T. Christian Miller of the Los Angeles Times Washington bureau shows up on the blog at the Huffington Post with an entry about the subject of his new book, Blood Money: Wasted Billions, Lost Lives, and Corporate Greed in Iraq, out this week from Little, Brown. Via the publisher's summary, "the Bush Administration even promised that it wouldn't cost American taxpayers a thing -- Iraqi oil revenues would pay for it all. But billions and billions of dollars, and thousands of lives, later, the Iraqi reconstruction is an undeniable failure." On the Times op-ed page August 10, Miller wrote that "Mismanagement, waste and outright fraud wiped out whatever chances there were for the Iraqi nation-building experiment." In his first entry for the Huffington Post, he is slightly less pointed:

With all the talk about the reconstruction of New Orleans surrounding the Katrina anniversary, the rebuilding of Iraq has gotten lost in the background. That would be a shame, because it remains one of the most important tasks for America--both morally and politically.

To recap: After a morning spent fishing back in August 2003, Bush stood in front of reporters in Crawford, TX and promised to turn Iraq's infrastructure into the "best" in the region. Three years and $30 billion later, that pledge is far from reality.

His first chapter opens with Col. Ted Westhusing, the West Point grad who was found dead after clashing with contractors.