General Petreus will apparently be a little late with his September recommendations for the Congress and President Bush. The General was responsible for giving out hundreds of thousands of weapons to the Iraqi military when he was stationed in Baghdad in 2004. The U.S. Accountability office recently acknowleded that 190,000 of these weapons have gone missing. Quite possibly, many guns are in the hands of insurgents who are using them to kill Americans. The General has requested another 50,000 troops to help find the missing weapons.
The search will not be easy. Soon after the American invasion in 2003 an Army sergeant, known only as Milo Minderbinder (after the character in Catch-22), skimmed at least 50% of incoming supplies (mainly Humvies, an array of weapons, body armor and the like) and sent them to neighboring countries. Milo would re-purchase the equipment, minus what had been stolen, and pocket the money. Anything that could not be accounted for was blamed on the insurgents.
Milo Minderbinder was not content just to steal from the American Army. He had deals with various tribes and insurgent groups who stole oil and gasoline that Milo would resell at higher prices in Jordan, Iran and Turkey. Minderbinder also paid Iraqis to sabotage new construction projects so unused building materials could be resold on the black market.
The sergeant didn't forget the American fighting men and woman. Every one leaving Iraqi is given an Iraqi army weapon pilfered for a huge government weapons' cache that Minderbinder had put under military guard. The families of the dead receive the weapon by FEDEX.
The military wants to court-martial him but the Pentagon has other plans. They thinik Milo Minderbinder is the perfect guy to sell at a huge bazaar the billions of dollars in military equipment that will be left behind when the Americans withdraw.
Minderbinder is already in serious discussions with the Chinese.
The Iraq Foundation for Freedom and Democracy(IFFFAD) recently arranged for Iraqi and U.S. Congressmen and women to switch places, spending their summer recess in their counterpart's capitol. Actually, the U.S. didn't send any women to Baghdad because it is too dangerous. Iraq didn't send any women to the U.S. to protest the U.S. posiiton that Baghdad is dangerous. Senator Ted Stevens, who is being investigated by the FBI, led the American delegation. Ahem Ahem Marlarky, who is under a death threat for shaving his beard, led the Iraqi delegation.
As soon as the U.S. delegation arrived they walked around the Green Zone, taking photos with military personnel. Stevens got a lot of questions from the local media about his "Bridge to Nowhere." Iraqis wondered why he would bother to fund a bridge when he could just steal the money. Stevens proclaimed his innocense, complained about the excessive heat, and left on a military plane for Cannes.
Marlarky, sporting an inch of stubble, was asked whether he was caving in to the insurgents and growing his beard back. He claimed he was growing a beard to protest the American military surge in Iraq. Malarky had heard that what American politicans spent most of their time taking money from lobbyists, so he scheduled forty meeting with major lobbyists in Washington. He stroked his beard, talked about the weather then put out his hand. When nothing crossed his palm he decided to sell the city of Basra to lobbyists with oil connections for $10 millions dollars. To help him manage his finances Malarky hired a financial advisor who suggested he funnel the money through a front organization called Christians for the New Right. "But I'm a Muslim," he protested.
He protested all the way to Cannes where he met Senator Stevens who sold to him for $5 million a true American landscape, the Brooklyn Bridge. Fearful that he was buying a bridge to nowhere Malarky insisted on proof. Stevens showed him a photo of Walt Whitman, the American poet who lived in Brooklyn. The senator winked and Malarky put on a dress and chanted verse from Rumi.
Everyone went home happy.