More Progress in Iraq

For the bad guys anyway...

A Baghdad bank was robbed of more than $300 million in cash by its own security guards, as the high levels of corruption in the Iraqi capital once again were exposed, officials said.

In what is believed to be the biggest single theft since Saddam Hussein's fall in 2003, the private Dar Es Salaam bank was found with its front doors unlocked and its entire haul of cash missing.

Police in Baghdad said the bank's employees discovered the theft when they arrived at the premises in the city's Karrada district on Wednesday morning. An additional $174,000 [in Iraqi money] had been stolen, employees reported.

Police suspect three missing security guards, who usually slept on the premises, and said they are among the only people with keys.

Instead of calling these entrepreneurs "bank robbers", perhaps we should refer to them as "independent contractors", like Halliburton, except more honest about their goals.

Fox commentators and Republican flunkies (interchangeable) will surely represent the "theft" as another example of progress, since now the money will "trickle-down" to the local residents (according to Republican economic theory), although the "trickle" may be in the form of shrapnel.