$14 Million of Your Tax Dollars to Rebuild Iraq Museum! WTF?

For Jesus Christ's SAKE! WTF are we doing using American funds to rebuild and refurbish Iraq's National Museum in Baghdad? Iraq has $80 BILLION in the bank, we are spending $10 Billion in USA Taxpaper dollars a month in Iraq, and now the State Department makes a deal wherein America picks up the tab to rebuild Iraq's National Museum...sorry, but that is horse shit! Ryan Crocker should be FIRED, and Goli Ameri dismissed for such a disgusting abuse of our tax payer funds! It's time we stop coddling Iraq, and tell them to start paying their own way. America must end Pork Barrel giveaways, and that includes those done in the name of Foreign Affairs by the State Department.

U.S. gives Iraq $13 million to fix looted museum

By Aseel KamiPosted 2008/10/20 at 11:28 am EDT

BAGHDAD, Oct. 20, 2008 (Reuters) — The U.S. government has announced a $13 million grant mainly to help refurbish Iraq's National Museum which was looted in the aftermath of the U.S.-led invasion in 2003, U.S. officials said Monday.

U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for Educational and Cultural Affairs Goli Ameri speaks during a news conference with U.S. ambassador to Iraq Ryan Crocker and Iraqi officials at the Iraqi national museum in Baghdad, October 20, 2008. REUTERS/Mohammed Ameen

U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for Educational and Cultural Affairs Goli Ameri announced the project at a news conference with Iraqi officials, held inside the dilapidated museum building which is still closed to the public.

Iraq's archaeological heritage is among the richest in the world, including treasures from thousands of years of civilization in ancient Mesopotamia, much of it housed at the National Museum in Baghdad.

U.S. forces came under widespread criticism in the immediate aftermath of the invasion for failing to prevent the looting of priceless relics from the museum, even while troops were dispatched to secure other sites such as the Oil Ministry.

"This is an investment not only in Iraq's heritage but in the world's heritage," the U.S. ambassador in Iraq, Ryan Crocker, said. The money will be used for archaeology and museum training projects as well as the restoration of the museum.

More than 15,000 artefacts went missing from the museum during the looting, about 6,000 of which have been returned.

Violence in Iraq has fallen to four-year lows