Within days of the Sept. 11 attacks on the Pentagon and the World Trade Center, Congress passed a $40 billion emergency spending package -- half for reconstruction, half for combating terrorism. But the biggest beneficiaries of this generosity will not be the families of the victims or the communities that bore the brunt of the attacks: they will be giant weapons contractors like Raytheon and Lockheed Martin.
The Pentagon has asked to use the lion's share of the $20 billion earmarked for the first stages of President Bush's proposed war on terrorism. But that's just the beginning.