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$300 billion for busywork. In the absence of a real reason for war, soldiers become accountants (FindLaw):

Before 2nd Lt. Ben Shumaker arrived in Iraq in late April, he expected to be protecting soldiers against chemical and biological weapons attacks by Saddam Hussein's army.

There were no such attacks, so Shumaker and his team were put to work looking for hidden weapons of mass destruction - the primary reason given by the Bush administration for the war in Iraq.

When no such weapons were found, Shumaker, a 23-year-old chemical officer with the 101st Airborne Division, found himself with no mission.

Then he was offered a job he had never imagined - assistant to the division commander's accountant.

"I was supposed to find weapons of mass destruction," said Shumaker, of Clarksville, Tenn. Instead, they made him an accountant, "because I was doing nothing."

With all those mammoth financial interests hovering around the place, it's only logical that an accountant would have more value in post-invasion Iraq than a weapons officer.

Here's a photograph of one reluctant but very expensive accountant, Chemical officer 2nd Lt. Ben Shumaker, with the 101st Airborne Division.

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