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Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Sig who wrote (117216)	10/19/2003 1:58:00 PM
From: KyrosL	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

Sig, the average Iraqi army salary is $50 a month. 200,000 soldiers will cost $10 million a month, or $120 million a year. That's 0.14% of the $87 billion budgeted for next year. What's more, we are already paying them the salaries. When Bremer cut their salaries they demonstrated violently in Baghdad, a couple of people were killed and Bremer promptly restored their salaries "indefinitely". They just sit home, nursing their grievances, worrying about the future, and caressing their AK-47s and grenade launchers. As for mindsets, it took more than a decade for Eastern Europeans, a well educated and well mannered people, to adapt to market capitalism after the fall of communism. Do you think the American people will be willing to spend $100 billion annually on Iraq for more than a decade?