George W. Bush and Dick Cheney should take up residence in this mess of a complex and stay there.

They are a pair of disgraceful traitors.

Oh come on! Does Waxman REALLY think the White House or the State Department will cooperate? Ha! Why SHOULD they? All they have to do is sit on their butts and thumb their noses at this Congress and we all know this Congress will rant and rave and hold news conferences...and in the end, not one, single person will be held accountable. What a disgrace.

Oh come on! Does Waxman REALLY think the White House or the State Department will cooperate? Ha! Why SHOULD they? All they have to do is sit on their butts and thumb their noses at this Congress and we all know this Congress will rant and rave and hold news conferences...and in the end, not one, single person will be held accountable. What a disgrace.

POSTED BY DAWNGLO

Xactly!

They are a pair of disgraceful traitors.

POSTED BY SITDOWN


Not if you're a Global Capitalist.

The Dangerous Kitchen
Frank Zappa

The dangerous kitchen
If it ain't one thing it's another
In the middle of the night when you get home
The bread things are all dry 'n' scratchy
The meat things
Where the cats ate through the paper
The can things with the sharp little edges
That can cut your fingers when you're not looking
The soft little things on the floor that you step on
They can all be DANGEROUS
Sometimes the milk can hurt you
(If you put it on your cereal
Before you smell the plastic container)
And the stuff in the strainer
Has a mind of its own
So be very careful
In the dangerous kitchen
When the night time has fallen,
And the roaches are crawlin'
In the kitchen of danger
You can feel like a stranger
The bananas are black
They got flies in the back
And also the chicken
In the dish with the foil
Where the cream is all clabbered
And the salad is frightful
Your return in the evening
Can be less than delightful
You must walk very careful
You must not lean against it
It can get on your clothing
It can follow you in
As you walk to the bedroom
And you take all your clothes off
While you're sleeping
It crawls off
It gets in your bed
It could get on your face then
It could eat your complexion
You could die from the danger
Of the dangerous kitchen
Who the fuck wants to clean it?
It's disgusting and dirty
The sponge on the drainer
Is stinky and squirty
If you squeeze it when you wipe up
What you get on your hands then
Could un-balance your glands and
Make you blind or whatever
In the dangerous kitchen
At my house tonight

(I beat you to it, Ness *grin*)

Let's see if I can channel a DR Righty...

Listen up, Boys and Girls! This is a war zone! We don't need to be worrying about FIRE alarms and hydrants when people are trying to bomb and destroy us! Using bombs! That start fires! We fight Fire with FIRE, not pussy DemoRAT Water!

I feel so dirty now.

I feel so dirty now.



Maybe.


But you did that very well.

(I beat you to it, Ness *grin*)

Blast!

How much of MY money has BUSHCO pissed away on this white elephant? (pun intended)

Jo: It continues to make a great target for ther shia to practise their mortar and missile attacks.

You don't understand.

The important part was the contract and progress payments

Ta fer that info, Ted Baxter.

15. ESTABLISHMENT & OPERATION OF LAUNDRY SERVICES AT CAMPS CEDAR II & ADDER, IRAQ 15,002,229

Fifteen million to open up a couple of laundromats wouldn't be so bad if we didn't also know that A) troops in Iraq are forced to use these services (ie. Not allowed to do their own laundry or seek alternate arrangements) B) The US Taxpayer is being charged 100 dollars a LOAD. and C) The clothes still don't come back clean.

The Embassy in the hilariously ironically named Green Zone is a complete clusterfuck. The Iraqis are incensed at the size of the place and the fact that it is a self contained place that never runs out of water or electricity or proper sewers or modern hospital facilities. They are not happy about the fact that Baghdad has become ethnically cleansed of neighbourhoods that used to have Shia and Sunni and Turkomen living side by side. The are choked that Baghdad is becoming a prison city with concrete barriers popping up all over the place effectively turning the place into a prison city. Tortured bodies showing upp in the mornings on the streets of Baghdad on a regular basis is not exactly endearing the local populace to the American presence either.

Now, apparently, life inside the Embassy aint all flowers and chocolates either? Now the kitchens in the embasies are being called firetraps? Well, technically since angry Iraqis keep firing RPGs into the place, the entire area is a potential firetrap regardless of wot kinda sprinkler system you got.

They should call this Embassy "The Ozymandias".

You know just fer giggles.

Spud's a big PBS fan...

I met a traveller from an antique land
Who said: Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. Near them on the sand,
Half sunk, a shatter'd visage lies, whose frown
And wrinkled lip and sneer of cold command
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamp'd on these lifeless things,
The hand that mock'd them and the heart that fed.
And on the pedestal these words appear:
"My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!"
Nothing beside remains: round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare,
The lone and level sands stretch far away

Speaking as someone with about 3 years in Iraq, mostly the Green Zone:

A) troops in Iraq are forced to use these services (ie. Not allowed to do their own laundry or seek alternate arrangements)

Nobody forced me to drop my laundry off and have it washed and folded, in fact I rather enjoyed that convenience. When I did miss the regular drop off times, I had ready access to several do-it-yourself Laundromats.

B) The US Taxpayer is being charged 100 dollars a LOAD.

Not sure where you got that number from.

C) The clothes still don't come back clean.

Not true. Occasionally something like a sock or t-shirt would go missing but nothing to get bent out of shape over. And when it is 130 degrees, and you are covered in dust and sweat, how clean does clean really have to be?

The Iraqis are incensed at the size of the place and the fact that it is a self contained place that never runs out of water or electricity or proper sewers or modern hospital facilities.

No, they are upset that the location of the Green Zone forces them to drive far out of their ways to get where they are going. The GZ is smack in the middle of several major intersections. That being said, I know from talking to Iraqis that even before we had our base there, Saddam's police would shoot you if you even stopped to change a flat on those roads because that is where his big-wigs lived. So yes, they have to drive farther, but in many respects they already had to.

As far as never running out of water or electricity, again, you are completely ignorant. Several times I went for periods of up to 2 weeks taking a shower by dumping bottled water on my head. When we did have reliable electricity it was because we had generators which constantly ran out of fuel or were damaged by explosions. Or they simply broke down. This happened at both the Main Presidential Palace as well as 2 separate villas where I lived.

Yes we did have a modern hospital, the CSH. But for any major stuff you have to be medically evacuated by air to Germany. Surely you aren't wishing US and Coalition forces had poor access to health care?

Spud, you love to spout, but sometimes you really have no damn clue what you are saying. Like this time.

Cheers,
Walt

WALT:

When you were in Iraq (and posting from the Green Zone) you related a story once about some public bathrooms you had built. If I recall, you were annoyed because the Iraqi wouldn't use them even though you had gone to great lengths to make them as nice and modern as possible.

Could you relate that incident again? If you don't mind, that is.

Spud


I found lines 2 and 3 even more intriguing:


2. SUPPLY, DELIVERY AND INSTALLATION OF TRAILER UNITS AT ANACONDA $80,978,562 10/16/2003 8/1/2004

3. SUPPLY, DELIVERY AND INSTALLATION OF TRAILER UNITS AT VICTORY - BIAP $63,770,300 10/16/2003 8/1/2004

How many double wides can a guy buy for 145 million dollars?

WALT:

When you were in Iraq (and posting from the Green Zone) you related a story once about some public bathrooms you had built. If I recall, you were annoyed because the Iraqi wouldn't use them even though you had gone to great lengths to make them as nice and modern as possible.

Happy to. I found out that the guards were not using the port-a-john due to sanitary concerns. The company decided to have a permanent rest-room built for them. It had a bidet, shower, sink and Western toilet. It also had one of the little spray hoses to wash up the toilet before use.

Well they refused to use the Western toilet because it was nasty to them. They preferred the Eastern style, squat toilet. I think I remember joking that they would never be ready to put the knives away until they could function using Western toilets.

Is that the one you were asking about? What caused you to remember that story?

How many double wides can a guy buy for 145 million dollars?

Assuming you are speaking about the standard living trailers, strictly speaking, that would get you about 5800 of them. They run about 25,000 each. That 25K would not include the cost to prepare the grounds where they will be installed, lay a foundation, prepare all the plumbing and whatnot. It would also not include the cost to connect the fittings to the trailer once it arrived, furnish it with 4 beds, tables and wall lockers. Also add on the cost to provide bunkers in case of attack and surround them with sandbags. They are also mostly equipped with cable TV and Television sets. They are also going to need A/Cs as well as steps to get up in them (the trailers). Figure another 25K for all of that and you are down to 2900 trailers, ready to be occupied. Multiply that by 4 people per trailer and you now have enough beds to accommodate 11,600 men. I do not know the exact number of personnel assigned at Victory and Anaconda, but I know it is more than 11,600. So an initial investment of about 12,500 provided a far better living container than a tent and it is still there 4 years later bringing the cost of that trailer to 3,125 or so, per year to keep a guy dry and up off the ground.

Does that help?

The 12500 is per man based on an initial cost of 50,000 per trailer when all is said and done.

Thanks for taking the time.

Thanks for taking the time.

No problem Ted, you too.

Cheers,
Walt

Thanks for taking the time.

Next time, you try to contribute something.

Cheers,
Walt

Walt-

Not disputing your numbers at all. I just think it would have been nice if someone with a similar grasp of basic math skills had been involved in the initial decision making, maybe sharing some of that insight with the American people. Clearly, there are people out there who understand what this will take, so I don't know why the estimate was 10% of the actual expense, meter still running.

Any idea how much more this is going to cost us? Just wondering, it is our money, after all.

WALT;

BRAVO, BRAVO

Seriously, Walt, since it's so easy to figure out, why did the rocket scientists in the administration estimate that the whole Iraq project would only cost $50 billion?

Were they lying (OMG!) or did they just marginalize and suppress the competent people who could add up inconvenient numbers? Or was it just a little bit of both?

It's a little late to condescendingly whip out facts when the right has been saying all along that the facts were unknowable. I have a feeling that if you had presented that little explanation of how much a few double-wides would cost to Congress in 2002, you'd be wearing a hairnet and nametage in a McDonalds today, courtesy of Rove and Wolfowitz, who would have denounced you as unpatriotic and incompetent.

Argh


Don't even bother to think Walt much gives a shit how much this is gonna cost us.

This is working very well (so far) for him.

Oh

And Walt, you're welcome. I'm happy to give you something to do.

How much of MY money has BUSHCO pissed away on this white elephant? (pun intended)


You think that really bends your noodle, try this one.

As I said before, I work for a company that builds fluid and heat recovery equipment. Some of our equipment ends up in Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Nepal, etc.

Few weeks ago, we were visited by a company who won a contract with the government to build fuel filtration systems for two air bases. I won't name them, but they're in the middle east.

The first thing that should bother you is that the company that won the contract doesn't actually employ any welders or pipe fitters.

Once they win the contract they put out a request for bids. Well, at one point, another company had won their bid and were going to build these 26 or so different pieces of equipment. Well, that company pulled out and the contract landed at my company.

Second thing is the hurry up and wait shit that goes on. A few days after we received the contract, the company we were doing the work for sent us a truckload of materials. Just structural stuff for the most part, but there were some engineered parts (valves, strainers, etc) in the shipment.

Well, they wanted us to get started on working on the project. The problem was, we could build the frames and platforms, but they hadn't sent some of the engineered parts. So we could get pipe fitted and welded. We could build the frames. But we were going to have to wait until the middle of March before anymore parts came in.

All this time they've been paying us to rush the job, and they haven't even ordered all of the materials they planned to provide.

Seriously, Walt, since it's so easy to figure out, why did the rocket scientists in the administration estimate that the whole Iraq project would only cost $50 billion?

I believe they thought they would be able to use more of the money generated from Iraq's oil supply and that it would have been the Iraqi gov that was paying most of the bill.

It's a little late to condescendingly whip out facts when the right has been saying all along that the facts were unknowable.

Like it wasn't condescending to try to make fun of the cost of some double-wides? And I wasn't trying to be condescending anyway, Ted asked a reasonable question and I tried to provide a reasonable answer as to why it takes 145,000,000 to buy some trailers. The figure looks extravagant, but what is the cost vs. benefit? I know you guys are going to say we should have never been there to begin with, but we are there like it or not, and would you prefer to see all the personnel sleeping on the dirt or in a trailer? That being said, not everyone has a trailer. Many sleep in what are called B-Huts which are 16 man wooden huts with partitions if you are lucky or in Force Provider tents which accommodate about 16 people. Some also sleep in GP tents which can house as many as about 30 or so people. I slept in a gigantic room inside the Main Palace when I first arrived with over 200 other people. It was a huge luxury to move into a trailer.

I have a feeling that if you had presented that little explanation of how much a few double-wides would cost to Congress in 2002, you'd be wearing a hairnet and nametage in a McDonalds today, courtesy of Rove and Wolfowitz, who would have denounced you as unpatriotic and incompetent.

You may be right. Who can tell? The fact is that very early in the war, it was not nearly as expensive to pay for such simple things as transportation by 18 wheeler. Now in order to move a few 18 wheelers, you need to have at least 2 armed escort vehicles manned with EXPAT private security to ensure that your delivery gets where it needs to go and that your drivers are not killed. Private security isn't cheap. Some security companies charge up to 1500/day/man. So if you have 6 guys charged out at 1500/day, not to mention an EXPAT driver in the truck, the cost to move 3 loads of beds for example goes up exponentially. Not sure that could have been foreseen. But that is the way it is and that is why things cost so much in Iraq.

Axiom,

Why does that get you bent? The government puts tight deadlines for submitting proposals on bids. Companies are often scrambling just to meet the submission deadlines. When they do get awarded the contract and dig into the scope of work, a lot of times the project proves to be too complex for them to handle by themselves, so they subcontract parts or all it to smaller companies. Big deal? As for waiting on parts to be ordered, that is just a fact of life. Once the procurement list is done and the procurement department submits each and every part of sometimes hugely complex projects to 3 different suppliers for bids and waits for those quotes to come back and then has to decide which supplier will be awarded that contract, they then have to generate a procurement schedule and that takes more time. SO yes there is a big rush to award contracts but the delays are always going to happen.