Russian special forces troops moved many of Saddam Hussein’s weapons and related goods out of Iraq and into Syria in the weeks before the March 2003 U.S. military operation, The Washington Times has learned.John A. Shaw, the deputy undersecretary of defense for international technology security, said in an interview that he believes the Russian troops, working with Iraqi intelligence, “almost certainly” removed the high-explosive material that went missing from the Al-Qaqaa facility, south of Baghdad.

I had been avoiding politics for the last two weeks since the passions are great and the news appeared to be tainted by the election. However, the story about the missing explosives I found to be pretty interesting. I was particularly interested in how over 300 tons of high explosive was moved. I am not an expert but I consider it highly unlikely that 300 tons of high explosive could be pilfered gradually in a war zone without an incident. It is much more likely that it was moved at one time by an organized and well trained team before the war started. Since we did not hear or see an explosion all of the men were probably well trained to handle explosives. This limits the list of suspects. Russian special forces are a logical choice. Before the war started Russia would have had the opportunity, trained personnel who could complete the task, and the motive of protecting/hiding Russian military contributions and political interests.

The Ownership Society is the appropriate, 21st century replacement to the New Deal. It’s about making it possible for the economy to turn on a dime, not once a decade. The bad news is that George Bush didn’t bother to bring up the idea until a few weeks ago, in his convention speech.

[Via OpinionJournal.com]

One of the first battles of ownership versus entitlement is health care. When my son was born I was amazed at how inept the business of health care was compared to building a house. We had just recently completed building a house in 1991 so it was fresh in my mind. It took me months to figure out the bills from the health care providers and the statements from the insurance company. They acted surprised that I would question their bill when I could not figure who they were or what they had done. It was my money I was spending and I wanted to know why. It appears that many people are unwilling to question their doctor over billing or defensive medical practices.

In the last two years my wife has had two operations and I think the health care providers have improved somewhat. The billing side has improved but the diagnosis side is still questionable. I find it fascinating that my wife questions whether the breast biopsy was really necessary. The good news is the biopsy was negative. The bad news is that you are $11,000 poorer.

My sister-in-law recently broke her wrist. She had a simple operation to set the bones and insert pins. After the operation she complained to the doctors about continued pain so they prescribed pain pills. When she complained enough they have found the bones were still separated and she had an infection. They reset the bones with a plate and a bone graft. The bad news is that they are considering putting her in a hospital so that they can administer antibiotics by IV. Its pretty bad when the medical provider is the likely cause of the infection and really bad when they cannot diagnose an infection they probably caused.

All of this marks a striking return to the Old Democrat distrust of all private enterprise, which held that if it moves, tax it, if it keeps moving, regulate it, and when it stops moving, subsidize it.

[Via WSJ.com: Opinion]

Many years ago I worked for Brown & Root, the subsidiary of Halliburton accused of wrongdoing. Previous to that work I worked for another engineering firm involved with government contracting. Brown & Root have been doing work for the military since the Viet Nam war and oil field related work for even a longer period. So it is no surprise they are a favored contractor for Iraq. They know the system. They know the work. They can do it cheaper than the government. In my attempt to decipher fact from partisan politics, it appears that they made some mistakes in a war time situation where they were undoubtedly the last folks to be notified. So far no one seems to be able to find any profit for Halliburton for their participation in this dangerous activity. If the result of Halliburton’s participation is low or non-existent profit they will be forced to increase the profit margin for future projects or the government may opt for new and inexperienced contractors. Hiring and training new and inexperienced contractors will make the logistics of warfare much more difficult. New contractors are typically less knowledgeable about the risks involved so they protect themselves by being less flexible and more expensive.