Prologue and Chapter 1 Summary and Analysis

Prologue. Is It Too Late to Descope This? The author describes odd uses for Homeland Security grants in her hometown after September 11. The author also says that government spending in Afghanistan has gone off target. She describes a project in Afghanistan called Wazir Akbar Khan consists of dozens of mansion-like homes for local people who have bought he homes not to live in them, but to show off their social status and remain mostly empty. She also notes that a wastewater treatment facility in Fallujah, Anbar Province, Iraq has yet to come to fruition despite spending millions of American dollars to see it through. Then at home, the government has built a tax payer funded office space for the intelligence community that has created such a confusing tangle of red tape due to the complexity of the...