Random

New York Public Library: 5 varities of pears and a half-cut pear,
from Traité des arbres et arbustes que l'on cultive en France en pleine terre / par Duhamel. (published [1801-1819])

Things that interested or amused me today, in no particular order:

McCain's gaffes are piling up.

John McCain imagines a baseball game.

Jews don't like Lieberman; they like Obama much better. I don't like Irish music but I love sushi!

Barack Obama won yesterday's war of images by a country mile. I particularly enjoy the picture of McCain with Bush 41, and the ridiculous sign on the golf cart. Grumpy old men.

While the media obediently reported that Phil Gramm was "out" of the McCain campaign, he just lost his title. He'll still be advising McCain, and he still shaped McCain's economic policies. And you knew he would never really be out if you saw these pictures of him blowing kisses to Cindy. Double ewwww.

Hullabaloo warns Obama against getting bogged down in the quicksand deathtrap that is Afghanistan. No one ever wins in Afghanistan. Ask the Soviets.

McCain's Daily Senior Moment

I think he's already had a few today, because he did more than one morning TV show. Here's the best: confuses Iraq with Afghanistan, refers to the Iraq-Pakistan border. Borders, shmorders.



I found this video on this great diary on dailykos, filled with pictures of Obama's trip. Can you say, Presidential?

Barack Obama in Afghanistan

In this photo released Saturday, July 19, 2008, by the the U.S. Army, Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., poses with SPC Lakeisha Willingham, 311th Sustainment Command (Expeditionary), after a shoot-around game of basketball at Camp Arifjan, Kuwait, Friday, July 18, 2008, during a Congressional Delegation visit.

Barack Obama interviewed by Lara Logan

Photos And Video From Barack Obama's Foreign Tour

Do As I Say

I only do photo ops, anyway

McCain Attended Zero Afghanistan Hearings In Last Two Years

President Obama's Foreign Policy Plan

Obama gave an excellent speech yesterday laying out his foreign policy plan.

Full text here.

The corporate media will not tell you this, but yesterday John McCain threw out his previous positions on Afghanistan and adopted Barack Obama's position. Now McCain thinks we should increase our troop presence in Afghanistan. Of course, he also wants to stay in Iraq forever, so where he will get the troops is an open and unanswered question.

Read McCain's foreign policy speech of yesterday here. My favorite part, the part I laughed out loud at, is when he said "I will not bluster, and I will not make idle threats" and then he said he would get Osama bin Laden.

Won't it be nice to have a President who can speak the King's English, and isn't a hothead moron?

Apocalypse Bush

12% of the soldiers who have died in Afghanistan died in the past six weeks. In the past six weeks, 64 American soldiers have died in the war George W. Bush has starved for five years to fight his war of lies in Iraq. Why doesn't the New Yorker magazine have a cartoon on the cover showing George W. Bush in burning hell, spending eternity looking under his desk for the weapons of mass destruction? Now that would be funny.

The press corpse continues to stink up the Presidential race. Josh Marshall at Talking Points Memo has dug up one of the bodies. Ron Fournier (we wrote about him here when he wrote a terribly slanted article calling Obama "arrogant") has been appointed head of AP's Washington Bureau. Apparently he's encouraging more opinion and fewer facts. Great. And since you can judge a man by the company he keeps, guess who Ron Fournier was emailing the day Pat Tillman was killed in Afghanistan and the Bushies were frantically covering up his tragic death? Ron Fournier, "journalist", was emailing with the Prince of Darkness Karl Rove. Here's their exchange, as summarized in a House Oversight Committee report:

Karl Rove exchanged e-mails about Pat Tillman with Associated Press reporter Ron Fournier, under the subject line "H-E-R-O." In response to Mr. Fournier's e-mail, Mr. Rove asked, "How does our country continue to produce men and women like this," to which Mr. Fournier replied, "The Lord creates men and women like this all over the world. But only the great and free countries allow them to flourish. Keep up the fight."

And after those pious niceties and expressions of patriotic solidarity, they lied to the Tillmans about how their son was killed. Reprehensible.

Edited to add: Here's a PDF of the House Oversight Committee report; the Karl Rove-Ron Fournier emails are described on page 23.

A little history is in order. Who was the biggest supporter of the Taliban in Afghanistan before 9/11/01? Why, it was George W. Clusterfuck, of course. This post at dailykos details the Bush Administration's decision to send a $43 million dollar gift to the Taliban rulers of Afghanistan in May of 2001.

I'm not a conspiracy theorist. I don't think the U.S. government was in on the 9/11 attacks. But George Bush, a stupid, arrogant fool, did everything wrong in his first pathetic 9 months in office. He gave the Taliban millions of dollars. He ignored the Clinton administration holdovers like Richard Clarke who were running around the White House with their hair on fire over Osama bin Laden and the threat of terrorism. He spent the entire month of August 2001 on vacation, and when the CIA briefer flew to Crawford to read him the Presidential Daily Brief on August 6, 2001, with the ominous headline "Bin Laden Determined to Strike in US", he told that CIA briefer "All right, you've covered your ass now". All President DumbFuckinFratBoy could think to say when the CIA dared to intrude on his brush-cutting vacation was a dumb joke. He didn't hear the urgency. He spent the month playing Solomon and splitting the baby, deciding that the country would allow stem cell research on very few cell lines, most of which are contaminated with mouse DNA. He fiddled while Osama plotted.

Worst. President. Ever.

We can't elect another stupid, out of touch, arrogant fool again. (cough, cough, John McCain)
.

Monday Morning Quarterback

Flickr: Brooklyn Museum
Egypt. Abu Simbel. Colossus No. 4. 19 Dyn?, n.d., B.J. Brooklyn Museum Archives (S10|08 Abu Simbel, image 9488).

The U.S. government is buying Big Shitpile! The feds are going to give Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the huge finance companies, billions of dollars of federal money -- your taxes -- to avoid bankruptcy. Atrios asks, why don't we just take them over rather than giving away our money for free?

The military is throwing firecrackers into the fire: 1 in 10 military recruits require a moral waiver, for "serious criminal conduct", or alcohol or drug abuse. Just the sorts of people you want to drop into a powder keg. Way to go, Bushie. Oil, meet match.

Nine American soldiers died in Afghanistan yesterday when more than 100 "militants" (who are those, anyway? Taliban? Afghans? Pakistanis? We are never told. George W. Bush says we fight "The Enemy", and the specifics are rarely mentioned.) attacked a remote base in northern Afghanistan near the Pakistan border.

Obama has an Op-Ed in the NYTimes today outlining his plan for Iraq.

McCain = Bush. So much so that South Carolina governor Mark Sanford (rumored to be on McCain's VP short list) couldn't come up with one major economic policy difference between McCain and Bush. Watch the video here. (Because there are no major economic differences between McCain and Bush. McCain = Bush, like the librarian said.) So long, short list.

When I heard on the radio this morning that the International Criminal Court had for the first time brought charges against a sitting head of state, I cried "George W. Bush is called to the Hague!" Wrong, moose breath; it was Sudanese President Omar Hassan al-Bashir, charged with masterminding the genocide in Darfur.

BAGNewsNotes eviscerates that execrable New Yorker cover.

A Little Light Reading

flickr: SI Neg. 77-13915. Date: 1977...A close-up of the face and hands of the statue of President Abraham Lincoln which sits in the Lincoln Memorial. Created by American sculptor Daniel Chester French, the sculpture was completed in 1920. ..Credit: Dane A. Penland (Smithsonian Institution)

This should have led every national news program: NASA scientist Dr. James Hansen testified to Congress on Monday that we have one year -- one year -- to deal with climate change. One year, or it will be irreversible and too late for the planet. One year. In 2006 he gave us 20 years, but things have gotten much worse so quickly. Here's a pdf of his testimony;

The Boston Globe reports that military contractor KBR exposed Americans in Iraq to a form of chromium -- the stuff in the wells in the movie Erin Brockovich -- and now they're getting sick. The only small justice here is that KBR has been playing games & claiming their employees were employed by a shell corporation in the Caymans so they didn't have to pay unemployment & social security taxes. As a result, these employees may be able to sue KBR directly rather than being limited to worker's compensation.

The networks are spending two minutes a week covering the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. A near total news blackout.

Former Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge (and John McCain top adviser) lobbied for the government of Albania for two years without registering as a lobbyist. Laura Rozen asks, "curious if Ridge knows something about the strange DOD-US embassy-Albanian government-AEY-mothballed $300 million Chinese ammo weapons deal[?]" You can read all about that bizarre $300 million dollar contract being awarded to a bunch of 20-something losers here at TPM.

Surprise, surprise: The Bushies have loaded the Justice Dept. with unqualified Republican hacks, by illegally hiring on political grounds. Wingnuts in, liberals out. Dday at Hullabaloo points out that there will be a host of landmines awaiting Barack Obama when he gets to the Oval Office, crazed Regent University lawyers waiting to sabotage any Democrat.

Steny Hoyer is the Democratic sellout of the year, sez Digby. Farewell to the Fourth Amendment thanks to hack Steny.

Torture Widespread

wikipedia: A sketch by Thomas V. Curtis, a former Reserve M.P. sergeant, showing how Dilawar was allegedly chained to the ceiling of his cell.

We have been ruled by a monster for 7 1/2 years, and he has encouraged our soldiers to become monsters:

McClatchy: U.S. abuse of detainees was routine at Afghanistan bases

KABUL, Afghanistan — American soldiers herded the detainees into holding pens of razor-sharp concertina wire, the kind that's used to corral livestock.

The guards kicked, kneed and punched many of the men until they collapsed in pain. U.S. troops shackled and dragged other detainees to small isolation rooms, then hung them by their wrists from chains dangling from the wire mesh ceiling.

Former guards and detainees whom McClatchy interviewed said Bagram was a center of systematic brutality for at least 20 months, starting in late 2001. Yet the soldiers responsible have escaped serious punishment.

[]

The brutality at Bagram peaked in December 2002, when U.S. soldiers beat two Afghan detainees, Habibullah and Dilawar, to death as they hung by their wrists.

Dilawar died on Dec. 10, seven days after Habibullah died. He'd been hit in his leg so many times that the tissue was "falling apart" and had "basically been pulpified," said then-Lt. Col. Elizabeth Rouse, the Air Force medical examiner who performed the autopsy on him.

Had Dilawar lived, Rouse said in sworn testimony, "I believe the injury to the legs are so extensive that it would have required amputation."

In The News

Library of Congress/Flickr: Palmer, Alfred T.,, photographer.
Electric phosphate smelting furnace used to make elemental phosphorus in a TVA chemical plant in the vicinity of Muscle Shoals, Alabama
1942 June

This was done in your name: The United States illegally used white phosphorus and chemical weapons in Fallujah in 2004; now babies are being born with birth defects.

Many of the supposed "terrorists" tortured by the Bush Administration at Guantanamo were actually innocent. Again, this was done in your name. Chilling.

The Taliban -- remember them? -- attacked a prison in Kandahar, Afgahanistan from within and without, and 1100 prisoners escaped. The resurgence of the Taliban is another complete failure for the Bush Administration.

John McCain has a former Texas gubernatorial candidate organizing a $300,000 fundraiser -- a guy who joked rape is like the weather, when it is inevitable you should just lie back and enjoy it, in 1990. At first, McCain announced the fundraiser was cancelled. But there was money for the taking, so they're rescheduling it, with all the same donors -- except now the rape joker is not invited. Just his money and his moneyed friends. Any Hillary Clinton supporter who votes for McCain is a fool.

John McCain doesn't use a computer. Who doesn't use a computer anymore? My 80-year-old friend is on her third. McCain: Too old, too out of touch with modern life.

The odious Rudy Giuliani is back. He's trying to retire his campaign debt -- by selling his appearances at fundraisers to other Republicans. Hey Rudy -- there's no "I" in "Team". But it was always about Rudy.

Read this article on the Bush/Rove response to Katrina. You want to cry, but you have to laugh -- bitterly -- at this:

[Louisiana Governor Kathleen Blanco] gave Bush a two-page letter detailing everything the state needed to cope with the disaster -- troops, buses, supplies, money, and more. It would not be until several days later, when Blanco's aides released the letter to the press and got frantic phone calls from Rove's aide Maggie Grant, that it became clear that Bush had taken the letter Blanco had personally handed to him -- and lost it.

President Dumber-Than-A-Box-of-Hammers Lost. The. Letter. Heckuva job, Bushie.

Hillary Clinton Disses Me

Me! I'm starting to feel like a sucker for my many years of support of Bill and Hillary Clinton. I thought I was supporting them because they were good Democrats, who believed in the same liberal things I do, like ending poverty and war. I've been on MoveOn's email list for many years. Do you know where the name "MoveOn" came from? It was originally called "Censure and Move On", and the group was formed to get the Republicans and the media to stop obsessing about Bill Clinton's penis (The Clenis) and where it had been and to return to the real issues of government. The media hates the Clintons and has attacked them at every turn since Bill Clinton's campaign for the Presidency in 1992.

I'm a member of MoveOn. And I'm a unity Democrat. It's my position in this election (even though I support Barack Obama) that I will vote for whichever Democrat is nominated. It's important that we take back the White House and the Congress and reinstate a democratic form of government in this country.

Hillary Clinton is trying very hard to move me off my unity perch. Remember when she and Bill decried "the politics of personal destruction"? Now she is indulging in them, piling on with the ABC moderators in a McCarthy-ish claim that Obama is a bad person because he served on the board of a community organization with a person who did bad things 40 years ago. Really despicable stuff.

And now it comes out that Hillary Clinton slammed the members of MoveOn in a private fundraiser after Super Tuesday, saying this:

"Moveon.org endorsed [Sen. Barack Obama] -- which is like a gusher of money that never seems to slow down," Clinton said to a meeting of donors. "We have been less successful in caucuses because it brings out the activist base of the Democratic Party. MoveOn didn't even want us to go into Afghanistan. I mean, that's what we're dealing with. And you know they turn out in great numbers. And they are very driven by their view of our positions, and it's primarily national security and foreign policy that drives them. I don't agree with them. They know I don't agree with them. So they flood into these caucuses and dominate them and really intimidate people who actually show up to support me."

HuffPo: Clinton Slams Democratic Activists At Private Fundraiser

Factually inaccurate (MoveOn never opposed the U.S. war in Afghanistan) and truly meanspirited. But, yes, it is about foreign policy. I support Obama because he opposed the Iraq war, and I don't support Hillary Clinton because she voted for Bush's stupid war. But to claim that MoveOn supporters are intimidating voters at caucases? Doesn't she realize most members of MoveOn are card-carrying recipients of that radical program, Social Security? Not the WWF.

I wish she'd just drop out and go back to the Senate and get back to work doing something positive. Tearing down fellow Democrats on her way to the nomination is not doing much for the Clinton legacy.

People Who Live In Glass Houses

Hillary Clinton, Tony Rezko, Bill Clinton - unsourced picture on Drudge Report today

You know the rest of that quote. Shouldn't throw stones. In last week's debate, Hillary Clinton swung back at Barack Obama for pointing out that she had been on the board of WalMart for six years by slamming him for his association with Chicago slumlord Tony Rezko. Yes, the picture above is Hillary and Bill Clinton posing with that same Rezko.

Maybe next someone will dig out a picture of Barack Obama shopping at Walmart.

Here's my position. I'm in the Obama camp because (1) he was against the war when I was, as in, before George W. Bush lied Clinton and the rest of the Democratic sheep into voting for it; (2) Obama is more progressive than Hillary; (3) I don't want to return to the Clintonian governing mode where we talk big then lay down for the Rethugs when policy making time comes. Welfare 'reform', NAFTA, etc.

BUT, and here's the big thing, despite my support of Obama, I'm a Democrat, and I realize that if Hillary Clinton is the Democratic nominee she will be eight hundred thousand million bazillion infinitesimally better than her Republican opponent, whoever that may be. And I'll work for her, and support her, and get out the vote to get her into the White House. And any Democrat with a functioning cerebral cortex should feel the same way about all the Democratic candidates, no matter who you support.

Let's stop attacking each other about minutia. Could we get back to the issues, please? Why aren't our Democratic candidates talking about Iraq, Afghanistan, or how our military/industrial complex is draining the treasury and contributing to the recession? Why aren't they pointing out that we are paying a shadowy private army of mercenaries 100 times what we would pay the same numbers of soldiers? Why are they attacking each other, rather than tying the Republican candidates to the failed policies of George W. Bush. As a matter of fact, why aren't they promising to put George W. Bush in jail when they take office?

Let's start throwing stones at the Republicans. They're the ones living in a house of lies.

Depleted Uranium the Scourge of Colonie, New York: And Iraq and Afghanistan

The Observer (uk): 'Safe' uranium that left a town contaminated
They were told depleted uranium was not hazardous. Now, 23 years after a US arms plant closed, workers and residents have cancer - and experts say their suffering shows the use of such weapons may be a war crime

[] In a paper to be published in the next issue of the scientific journal Science of the Total Environment, a team led by Professor Randall Parrish of Leicester University reports the results of a three-year study of Colonie, funded by Britain's Ministry of Defence.

Parrish's team has found that DU contamination, which remains radioactive for millions of years, is in effect impossible to eradicate, not only from the environment but also from the bodies of humans. Twenty-three years after production ceased they tested the urine of five former workers. All are still contaminated with DU. So were 20 per cent of people tested who had spent at least 10 years living near the factory when it was still working, including Ciarfello.

The small sample size precludes the drawing of statistical conclusions, the journal paper says. But to find DU at all after so long a period is 'significant, since no previous study has documented evidence of DU exposure more than 20 years prior... [this] indicates that the body burden of uranium must still be significant, whether retained in lungs, lymphatic system, kidneys or bone'. The team is now testing more individuals.

[]

[I]nside the body DU travels around the bloodstream, accumulating not only in the lungs but also in other soft tissues such as the brain and bone marrow. There, each mote becomes an alpha particle hotspot, bombarding its locality and damaging cell DNA. Research has shown that DU has the potential to cause a wide range of cancers, kidney and thyroid problems, birth defects and disorders of the immune system.

When DU 'penetrators' - armour-piercing shells that form the standard armament of some of Britain's and America's most commonly deployed military aircraft and vehicles - strike their targets, 10 per cent or more of the heavy DU metal burns at high temperatures, producing oxide particles very similar to those at Colonie.

TV footage shot in Baghdad in 2003 shows children playing in the remains of tanks coated with thick, black DU oxide, while there have long been claims that the DU shells that destroyed Saddam Hussein's tanks in the 1991 Gulf war were responsible for high rates of cancer in places such as Basra.

As a side note, the plant in Colonie was owned by National Lead (now reconstituted as NL Industries), the same execrable company that brought you lead poisoning and brain damage from lead paint. And the feds have insulated them from paying for the depleted uranium cleanup. The article doesn't say so, but I bet they were insulated from paying the claims of the injured, too. Corporate welfare at its finest.

In 1984, having bought the factory from NL for $10 in a deal that meant the firm was exempted from having to pay for its clean-up, the federal government began a massive decommissioning project, supervised by the Army Corps of Engineers.

Peace on Earth, Good Will Towards Men

Atef Safadi/European Pressphoto Agency

Fatah gunmen entered the Palestinian Legislative Council building in Ramallah on Saturday in a show of force.
The world after six years of the toxic Presidency of Bush; current headlines on NYTimes.com:

Fatah Seizes Parliament Building in West Bank

In Aftermath of Gaza Battle, Grim Realities

Second Sunni Mosque Is Blown Up in Basra

U.S. Begins New Offensive Against Insurgents in Iraq

Identification Cards of 2 Missing U.S. Soldiers Found in Iraq

Suicide Bomber Kills 4 Bystanders in Afghanistan

Afghan Bomber Kills 10, Including 5 Children

Point - Counterpoint

Not smart cookies
Laura Bush on CNN with Larry King last night:

Many parts of Iraq are stable now. But, uh, of course, what we see on television is the one bombing a day that discourages everyone.

Dick Cheney in Pakistan today:

A suicide bomber attacked the entrance to the main U.S. military base in Afghanistan on Tuesday during a visit by Vice President Dick Cheney, killing up to 23 people and wounding 20. The Taliban claimed responsibility and said Cheney, who was unharmed, was the target.

Discouraging, indeed.

Support the Troops is Just a Catchphrase in Bushworld

Hey, man, we're just here for the photo op.
WhiteHouse.gov caption: President George W. Bush and Mrs. Laura Bush talk with Sgt. Patrick Hagood of Anderson, S.C., Wednesday, Oct. 5, 2005, during their visit to Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington D.C. White House photo by Paul Morse
Here's your compassionate conservatism. Walter Reed Army Medical Center is a frightening labrynth where soldiers and their families are left to cope basically on their own, a direct result of the starvation diet veteran's programs have been on via Bush's tax cutting war budgets. Plus, Chimpy McFlightsuit would rather scatter $10 billion dollars to a bunch of lowlife leeches like Halliburton than fund care for the soldiers he sends off to fight his war. Shame. Maybe Bush's handlers could send him into Building 18 so it will get cleaned up for the photo-op?

WaPo: Soldiers Face Neglect, Frustration At Army's Top Medical Facility

Behind the door of Army Spec. Jeremy Duncan's room, part of the wall is torn and hangs in the air, weighted down with black mold. When the wounded combat engineer stands in his shower and looks up, he can see the bathtub on the floor above through a rotted hole. The entire building, constructed between the world wars, often smells like greasy carry-out. Signs of neglect are everywhere: mouse droppings, belly-up cockroaches, stained carpets, cheap mattresses.

This is the world of Building 18, not the kind of place where Duncan expected to recover when he was evacuated to Walter Reed Army Medical Center from Iraq last February with a broken neck and a shredded left ear, nearly dead from blood loss. But the old lodge, just outside the gates of the hospital and five miles up the road from the White House, has housed hundreds of maimed soldiers recuperating from injuries suffered in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

[]

While the hospital is a place of scrubbed-down order and daily miracles, with medical advances saving more soldiers than ever, the outpatients in the Other Walter Reed encounter a messy bureaucratic battlefield nearly as chaotic as the real battlefields they faced overseas.

On the worst days, soldiers say they feel like they are living a chapter of "Catch-22." The wounded manage other wounded. Soldiers dealing with psychological disorders of their own have been put in charge of others at risk of suicide.

Disengaged clerks, unqualified platoon sergeants and overworked case managers fumble with simple needs: feeding soldiers' families who are close to poverty, replacing a uniform ripped off by medics in the desert sand or helping a brain-damaged soldier remember his next appointment.

'The Army, despite its $168 billion budget, is out of money '

Iraqis celebrate next to a burning [$225,000] U.S. Army Humvee after an attack near Fallujah []. Three Americans were wounded, witnesses said. (Akram Saleh/Reuters)

Stephen Pizzo, The Smirking Chimp: An Important Story You Didn't See

Here are just a few of the grim facts from Jaffe's exclusive:

* According to Maj. Gen Stephen Speakes, the Army was sent to war in Iraq $56 billion short of essential equipment.
* Army officials told the White House that it needs at least an additional $24 billion, not in the 2007 budget, just to pay its current bills.
* Cash shortfalls have forced the Army to lay off janitorial staff, close base swimming pools, and even stop mowing lawns on Army bases.
* But cuts have also hit soldiers fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan. Army officials had to cut $3 billion for replacement of weapons in heavy use in Iraq, such as armored Humvees, two-way radios, remote control surveillance aircraft and trucks.
* National Guard units now lack 40% of their critical readiness gear because it's been sent to Iraq, and the Army lacks the funds to replace it.

This budget crunch comes at a time when running the US Army never cost more, Jaffe reported.

* To stem the flow of soldiers leaving the Army because of repeated deployments to Iraq the Army was forced to spend $773 million on “retention bonus' this year compared with just $85 million three years ago.
* The Army had to spend an additional $300 million on recruiting this year than in 2003.
* The quality of the Army's oft touted all volunteer force has slid with the Army's decision to accept more enlistees that scored in the lower third of aptitude tests.
* As a result the Army had to issue 8500 “moral waivers” this year compared with just 2260 ten years ago. (Moral waivers are issued for past criminal convictions, drug use and other proven legal/moral violations.)

How much of the Army's budget problems are due to poor budgeting and how much from private sector gouging? You decide.

Here are few more facts from Jaffe's report.

* The cost of equipping an infantry soldier tripled, from $7000 in 1999 to $24,000 today.
* The cost of Humvee's went from $32,000 in 2001 to a breathtaking $225,000 each today.
* The cost of training, feeding and housing Army recruits went from $75,000 per soldier in 2001 to $120,000 today. (The Army uses private contractors, largely Halliburton's Kellogg, Root & Brown, to provide most non-training services, such as food service and base maintenance.)