How do you feel about our involvement in Iraq? I read recently that we were spending over $10 billion per month on the war. Do you think we are getting our money's worth?

- Dale from Sugar Land, TX

The war has been a polarizing issue lately, and I feel that we should focus on training Iraqi troops so that they can police there own state. History has shown that an outside force can not police an indigenous population as well as the indigenous force can. We are not getting our money's worth, because we are wasting money on a regular basis due to government inefficiency and poor spending decisions. However, when reading reports on war spending you must be mindful what is lumped into the bill, is the $10 billion the cost of being in the Iraq war? Or is that the entire costs that are some how related to the war (i.e. the pay for soldiers, the equipment being used, and the accountant paying the bills back in DC)? If the second case, many of these costs would be incurred regardless if we are in war or just operating the Department of Defense. Another concern is that many earmarks slip into defense spending appropriation bills that have no business being there, and these also raise the numbers later found in the newspapers. Despite this, yes, we are spending a lot of money on this war, and with some better business sense, we should be able to trim the fat.