Pitfalls for the world's biggest debtor

EVERY day we ask ourselves how on earth did we get into this ongoing tragedy in Iraq. Senator Waxman (Oversight and Government Reform Committee) now knows how the Americans got into it. Recently he asked why, in the year ended June 2004, the Coalition Provisional Authority shipped $12bn in cash - $400,000 shrink-wrapped on to each pallet and carried on C-130 cargo planes - from the Federal Reserve in New York to Baghdad. He added, "and who in their right mind would send 363 tons of cash into a war zone?"