Pentagon Loses Track of 190,000 Firearms in Iraq-Nam

The key to America’s strategy in Iraq-Nam is to train the locals to handle their own security. To that end, the US has spent $19.2 billion according to the Government Accounting Office. Of that, $2.8 billion has gone on weapons and related equipment. The Pentagon can’t account for about 30% of the equipment given to the locals. That’s 110,000 AK-47s, 80,000 pistols, 135,000 pieces of body armor, and 115,000 helmets.

The GAO estimated the lost weaponry by comparing the records maintained by General Petraeus (who was in charge of training 2004-05) of the arms and equipment he ordered against the property records of the Multi-National Security Transition Command for Iraq. The Pentagon has not commented on this news, but it has stated that it is “reviewing policies and procedures to ensure US-funded equipment reaches the intended Iraqi security forces under the Iraq program.”

Now, fairness demands that one consider the loss of materiel in combat. In a war, things get blown up, burned up, worn out and otherwise destroyed. When a tank goes, even if the crew gets out, side-arms may be lost, ammunition certainly is destroyed, and personal equipment like mess kits can’t be found. Such things don’t happen in peace-time at anywhere near the rate of loss combat has.

Is it credible, though, to think that 110,000 AK-47s have been destroyed in combat? If just 10% of that figure has found its way to the Madhi Army or Al-Qaeda in Iraq-Nam, 11,000 hostiles have been armed with America’s arsenal. Guerrilla warfare (and even conventional warfare after enough time has passed) relies on using captured equipment. One would rather find out that a few greedy members of the quartermaster corps shipped all 110,000 of the guns to collectors in the US. That’s too much to hope for.

At the end of July, the Defense Department admitted that only about 1/3 of the equipment ordered by the Iraq-Namese army has been delivered. The Green Zone Government’s ambassador to the US says this shortfall is hampering his compatriots’ ability to stand up for their regime. One wonders just how much worse things would be if all the ordered equipment had arrived in Iraq-Nam.

© Copyright 2007 by The Kensington Review, Jeff Myhre, PhD, Editor. No part of this publication may be reproduced without written consent. Produced using Fedora Linux.

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