Can We Call it “Corruption” Yet?

Hat tip to Constant Reader Wilfred for this item
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Forget whether Bush siphoned off money set aside for the Afghanistan effort to start early planning for an Iraq invasion, forget that Bush is poised to request even more money for Iraq now (although some suspect he’ll wait until after the election), what the hell’s going on with the money we’ve already supposedly spent to help rebuild Iraq?

Rebuilding Aid Unspent, Tapped to Pay Expenses

Seven months after Congress approved the largest foreign aid package in history to rebuild Iraq, less than 5 percent of the $18.4 billion has been spent and occupation officials have begun shifting more than $300 million earmarked for reconstruction projects to administrative and security expenses.

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So far, occupation officials have reassigned $184 million appropriated for drinking-water projects to fund the operations of the U.S. Embassy after the provisional authority is dissolved June 30. An additional $29 million from projects such as “democracy building” were reallocated to fund the U.S. development agency’s administrative expenses.

I look forward to the next time Bush or Cheney take Kerry to task for his voting record on money for Iraq.