Pentagon Admits 190,000 Weapons Are Missing In Iraq

By Gita Smith

The Independent, a newspaper based in Britain, published the following report Tuesday from its correspondent, Rupert Cornwell, in Washington. It is follows reports on CNN and other media outlets that the Pentagon admits losing track of 190,000 assault rifles and pistols supplied by the US to Iraqi security forces in 2004 and 2005. The Pentagon further states that the weapons may have fallen into the hands of insurgents.

The disclosure, by the watchdog Government Accountability office (GAO) means that the Pentagon does not know what happened to roughly a third of the arms it has provided to train and equip Iraqi forces - an effort crucial to restoring some semblance of order in Iraq.

The unaccounted-for arms include 80,000 pistols plus an estimated 110,000 Soviet-made AK-47 assault rifles. Amnesty International reports that, during the same years of 2004 and 2005, more than 350,000 similar weapons were removed from Bosnia and Serbia by private contractors working for the Pentagon and sent to Iraq.

In addition, 135,000 pieces of body armour and 115,000 helmets have also disappeared, again perhaps to insurgents. To date, the US has spent more than $19 billion on developing the Iraqi security forces, including almost $3 billion for weapons. (I can't help thinking how much health care, school books, bridges and clinics that money would have bought the taxpayers of the USA.)

According to the GAO, the distribution of the weaponry was "haphazard and rushed,"
accusations the Pentagon does not dispute. Ironically, during the years under scrutiny, the weapons program was headed by General David Petraeus.

He's the man whose report we all await with bated breath in September -- the man whose version of the success or failure of the Iraq war is the axis on which we tilt.

Our Congress, reluctant to end the war thus far, keeps waiting for a "watershed moment."

How many such moments have already passed while this country sat lulled by the lies on Fox News? How many such moments have been ignored by the Pentagon and the Congress, when any competent group would have said ENOUGH, THIS IS THE TIME TO END IT, once and for all?

In my view, missing 190,000 weapons is not the performance of a military in control. It is the type of mistake made by incompetent, panicked, disorganized amateurs.

Gita M. Smith is a journalist living in Alabama. Her blog may be seen at http://www.Myspace.com/gitahandley