America took an Iraqi car dealer and made him the Minister of Defense. What could go wrong here?

Ziad Cattan was a Polish Iraqi used-car dealer with no weapons-dealing experience until U.S. authorities turned him into one of the most powerful men in Iraq last year — the chief of procurement for the Defense Ministry, responsible for equipping the fledgling Iraqi army.

As U.S. advisors looked on, Cattan embarked on a massive spending spree, paying hundreds of millions of dollars in Iraqi funds for secret, no-bid contracts, according to interviews with more than a dozen senior American, coalition and Iraqi officials, and documents obtained by the Los Angeles Times. The money flowed, often in bricks of cash, through the hands of middlemen who were friends of Cattan and took a percentage of the proceeds.

"Before, I sold water, flowers, shoes, cars — but not weapons," said Cattan, who signed most of the 89 military contracts worth nearly $1.3 billion to equip Iraqi security forces, according to the documents. "We didn't know anything about weapons."

Cattan's improbable rise and fall raises troubling questions about American oversight of the Iraqi army's development, considered the most important mission in reducing the number of U.S. troops in harm's way.

Have you ever heard a Vietnam vet going on and on about how the U.S. never really tried to win the Vietnam war? Well I have to imagine that soldiers in Iraq must be feeling some sort of National "deja vu" because it feels like the United States is purposefully trying to sabotage this conflict.

And who are these no-bid contracts going to? Are these American companies? Or foriegn companies with ties to America? It looks almost like a giant money laundering scheme. The United States gives money to local uneducated Iraqis, who are contacted by sleazy arms dealers who sell them faulty equipment, the equipment fails, the Bush administration asks congress for more money, we give it to the local Iraqis who give it to the same shady arms dealers, who may or may not have connections to FOB's (friends of Bush). Getting the picture?

I know, you think my tinfoil hat is too tight, but think about it for a minute, what is the other excuse? That the most powereful military on the planet is run by a gang of morons? Or a gang of criminals? Both of those answers suck for us.