Pentagon lost track of thousands of weapons given to Iraqi security forces

SuzannePjamSuzannePjam Posts: 411
edited August 2007 in A Moving Train
Just when you think BushCo can't screw things up any more than they already have. Just fucking unbelievable.

Weapons given to Iraq are missing
30 percent of arms are unaccounted for, GAO estimates


By Glenn Kessler
The Washington Post

The Pentagon has lost track of about 190,000 AK-47 assault rifles and pistols given to Iraqi security forces in 2004 and 2005, according to a new government report, raising fears that some of those weapons have fallen into the hands of insurgents fighting U.S. forces in Iraq.
The report from the Government Accountability Office indicates that U.S. military officials do not know what happened to 30 percent of the weapons the United States distributed to Iraqi forces from 2004 through early this year as part of an effort to train and equip the troops. The highest previous estimate of unaccounted-for weapons was 14,000, in a report issued last year by the inspector general for Iraq reconstruction.
The United States has spent $19.2 billion trying to develop Iraqi security forces since 2003, the GAO said, including at least $2.8 billion to buy and deliver equipment. But the GAO said weapons distribution was haphazard and rushed and failed to follow established procedures, particularly from 2004 to 2005, when security training was led by Gen. David H. Petraeus, who now commands all U.S. forces in Iraq.
The Pentagon did not dispute the GAO findings, saying it has launched its own investigation and indicating it is working to improve tracking. Although controls have been tightened since 2005, the inability of the United States to track weapons with tools such as serial numbers makes it nearly impossible for the U.S. military to know whether it is battling an enemy equipped by American taxpayers.
‘No idea where they are’
"They really have no idea where they are," said Rachel Stohl, a senior analyst at the Center for Defense Information who has studied small-arms trade and received Pentagon briefings on the issue. "It likely means that the United States is unintentionally providing weapons to bad actors."
One senior Pentagon official acknowledged that some of the weapons probably were being used against U.S. forces. He cited the Iraqi brigade created at Fallujah that quickly dissolved in September 2004 and turned its weapons against the Americans.
Stohl said that insurgents frequently use small-arms fire to force military convoys to move in a particular direction -- often toward roadside bombs that target troops and vehicles. She noted that the Bush administration frequently complains that Iran and Syria are supplying insurgents but has paid little attention to whether U.S. military errors inadvertently play a role. "We know there is seepage and very little is being done to address the problem," she said.
Stohl noted that U.S. forces, focused on a fruitless search for weapons of mass destruction after Baghdad fell, failed to secure massive weapons caches. The failure to track small arms given to Iraqi forces repeats that pattern of neglect, she added.
The GAO is studying the financing and weapons sources of insurgent groups, but that report will not be made public. "All of that information is classified," said Joseph A. Christoff, the GAO's director of international affairs and trade.
In an unusual move, the train-and-equip program for Iraqi forces is being managed by the Pentagon. Normally, the traditional security assistance programs are operated by the State Department, the GAO reported. The Defense Department said this change permitted greater flexibility, but as of last month it was unable able to tell the GAO what accountability procedures, if any, apply to arms distributed to Iraqi forces, the report said.
Iraqi security forces were virtually nonexistent in early 2004, and in June of that year Petraeus was brought in to build them up. No central record of distributed equipment was kept for a year and a half, until December 2005, and even now the records are on a spreadsheet that requires three computer screens lined up side by side to view a single row, Christoff said.
The GAO found that the military was consistently unable to collect supporting documents to "confirm when the equipment was received, the quantities of equipment delivered, and the Iraqi units receiving the equipment." The agency also said there were "numerous mistakes due to incorrect manual entries" in the records that were maintained.
The GAO reached the estimate of 190,000 missing arms -- 110,000 AK-47s and 80,000 pistols -- by comparing the property records of the Multi-National Security Transition Command for Iraq against records Petraeus maintained of the arms and equipment he had ordered. Petraeus's figures were compared with classified data and other records to ensure that it was accurate enough to compare against the property books.
In all cases, the gaps between the two records were enormous. Petraeus reported that about 185,000 AK-47 rifles, 170,000 pistols, 215,000 pieces of body armor and 140,000 helmets were issued to Iraqi security forces from June 2004 through September 2005. But the property books contained records for 75,000 AK-47 rifles, 90,000 pistols, 80,000 pieces of body armor and 25,000 helmets.
A military commander involved in the program at the time, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss the report, acknowledged in an e-mail, "We did issue some items, including weapons, body armor, etc. to new Iraqi units that were literally going into battle."
‘Not much of a choice early on’
But, the commander argued, "there was, frankly, not much of a choice early on: We had very little staff and could have held the weapons until every piece of the logistical and property accountability system was in place, or we could issue them, in bulk on some occasions, to the U.S. elements supporting Iraqi units who were needed in the battles of Najaf, Fallujah, Mosul, Samarra, etc."
The GAO plans to look for similar problems in the training of Afghan security forces.
During the Bosnian conflict, the United States provided about $100 million in defense equipment to the Bosnian Federation Army, and the GAO found no problems in accounting for those weapons.
Much of the equipment provided to Iraqi troops, including the AK-47s, originates from countries in the former Soviet bloc. In a report last year, Amnesty International said that in 2004 and 2005 more than 350,000 AK-47 rifles and similar weapons were taken out of Bosnia and Serbia, for use in Iraq, by private contractors working for the Pentagon and with the approval of NATO and European security forces in Bosnia.
"Where there is sacrifice there is someone collecting the sacrificial offerings."-- Ayn Rand

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Comments

  • gimmesometruth27gimmesometruth27 St. Fuckin Louis Posts: 23,304
    would you really expect anything less? its one fuck up after another.

    so it looks as if we have been inadvertently arming our enemies. what a way to run a war.
    "You can tell the greatness of a man by what makes him angry."  - Lincoln

    "Well, you tell him that I don't talk to suckas."
  • Screw up? lol...

    How do you hand out that many machine guns and not expect that to happen at some point?

    It's an expectation not a screw up.
    Progress is not made by everyone joining some new fad,
    and reveling in it's loyalty. It's made by forming coalitions
    over specific principles, goals, and policies.

    http://i36.tinypic.com/66j31x.jpg

    (\__/)
    ( o.O)
    (")_(")
  • would you really expect anything less? its one fuck up after another.

    so it looks as if we have been inadvertently arming our enemies. what a way to run a war.


    In the eyes of the administration IT IS NOT A FUCK UP. IT IS THE PLAN!

    Look.
    The point is to STAY IN IRAQ FOREVER.
    Cheney said it ... THE WAR WILL NOT END IN OUR LIFETIMES ... IT WILL LAST THE CENTURY ....

    why?
    Because THE OIL IS STILL THERE.

    So if we "accidentaly" gave the other side a whole stockpile of weapons ... well then ALL THE BETTER ... it just means MORE PEOPLE SHOOTING AT US ... which means?

    MORE REASON TO STAY THERE AND SHOOT BACK.

    Think about it.
    If I was to smile and I held out my hand
    If I opened it now would you not understand?
  • CNN and Fox must have said it was a screw up :rolleyes:

    Geez Louise....they just don't get it do they?
    Progress is not made by everyone joining some new fad,
    and reveling in it's loyalty. It's made by forming coalitions
    over specific principles, goals, and policies.

    http://i36.tinypic.com/66j31x.jpg

    (\__/)
    ( o.O)
    (")_(")
  • gue_bariumgue_barium Posts: 5,515
    In the eyes of the administration IT IS NOT A FUCK UP. IT IS THE PLAN!

    Look.
    The point is to STAY IN IRAQ FOREVER.
    Cheney said it ... THE WAR WILL NOT END IN OUR LIFETIMES ... IT WILL LAST THE CENTURY ....

    why?
    Because THE OIL IS STILL THERE.

    So if we "accidentaly" gave the other side a whole stockpile of weapons ... well then ALL THE BETTER ... it just means MORE PEOPLE SHOOTING AT US ... which means?

    MORE REASON TO STAY THERE AND SHOOT BACK.

    Think about it.


    Probably a good reason to sell them more weapons, too.

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    except by express written permission of ©gue_barium, the author.
  • catefrancescatefrances Posts: 29,003
    Just when you think BushCo can't screw things up any more than they already have. Just fucking unbelievable.

    Weapons given to Iraq are missing
    30 percent of arms are unaccounted for, GAO estimates


    LMAO!!!

    missing huh?

    not to worry they'll show up soon enough.


    how interesting. i was just reading on the weekend how mikhail kalashnikov said he wishes he'd invented a lawnmower instead.
    hear my name
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  • RushlimboRushlimbo Posts: 832
    Hehehe. And these jackasses puff out their chests and accuse Iran of arming the insurgents. This would be comical if people were not dying in droves over there.
    War is Peace
    Freedom is Slavery
    Ignorance is Strength
  • In the eyes of the administration IT IS NOT A FUCK UP. IT IS THE PLAN!

    Look.
    The point is to STAY IN IRAQ FOREVER.
    Cheney said it ... THE WAR WILL NOT END IN OUR LIFETIMES ... IT WILL LAST THE CENTURY ....

    why?
    Because THE OIL IS STILL THERE.

    So if we "accidentaly" gave the other side a whole stockpile of weapons ... well then ALL THE BETTER ... it just means MORE PEOPLE SHOOTING AT US ... which means?

    MORE REASON TO STAY THERE AND SHOOT BACK.

    Think about it.

    Oh, but I thought it wasn't about the oil ????
  • jlew24asujlew24asu Posts: 10,118
    Oh, but I thought it wasn't about the oil ????
    of course its about oil. that has never been denied.
  • jlew24asu wrote:
    of course its about oil. that has never been denied.

    Dude, that made my day. I wish I could count the number of people on this board who've said Iraq wasn't about oil.
  • jlew24asujlew24asu Posts: 10,118
    Dude, that made my day. I wish I could count the number of people on this board who've said Iraq wasn't about oil.

    really? I'm here quite often and I never see it. Iraq is about Oil, saddam, al queda, WMD bullshit, mid east interests,. oil is one of many.
  • I was merely playing the anonymous observer with my previous statement. I also think it was about oil, at least in part. But apparently that was lost on many people here who have commented time and again that it wasn't so.
  • Pacomc79Pacomc79 Posts: 9,404
    In the eyes of the administration IT IS NOT A FUCK UP. IT IS THE PLAN!

    Look.
    The point is to STAY IN IRAQ FOREVER.
    Cheney said it ... THE WAR WILL NOT END IN OUR LIFETIMES ... IT WILL LAST THE CENTURY ....

    why?
    Because THE OIL IS STILL THERE.

    So if we "accidentaly" gave the other side a whole stockpile of weapons ... well then ALL THE BETTER ... it just means MORE PEOPLE SHOOTING AT US ... which means?

    MORE REASON TO STAY THERE AND SHOOT BACK.

    Think about it.


    But the administration only has a year or so left? That, and they've behaved so irresponsibility with their drunken use of power the next administration will have all sorts of precedents on which to reverse much of what they have done or have tried to do and we can have even more ineffective shitty government to have fun with.

    I'm convinced eventually we will elect another great diplomat who will work out good deals for the oil rather than using force.

    Lets face it, Bush never has been a good business person, even now years after his ownership... the rangers still suck.

    How you leave a nation or a company is a pretty good reflection on how you led it.
    My Girlfriend said to me..."How many guitars do you need?" and I replied...."How many pairs of shoes do you need?" She got really quiet.
  • CosmoCosmo Posts: 12,225
    Come on people... such negativity. Look at the bright side...
    We arm both sides of the Civil War that'll break out when we leave and which ever side wins... WE WIN.
    And if we stay over there forever to make sure the Civil War never breaks out... WE WIN.
    ...
    You people just can't see a WIN/WIN situation if it blows shrapnel from a bomb hidden in a car into your face.
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    Hail, Hail!!!
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