Documents Reveal US Incompetence with Word, Iraq 419
notNeilCasey writes "The U.S. Coalition Provisional Authority, which formerly governed Iraq, accidentally published Microsoft Word documents containing information never meant for the public, according to an article in Salon. By viewing the documents using the Track Changes feature in Word (.doc), the author has been able to reconstruct internal discussions from 2004 which reflect the optimism, isolation and incompetence of the American occupation. Download the author's source document or look for more yourself. 'Presumably, staffers at the CPA's Information Management Unit, which produced the weekly reports, were cutting and pasting large sections of text into the reports and then eliminating all but the few short passages they needed. Much of the material they were cribbing seems to have come from the kind of sensitive, security-related documents that were never meant to be available to the public. In fact, about half of the 20 improperly redacted documents I downloaded, including the March 28 report, contain deleted portions that all seem to come from one single, 1,000-word security memo. The editors kept pulling text from a document titled "Why Are the Attacks Down in Al-Anbar Province -- Several Theories." (The security memo and the last page of the March 28 report can be seen here, along with several other CPA documents that can be downloaded.)'"
"Nothing for you to see here. Please move along." (Score:5, Funny)
Re:"Nothing for you to see here. Please move along (Score:5, Insightful)
The level of utter incompetence w.r.t. "controlling the narrative" just terrifies me.
Re:"Nothing for you to see here. Please move along (Score:5, Insightful)
Oh they paid attention all right, they did everything they could to ensure they didn't get sent to serve there.
This "Feature" Has Been Known For Years (Score:5, Interesting)
Those who don't learn from history...
Anyone using Word in any kind of sensitive capacity needs to know how to make sure the changes are all really gone. Training should address this specifically. Other word processors also store deleted text within a document and users of those need to also know how to make sure deleted text is really deleted.
Perhaps it is time that word processors kept twin files - one the actual document, and if the user wants to track changes, another that stores deleted text. Or maybe encrypt the deleted text. It wouldn't keep everyone out of it, but it would keep most people from reading the deleted passages.
Those who don't learn from history... (Score:5, Funny)
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I agree. Let's say the vast majority of the most ignorant people are Bush supporters.
Re:Those who don't learn from history... (Score:5, Interesting)
In other words, they believe whatever Bush tells them, even though they are super-smart. It's a crazy world. A few such guys even seem to hang out here on
Re:Those who do learn from history... (Score:5, Insightful)
- "Concerns over global warming are frequently overblown" - To me, the scary part about global warming is the massive and highly successful campaign by Bush and friends to convince us that it's a) not happening, and b) we're not causing it. For example, his efforts to corrupt and/or bury the results of his own scientific inquiry scare the heck out of me. Humans making the Earth warmer is just one of the truly scary hurdles in front of us. The Middle East building nukes is another one, as is controlling the world's population before we strip it of all it's resources. From that point of view, I agree, it is sometimes overblown. If that's you're position, it's reasonable. If you think we're not causing it, you should become better informed.
- Almost nobody at this point that I run across thinks that things are rosy over in Iraq. Anyone who thinks we've handled Iraq well should become better informed. If you hold out hope that the world will be a better place than if we'd not invaded Iraq, then I'd say your an optimist, though not unreasonable. If you feel we should stay and try to complete the mission, even if Iraq is a mess, then you agree with many other reasonable people, just not most.
- All the government has to do to keep the Internet neutral is nothing. Even better would be a law enforcing no change. If it meddles with what has been working for over 10 years, the value of the Internet could drastically fall. In particular, we need to insure that ISPs do not discriminate against packets based on their origin. That's all. They can still do traffic shaping, charge more for higher levels of service, etc. But, if they want to block all the Democrat web sites, and only allow through the Republican ones, that's a problem. That's exactly what will happen if Murdoch gets control, and packet origin discrimination is allowed. I find that a compelling argument for keeping the status quo, which has been working so well.
- Are you also upset that the Supreme Court ended segregation? It's the court's job to fill in context when laws are unclear. In Rowe v Wade, they tackled the toughest issue: defining when human life begins. It's a slippery area to rule in, and highly contentious, since many of us believe God gives us a soul at conception, while others of us believe that we gain our humanity as our brain develops and we become conscious of our environment. Jews traditionally believed that God gives us a soul at the quickening. I believe life begins when my kids go to college
Re:Those who do learn from history... (Score:4, Informative)
People who complain about this remind me of whiny sports fans who blame the refs every time they lose a game. First off, let's be perfectly clear on one thing--most law is case law, i.e. law that is made by the precedent of judicial rulings. This allows the law to grow organically from case analysis rather than simply being handed down from Congress every so often. This is a vital feature of the system of common law we inherited from Great Britain, so if you have a problem with it, take it up with them.
It also protects us from the tyranny of the majority. The civil rights rulings of the 1960's are a perfect example of this--the "will of the people", the laws Congress did pass, all this stuff you people claim to protect, were in this case part of a horrifically evil system that oppressed people for no reason other than their racial origin. It was the Supreme Court, upholding the principles of the Constitution, which stopped this.
I'm not saying the Court never makes bad rulings--they clearly do, particularly in cases like Kelo. But majority rule makes bad decisions far more often, and it's vital that there be some way to put majority rule in check in situations where it is clearly acting unjustly. And that will necessarily involve overturning what Congress and the President do from time to time.
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I commend you for not going down the "when Clinton was president path" with your response. That is also an equally flawed bit of logic along the lines of a 9 year old justifying throwing rocks at cars with "Jimmy did it too!"
Those numbers include democrats (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Those who don't learn from history... (Score:5, Informative)
From your article:
Although ratings are quite low, Americans have been more positive in their assessments of Congress this year than last year, when an average of just 25% approved of Congress.
And...
Approval ratings of Congress are higher among Democrats than Republicans,
Re:Those who don't learn from history... (Score:4, Insightful)
You really think the Bush Administration is a one-man show?
Re:Those who don't learn from history... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Those who don't learn from history... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:This "Feature" Has Been Known For Years (Score:5, Insightful)
Or, just publish your documents as PDF files, no?
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Re:This "Feature" Has Been Known For Years (Score:5, Interesting)
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Re:This "Feature" Has Been Known For Years (Score:5, Informative)
Re:This "Feature" Has Been Known For Years (Score:4, Interesting)
Security through application and version requirement.
Re:This "Feature" Has Been Known For Years (Score:5, Funny)
Americans have no such limits on their capabilities.
If only that were so.... I tried to buy a simple tactical nuke the other day (just to defend my family against burglars, of course), and you wouldn't believe the paperwork you have to fill out! Then after all that, my application was denied. Land of the Free, my ass!
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We routinely provide final/external documents as PDF files
You still have to be careful. There was a case (probably several) a few years ago where PDF files were redacted with black boxes drawn over the withheld text. It worked fine if viewed casually, but of course the text was still actually there.
Even better, OSX's Preview (the default PDF viewer) didn't support whatever they used to make the boxes at that time , so they just didn't show up at all.
Re:This "Feature" Has Been Known For Years (Score:4, Insightful)
I like my job and if I was the reason "track change" text got into the wild I'm sure my job would be at risk.
More often than not I've gotten information I shouldn't have because of higher managers not understanding what track changes really does.
-nB
Re: Nothing for you to see here. Ultimate Irony is (Score:3, Insightful)
This would not have happened if presidential staffers were using Linux
The deleted section from the sample (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:The deleted section from the sample (Score:5, Funny)
Re:The deleted section from the sample (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:The deleted section from the sample (Score:5, Insightful)
Incompetently because the report writer doesn't appear to have a clue why the attacks in that province are decreasing which tends to suggest that the administration has no clear idea what is actually driving the attacks or why they're happening. It's possible that it's just the report writer who's in the dark about this but the complete lack of success in dealing with terrorism and insurgency in Iraq since then leads me to believe the problem was more widespread.
If you don't have the correct information or don't understand the situation on the ground then it's very hard to form any effective plan for reaching your goals which is what appears to have happened with Iraq. Given what we were told about how the war was to be fought beforehand and how everything was in place to address the aftermath I would say the handling of the situation which has led to the position we are in now speaks of great incompetence.
Re:The deleted section from the sample (Score:5, Insightful)
We have had serial rapist from other states who were caught in that other state and it took years to put the pieces together and link the two. With modern communication and all this time frame has narrowed a bunch and sometimes it can be linked before they goto trial. But this shows nothing of the incompetence of the investigators who have no evidence pointing to the person in particular and still cannot figure out who is doing it. When the guy get detained in the other state, all they know it the rapes stopped and they need to figure out why. Did someone die? did someone get arrested somewhere and so on?
But that "connecting the dots" is relatively easy compared to the situations in Iraq. You don't know a lot of times when someone dies and their body is carted off and either buried in secrete or mutilated and dropped off in the street to make it appear as if they were attacked by the insurgence or terrorist. In the later case, it makes it appear that the people behind the violence are innocent civilians caught in the cross fire. And to think that any of this shows incompetence really goes to a deeper level of you lack of understanding. Now having the changes inside the word document after it was released to the public shows incompetence. But this isn't any where near the same level as you are intending to imply.
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The Slashdot editors very rarely change the headline supplied by the original submitter. Out of several submissions I've had published here, I can think of just one where the headline was changed by one or two words from what I originally said. (The change was an improvement, IMO.)
So the original submitter may have wanted it to come off as embarrassing (which it is) but the fact that the Slashdot editor passed it through without modification just means that they didn't see any reason to change what some
Re:The deleted section from the sample (Score:5, Interesting)
It's like watching somebody who has driven off a cliff, speculating as they fall about the lack of damage to the car.
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Re:The deleted section from the sample (Score:4, Interesting)
Actually, a little further down in the document, it even says "the sharp and now continuing drop in attacks does give the coalition a much-needed respite whose continuation will be critical...Reinforcing this trend...will be crucial to ultimate success"
So it looks like I was wrong, sorry. Mods, please mod grandparent down.
Re:The deleted section from the sample (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:The deleted section from the sample (Score:5, Insightful)
Oh nice, denial mixed with conspiracy theories. Or how about, they are normal people, like you and me. They breath air, eat food, go to the toilet, and some of them families, kids and so on trivia.
The idea that they concealed fake info in the history of a Word file which embarasses them, so a tricky hacker could accidentally decode it and spread misinformation about the US intelligence service being idiots, while they are actually super smart..
That kinda strikes me as something I'd read next to articles showing evidence green aliens control earth in some tabloid.
They have no benefit to make their nation or their enemies think they are idiots. On the contrary, they keep teaching their soldiers, that the best weapon is the one that makes your enemy give up the fight. They need to look smart, they need to look scary, they need to look like someone you don't want to play with. Those docs work in the opposite direction.
Always see the bright side. (Score:2)
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Microsoft fanboys (Score:3, Funny)
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I learned a long time ago... (Score:5, Interesting)
(create new document that looks like, but is not, the old one)
before sending onward. Otherwise, somebody WILL find something untoward, even if it's not track changes, it could be a now-unused hunk of crap in the OLE2 file, etc.
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^A ^C ^N AltV U AltF A
This way, any hidden formatting is destroyed.
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It doesn't show you the exact text that it found, but does let you remove all instances of each category. The idea is that you have a document that you actually edit and then use this tool
Re:I learned a long time ago... (Score:5, Informative)
http://www.nsa.gov/snac/ [nsa.gov]
Specifically, how to properly redact a Microsoft Word
http://www.fas.org/sgp/othergov/dod/nsa-redact.pd
Re:I learned a long time ago... (Score:5, Funny)
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"Track Changes" revealed that he was either lying to me, or to the other employer he'd recently sent it to.
Either way, it spared me from having to schedule him an interview...
Disallow MS Word (Score:3, Informative)
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Re:Disallow MS Word (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:Disallow MS Word (Score:5, Insightful)
There is all type of sensitive information floating around the government. It goes to congress critters, their aids, through email, etc. Do you know another way to ensure that none of these people ever accidentally create documents with change tracking turned on? I didn't think so.
Re:Disallow MS Word (I take back what I said) (Score:5, Informative)
Now, the suggestions elsewhere around here that they simply standardize on PDF would solve everything, and they could still use Word if they're used to it. But posting
Track Changes... (Score:2, Interesting)
Can we charge MS under the PATRIOT Act yet??? (Score:5, Funny)
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Haven't you read the Patriot Act (I or II)?
Brother, you can charge anybody with the Patriot Act. Your grandma bitching about taxes? Mind control terrorist. Bill Gates giving vaccines to Africa? Funding terrorists. You for posting about the US government online? Cyberterrorist.
They got labels for everybody.
Government lawyers don't investigate whether or not someone's violating the Patriot Act, government lawyers find someone they don't like
Re:Can we charge MS under the PATRIOT Act yet??? (Score:5, Funny)
History repeating (Score:5, Funny)
I for one was happier about the tits.
Linkie linkie (Score:4, Interesting)
A Good Book About the CPA (Score:5, Informative)
But if you're interested in stuff about the CPA (Coalition Provisional Authority), I would highly recommend a book I read a few months ago entitled Imperial Life in the Emerald City: Inside Iraq's Green Zone [rajivc.com] by Rajiv Chandrasekaran. Pretty much details what's going on there, doesn't shove a lot of ideas down your throat but does do a good job of selectively relaying details that starts one thinking.
I could rant for hours on the information in this book but I'll try to relay one or two things that stuck with me. My biggest problem with how things were handled out there (one of the many issues the book covers) is that we had people more suitable for the job of handling post war Iraq but either sent them home or blocked their attempts to help because they didn't avidly support the person we wanted to take control of post-war Iraq, Ahmed Chalabi. If anyone was seen as competition for Chalabi, they were replaced with someone who was loyal to the American Republican party. The author reports that interview questions consisted of things like views on abortion or even your voting record. People with little or no past experience were put in charge of insanely high level authority.
We went into Iraq with the only plan to overthrow the government. In my opinion, we have the best army in the world and they did their job better than anyone else could. Unfortunately, in my opinion, we have some of the worst leaders in the world and, as a result, what ensued from overthrowing said government is a pretty bad debacle. I heard this author speak on NPR and was impressed so I hope you read this book to hear what Chandrasekaran experienced visiting Iraq. The information in this Word document doesn't even begin to describe what Chandrasekaran details in his book.
Wrong tool for the job, (Score:5, Insightful)
An officer is supposed to protect the soldiers under his command. It is the duty of the Generals to make sure that the job given to his division is within the capability of his troops. Just because the civilian authority orders "Find a cure for cancer", they should not embark on ordering their colnels and majors to mess with test tubes.
Re:Wrong tool for the job, (Score:4, Interesting)
The American military used to be pretty good at this sort of thing. Think post-WWII Japan and Germany. But I think you accurately describe the situation with the modern U.S. military. There are other nations that are better at policing and nation-building, so perhaps if we'd gone in with more international support, this wouldn't have been such an issue.
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I've had this document linked at my site for a long time:
http://www.usace.army.mil/publications/eng-manual
I think the US Army had something to do with its creation, and I don't expect you to read or understand it.
Re:A Good Book About the CPA (Score:4, Informative)
Charlie Rose had an interview [charlierose.com] recently with 3 Iraqi journalists, all of whom are currently in the U.S. studying Journalism, or really escaping the oppressive violence and smoldering pit that is their homeland thanks to George W, Dick Cheney, Richard Perle, Rummy and Wolfy.
One of them spelled it out, pretty much all the Iraqi exiles who swept in to take over Iraq after the invasion are viewed as "thieves" by the Iraqi people. Chalabi is at the top of the list since he is still under indictment in Jordan for a gigantic bank fraud.
One of facts about Iraq a lot of people seem to gloss over is there is a gigantic pool of oil riches in that country and the people who gain control over the government can enrich themselves and their friends with that control. EVERYONE jockeying for control there, Iraqi and American alike, is angling for control over its oil wealth because they know if they get it they will end up like Saudi princes. This simple reason is why the Shia have zero incentive to pass legislation to equitably share the oil wealth with Kurds and Sunnis and without that there is ALWAYS going to be a civil war there. I'm not sure you will every strike a deal everyone will consider fair.
A recent report suggests large quantities of Iraq's oil is disappearing in to the black market to enrich the people who have gained control over the wells or pipelines, who are mostly Shia in the South and Kurds in the north (though its also possible oil production is also being exaggerated).
I'm not really sure Iraq will ever find peace as long as there is oil wealth to fight over. The fight for control of oil is a source of strife everyplace it is found today. The original Iraqi invasion of Kuwait was for control of oil, and I'm not sure the corrupt Emir of Kuwait has any more right to control it than Saddam did. The genocide in Darfur is largely over the oil fields there. A key element in the coup attempt in Venezuela was over oil fields which were recently nationalized. In Russia a bunch of kleptocrats suckered Yeltsin in to giving them control of the oil and gas fields and they got rich, Putin threw the ring leader in jail and seized control of the oil for himself and his dictatorial government. The Saudi royal family rules Saudi Arabia with an iron fist to insure they get the lions share of the oil riches. Not much chance of real Democracy in Saudi Arabia because the Saudi royal family wouldn't get most of the oil revenue in a real Democracy. Iran is in the mess its in after an American backed coup threw out a popular leader who nationalized the oil fields at Britain's expense. The U.S. installed the Shah as dictator who gave U.S. companies control over the oil fields to Britain's dismay. The Shah was so hated he was overthrown in favor of the Ayatollah so there is a repressive theocracy there that hates the U.S. to this day as a result. Its kind of routine in countries on the west coast of Africa with oil wealth for the people in power to pocket much of the oil wealth while most of their countrymen starve.
Not sure you will find Peace in Iraq until you just partition the country, let the ethnic cleansing finish, and let each of the three factions control their own oil fields. The Sunnis were the odd man out but recent oil discoveries in their base in Anbar province suggest all three groups could have their own oil fields. The down side to this is Turkey will probably never tolerate an independent Kurdistan waging a guerrilla war to try to seize the Kurdish regions of Turkey.
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With Iraq emba
yet another reason for published formats (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:yet another reason for published formats (Score:5, Informative)
Re:yet another reason for published formats (Score:4, Informative)
A prime opportunity to point out that OpenOffice.org can write directly to PDF while MS Word cannot, and you blow it! For shame.
always always convert to text then polish (Score:4, Interesting)
all final documents should always be converted to text to break the meta data chain.
even if you have to save the document to a cdrw and then shred the disc when you are done remove the meta data
or replace the meta data with the "correct" public data never have a document with privileged meta data "floating around"
Someone didn't follow policy (Score:3, Interesting)
Obviously somebody skipped a step. Whats actually in the file is more interesting then how it got there, given that all we're talking about is human error.
Control the Metadata (Score:5, Informative)
Looks like some competent analysis there. (Score:3, Insightful)
Silly Bureaucrats (Score:5, Funny)
Summary (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Summary (Score:4, Informative)
Or conversely:
I hate (brown-skinned foreigners/Hillary/Democrats/liberals) and I'll believe anything (Gonzalez/Bush/Republicans/Fox News) say they reinforces my beliefs without questioning anything. Lots of pinheads write positive spin for other pinheads while other people do criminal acts and gut the constitution in the name of freedom and Jesus.
Ain't political discourse fun?
Move along. Nothing to see here. Move along. (Score:5, Funny)
Thanks. I understand. Thanks. No need to keep beating the drum. Thanks.
(Where would I be without
The deleted text (Score:5, Informative)
That's actually a pretty good analysis (Score:3, Insightful)
I see no incompetence there - I see good, honest staffwork. Perhaps a touch informal in places, but that's about it.
Intelligence is a slippery fish, not an exact science. It is normal to have a great deal of uncertainty.
DG
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The memo acknowledges collateral damage, but is blithely unaware of the implications. "Most raids also leave in their wake a number of innocents who were either rounded up and detained or had their houses busted up
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What the Salon author is missing - actually, misreading - is the military tone. Taken at face value, yes, it comes off as arrogant and even a little clueless. But when read by a person accustomed to the military tone in writing (which is usually heavy in irony and black humour) one sees the actual intent. For example, I can tell that the author is more than a little frustrated at his inability to nail down the precise cause of the reduction of the
Secrets? (Score:5, Interesting)
I'm not looking to troll here. I'm serious. Wouldn't it have been better to quietly bring it to their attention than to go public. If this is typical government ignorance, who knows how wide-spread the problem is. Could revealing something like this to the public be considered treason?
I don't think the fact that the articles are right out in the open is any defense. Anyone who's close enough to see troops knows where they are, but it could still be considered treason to pick up a phone and call the enemy and tell them where troops are.
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Re:Secrets? (Score:5, Informative)
The authors of the Constitution were very wary of the word "treason" being thrown around, and so were highly specific in what treason is. Article III, Section 3:
Salon certainly hasn't levied war against the United States. I don't think a reasonable case can be made that releasing these documents in any way aid or comforts the US' enemies (except in the loosest possible sense that they might enjoy some schadenfreude).
One has to wonder... (Score:3, Insightful)
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It tends to make people uninsightful, fearful, and unimaginative. So, what do you get by over-scrutinizing the gov'ts every move? A gov't peopled by lackeys and lickspittles who lack the courage to do what is necessary to prevail.
You get what you ask for I suppose. It just saddens me to know that most people are officious
Wow, poor IT configuration (Score:4, Informative)
I opened up Word 2k3. It seems that under Options -> Security (I know, a crazy place to expect the government to look). There is a checkbox that reads
I just tested it, and yes this feature seems to work.
Oh, sorry, what I meant is for a large no-bid contract, I can help the military prevent this in the future via real-time user warnings.
And this is why... (Score:4, Insightful)
This latest example of bumbling incompetence shows us that you cannot trust the Feds to do either.
That's why we should fear the Feds when they want to help us: considering their track records at taking care of their own problems, only a suicidal madman would trust them to manage other people's lives.
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Can you data type a whole document? (Score:3, Interesting)
DMCA violation (Score:3, Insightful)
That DMCA sure is a versatile tool, isn't it?
Interesting with OpenOffice (Score:4, Funny)
Tool to fix that problem (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Same thing (Score:5, Funny)
So...Iraq has been invaded by MSCEs?
Close, but no cigar. (Score:5, Insightful)
Actually, it was liberated by MBAs.
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We're so quick to:
but they still want us to somehow vote for candidates that promise extend government meddling in areas such as retirement and health care.
Hm. Not as flexible with these mental gymnastics as I used to be. Request additional kool-aid here.
Extend government medling in health care?
This from the country that spends the most per-capita on healthcare in the entire world, yet still has 20% uninsured?
Maybe if you spent your taxes on healthcare instead of on no-bid contracts to haliburton? No? That's not an option?