20 million

Your tax dollars at work:

WASHINGTON -- The U.S. command in Baghdad is seeking bidders for a two-year, $20 million public relations contract that calls for monitoring the tone of Iraq news stories filed by U.S. and foreign media.

Proposals, due Sept. 6, ask companies to show how they'll "provide continuous monitoring and near-real time reporting of Iraqi, pan-Arabic, international, and U.S. media," according to the solicitation issued last week.

This could almost be a good idea, if they'd actually listen to what they're told. But somehow I don't think the Pentagon is paying $20 million to listen to a bunch of bad news.