Pentagon Can't Find Weapons Given To Iraqi Forces 04/05

[Cpl Kendall]

CNN

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -- The Pentagon cannot account for 190,000 AK-47 rifles and pistols given to Iraqi security forces in 2004 and 2005, or about half the weapons earmarked for soldiers and police, according to a government report.

The Government Accountability Office, the investigative arm of the U.S. Congress, said in a July 31 report to lawmakers that the Defense Department also cannot account for 135,000 items of body armor and 115,000 helmets reported to be issued to Iraqi forces as of September 22, 2005.

The GAO said the Pentagon concurred with its findings and has begun a review to ensure full accountability for the program to train and equip Iraqi forces.

"However, our review of the 2007 property books found continuing problems with missing and incomplete records," the GAO report said.

The report raised concerns that weapons provided by the United States could be falling into the hands of Iraqi insurgents, just as lawmakers and policymakers in Washington await a September report on the success of President Bush's so-called "surge" strategy for stabilizing Baghdad.

One senior Pentagon official told The Washington Post some weapons probably were being used against U.S. troops. He said an Iraqi brigade created in Falluja disintegrated in 2004 and began fighting American soldiers.

Many in Washington view the development of effective Iraqi army and police forces as a vital step toward reducing the number of U.S. troops in Iraq.

Since 2003, the United States has provided about $19.2 billion to develop Iraqi security forces, the GAO said. The Defense Department has recently asked for another $2 billion to continue the train-and-equip program.

Congress funded the program for Iraqi security forces outside traditional security assistance programs, providing the Pentagon with a large degree of flexibility in managing the effort, the GAO said.

"Officials stated that since the funding did not go through traditional security assistance programs, the DOD accountability requirements normally applicable to these programs did not apply," the GAO report said.

Military officials in Iraq reported issuing 355,000 weapons to Iraqi security forces from June 2004 through September 2005, including 185,000 rifles and 170,000 pistols, the GAO said.

But the Defense Department could not account for 110,000 rifles and 80,000 pistols, the GAO said. Those sums amount to about 54 percent of the total weapons distributed to the Iraqi forces.

The GAO quoted officials as saying the agency responsible for handling weapons distribution was too short-staffed to record information on individual items given to Iraqi forces.

Accountability procedures also could not be fully implemented because of the need to equip Iraqi forces rapidly for combat operations, the GAO found.

You've got to be shitting me. Seems like the entire occupation has been one long comedy of errors. But seriously, how long does it take to log on a sheet the weapons serial number and who you issued it too?

[frigidmagi]

Don't work like that, we give them in bulk to the Iraqi command and they hand them out to the troops. They're suppose to keep the records on who got what and often they don't like sharing. Sometimes the Iraqi government doesn't even tell us what province they've shipped the bloody weapons to.

Another reason I think we gave them self government to soon.

[Cpl Kendall]

So the Iraqi's could have done what they were supposed to do with the weapons but not bothered to keep records, or did but told the US to piss off. We don't know because the article doesn't really tell us, rather opting for alarmism. Or the Iraqi's could have just handed some of the weapons over to the insurgents, which is what the article is implying with the whole "lost" weapons angle.

Edit: as for the governance. It's obvious that the Iraqi's aren't ready to run their own affairs but at the same time the entire handling of Iraq by the US has been a gigantic clusterfuck. I'm tempted to say that the country should have been run entirely by the military instead of the mismash of State/Militar/Private Corporations that we got. It couldn't have been any worse and it worked for Japan.

[frigidmagi]

So the Iraqi's could have done what they were supposed to do with the weapons but not bothered to keep records, or did but told the US to piss off. We don't know because the article doesn't really tell us, rather opting for alarmism. Or the Iraqi's could have just handed some of the weapons over to the insurgents, which is what the article is implying with the whole "lost" weapons angle.

Given that a good number of the police forces have been inflirated by Shitte milita... Yeah it's more then possible. There's a reason why the US military has resorted to outright arming of local Sunni tribes that swear loyality.

Edit: as for the governance. It's obvious that the Iraqi's aren't ready to run their own affairs but at the same time the entire handling of Iraq by the US has been a gigantic clusterfuck. I'm tempted to say that the country should have been run entirely by the military instead of the mismash of State/Militar/Private Corporations that we got. It couldn't have been any worse and it worked for Japan.

Should have appointed a military governor and told them there would be elections in 5 years if, IF, they behaved themselves. But honestly Europe, Canada, and most of the UN would never had stood for it and the US government didn't want to admit right at the beginning that we would be there for 5 years.

This war has been a case study in why lying your ass off to your population (especially with a free press), not planning, hiring halfwits and refusing to listen to your military are all bad ideas.