All right, maybe "fun" is an exaggeration. But the first report of the Commission on Wartime Contracting in Iraq and Afghanistan -- created as a result of legislation sponsored by Senators James Webb (D-VA) and Claire McCaskill (D-MO) -- contains far more than just the usual bureaucratic verbiage that too often characterizes documents of this sort. It includes information that is critical to determining whether it is possible to curb contractor fraud and abuse in theaters of conflict.

For example, did you know that there are now over 240,000 contractor personnel in Iraq and Afghanistan, doing everything from washing dishes and doing laundry to carrying guns? This is the highest figure I have yet seen, and it is more than the roughly 200,000 U.S. troops deployed to the two conflicts. Of the 240,000, the commission report asserts that as few as 21,000 -- less than 10 percent -- are armed private security contractors. That's still a large contingent, but it suggests that regulating -- or eliminating -- them may be possible without in any way "crippling" the U.S. military efforts in either country.

Who keeps an eye on the hired guns? An agency known as the Armed Contractor Oversight Directorate (ACOD). In Afghanistan, its day-to-day operations are handled not by U.S. government personnel, but by a private contractor, the Aegis corporation of the UK. This means that initial rulings on things like "escalation of force" incidents (wounding or killing civilians, for example) are dealt with by an official of a private company.

Back on the reconstruction front, you'll be happy to know that KBR -- the former unit of Halliburton that was spun off a while back -- is still doing the bulk of reconstructioni work in Iraq despite the advent of a new contract that was supposed to split up the work among several companies. The Special Investigator General for Iraq Reconstruction (SIGIR) suggests that at least $3 to $5 billion in U.S. tax dollars (not to mention billions more in Iraqi funds paid to U.S. companies) have been wasted in Iraq. One obvious reason has been lack of oversight. Of the 516 personnel that are supposed to monitor KBR's big contract, only 186 are in place -- just over one-third of the mandated total.

All right, so maybe these aren't the most scintillating statistics you've ever heard. But they do give some sense of why there is so much fraud and abuse in Iraq and Afghanistan (the other obvious one being that it's easier to steal during the "fog of war" than under normal civilian circumstances).

A last point that was underscored in the Wartime Contracting Commission report was the continuing militarization of U.S. foreign aid. The Commander's Emergency Response Program (CERP) has now received nearly $5 billion since 2003, for local projects that can for the most part be undertaken with just the okay of the local military commander. While there is some argument that this allows for flexibility and the ability to show an immediate impact, it is also awfully fast and loose, and it takes a large portion of development assistance out of the hands of civilian agencies, where it rightly belongs. The militarization process is even expressed in the language of the CERP program. Its manual is entitled "Money as a Weapon System." And an officer who spoke to the contracting commission referred to CERP's road building efforts with the phrase "asphalt is ammunition."

This is just the commission's initial report -- a final report with detailed recommendations will come out next year.