Andrew Natsios is a fool

News today that the Pentagon is preparing to request another $100 billion for operations in Iraq and Afghanistan.

I write "operations" in, because it's no longer clear exactly what this money is for. We used to read of these funds being for the "rebuilding" of "postwar" Iraq, but we've already blown through more than $200 billion for "rebuilding" and the rebuilding hasn't even started yet. Neither, of course, is Iraq "postwar." The war continues (the occupation being, essentially, a perpetual reassertion of the initial conquest), and thus so does the unbuilding.

So however we describe its purpose, the Pentagon is going to ask for another $100 billion. Here's the Associated Press report:

The Pentagon is in the early stages of drafting a wartime request for up to $100 billion more for Iraq and Afghanistan, lawmakers say, a figure that would push spending related to the wars toward a staggering half-trillion dollars. …

That would be in addition to $50 billion Congress is about to give the Pentagon before lawmakers adjourn for the year for operations in Iraq for the beginning of 2006. Military commanders expect that pot to last through May.

Since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, Congress has approved more than $300 billion for Iraq and Afghanistan, including military operations, reconstruction, embassy security and foreign aid, as well as other costs related to the war on terrorism, according to the Congressional Research Service, which writes reports for Congress.

Nice job, there, by the Congressional Research Service, of confusing the invasion of Iraq with the wholly unrelated events of 9/11. (Even the bean-counters these days are full of mythmaking spin.)

Anyway, NPR reported this story this morning, followed shortly by a not-quite unrelated story about the U.S./EU squabble over food aid at the WTO meetings in Hong Kong. This dispute touches on some very important matters, but what jumped out at me was the particular American trade representative who was holding forth on the topic: one Andrew Natsios.

Natsios slammed the EU trade representatives for their lack of "expertise" and "experience" — qualities he seems to think he is still permitted to attribute to himself in public. He's not.

Andrew Natsios is a fool. When he rises to speak in public, people should point and laugh and maybe even throw fruit like they do in the movies. Andrew Natsios is a punchline, a clown, a laughingstock.

Here's why — from a transcript from Nightline, April 23, 2003. Host Ted Koppel is discussing the cost of rebuilding postwar Iraq:

TED KOPPEL
(Off Camera) Well, it's a, I think you'll agree, this is a much bigger project than any that's been talked about. Indeed, I understand that more money is expected to be spent on this than was spent on the entire Marshall Plan for the rebuilding of Europe after World War II.

ANDREW NATSIOS
No, no. This doesn't even compare remotely with the size of the Marshall Plan.

TED KOPPEL
(Off Camera) The Marshall Plan was $97 billion.

ANDREW NATSIOS
This is 1.7 billion.

TED KOPPEL
(Off Camera) All right, this is the first. I mean, when you talk about 1.7, you're not suggesting that the rebuilding of Iraq is gonna be done for $1.7 billion?

ANDREW NATSIOS
Well, in terms of the American taxpayers contribution, I do, this is it for the US. The rest of the rebuilding of Iraq will be done by other countries who have already made pledges, Britain, Germany, Norway, Japan, Canada, and Iraqi oil revenues, eventually in several years, when it's up and running and there's a new government that's been democratically elected, will finish the job with their own revenues. They're going to get in $20 billion a year in oil revenues. But the American part of this will be 1.7 billion. We have no plans for any further-on funding for this.

Andrew Natsios was, of course, wrong.

He was massively, staggeringly wrong. He was $498.3 billion-and-counting wrong.

That's enough to qualify him as a fool, but add in that he was able to mix in arrogance and condescension with his monumental wrongness — and consider that his wrongness was in service of America's greatest strategic blunder — and you begin to appreciate that Andrew Natsios is truly a fool for the ages.

Gentlemen, take away the fool.