Billions of dollars disappears. Literally.

This week, we were treated to the spectacle of the former U.S. civilian overlord of Iraq, Ambassador L. Paul Bremer, squirming in the hot seat as he attempted with little success to explain what he did with 363 TONS of newly printed, shrink-wrapped $100 bills he had flown to Baghdad.

That's $12 billion in cold, hard American cash, and no one, especially Bremer, seems to know where it went.

That's right. 363 tons of $100 bills. Disappeared.

I have heard conservatives accuse liberals of throwing money at problems. However, I think liberals may be too week to thrown 363 tons worth of $100 bills at any problem. And, for the most part, I think a liberal would be able to account for, let's say, half of the money.

This story may be the perfect emblem of what a morass Iraq has become--or, to quote Walter Cronkite from years ago, it is a "miasma of perfidy."

Read the story here. Or here.