To the editor:

According to the Congressional Research Service report for Congress, by the end of January 2008, the Department of Defense reported $538.6 billion had been obligated for the global war on terror since 9/11. Of course this figure goes up or down depending on which report you believe.

I’m not decrying the war on terror or calling for the troops to come home right now. Like it or not, we’ve committed ourselves in Iraq. We made the mess and now we have to clean it up. And we’re going to be cleaning for a very long time. It’s too bad that $400-plus billion we’ve spent in Iraq since 2003 is gone, because we sure could have used it back home.

There have been over 300 natural disasters in the United States from 2003 to today, with losses well into that $400-plus billion figure. It’s too bad that our government’s borderline-criminal mismanagement of funds has made the recovery process extremely difficult for those who have lost so much.

Our fellow Kansans in Greensburg sure could use some more help in completely rebuilding their town from the ground up, as could those still in formaldehyde-ridden FEMA trailers, waiting for New Orleans to be rebuilt three years later. Sorry, folks. See, we already gave that money to Blackwater and a bunch of other no-bid contractors over there in Iraq. Better luck next time. But with the current state of budgetary affairs, I really wouldn’t hold your breath, unless you’re in one of those trailers, in which case maybe you should.

Steve Craven,

Lawrence