It's Only 2.6 Billion Dollars

From the front page of the Washington Post comes yet another story about just how well our government manages money. The Defense Department spent $2.6 billion dollars of Iraqi oil money, and has no idea exactly what it was spent on. Even for the Defense Department, 2.6 billion is a fair amount of money, more than half the cost of a Nimitz-class aircraft carrier.

Now you might be tempted to think something like, oh well, it was just Iraqi money anyway. But at the bottom of the article, after reviewing assorted fiscal mismanagement and incompetence in Iraq, the Post points out something else.

The United States also has spent more than $50 billion in taxpayer money for reconstruction projects in Iraq.

If the Pentagon can't account for $2.6 billion, what are the odds that this $50 billion was spent wisely?