money wasted in Iraq

In politer terms, Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction Stuart Bowen concludes that America's $60 billion in reconstruction outlays were largely pissed away.

"You think if you throw money at a problem, you can fix it," Kurdish government official Qubad Talabani, son of Iraqi president Jalal Talabani, told auditors. "It was just not strategic thinking."

$60 billion is pretty much chump change when contrasted with the guesstimated $1 trillion spent overall on the decade-long military effort in Iraq (which does not include the human cost) ... but still ....

What's wrong with this picture?

In a related development, the number of refugees in the on-going Syrian civil war has reached one million, according to the U.N.

Half of the refugees were children, the UN said, most of them under 11 and often traumatised by their experiences.