US purchased 190 thousand guns to arm Iraqi security forces went “missing”!

GOA report to Congressional Committees stresses that DOD can not guarantee that US funded weapons reach Iraqi security forces.

Here’s the bottom line on this particular mess;

110 thousand AK-47s and 80 thousand pistols purchased with US tax payers money in order to arm Iraqi security forces are simply “unaccounted” for by US Army.

Also, 135 thousand body armor vests, and 115 thousand helmets are also “missing”.

October 2006 Congress report stated that in 2003, 14 thousand firearms went “missing” in Iraq.

It also has to be mentioned, that out of more then 370 thousand guns US provided to Iraqi forces, serial numbers of only 10 thousand were registered by Pentagon, thus automatically leaving 360 thousand as unaccounted for.

That by effect allows Iraqi forces to use their US issue weapons against US forces with out any accountability, specifically because serial numbers of their weapons are not registered.

The rearming of Iraqi security forces contract topped $22 billion dollars by the way, while leaving the overwhelming majority of the firearms simply unaccounted for.

During all this mind you, US command continues to make unsupported allegations that it is in fact Iran that’s arming Iraqi insurgents, while not a single shred of evidence was ever presented.

Same old, same old.

Here’s the report; www.gao.gov...

“Lord of War” anybody?

They use our tax dollars to arm Iraqi insurgents in order to prolong the war.

Simply put, it would be the same if any given American city purchased guns to arm its Police force, did not take down the serial numbers, and then “lost” thousands of them while criminals and gangs became armed to the teeth shortly after.

Can you say "alarmist". Yes, the report states that there was a time period where there were not proper accountability procedures in place. You're statement completely ignores the well established fact that the vast majority of weapons captured by the US can be traced to 1. The Saddam Hussein era 2. Iran and/or 3. China. If you read a little closer, the orders were given to maintain accountability (although there was a time gap when the original orders had lapsed), but orders were not given to consolidate the property books being the main point of the investigation.

"Two factors led to DOD’s lack of full accountability for the equipment
issued to Iraqi security forces (see fig. 2). First, until December 2005,
MNSTC-I did not maintain a centralized record of all equipment
distributed to Iraqi security forces. Second, MNSTC-I has not consistently
collected supporting documents that confirm the dates the equipment was
received, the quantities of equipment delivered, or the Iraqi units receiving
the equipment. "

Originally posted by iskander
During all this mind you, US command continues to make unsupported allegations that it is in fact Iran that’s arming Iraqi insurgents, while not a single shred of evidence was ever presented.

No, there was no evidence presented in this investigation, but that's not what it was about. Yes, there is PLENTY of evidence that arms of all shapes and sizes have been pushed from and through Iran.



[edit on 3-8-2007 by crusader97]

Originally posted by crusader97
Can you say "alarmist".

Can you say Half A Million Assault Rifles?
This 110,000 rifles is in addition to the 250,000 of them that 'vanished' earlier. Yeah, you can say alarmist if you like but trying to pass off the complete vanishing of almost half a million assualt rifles as some kind of clerical error? That's enough small arms for an army, literally. I couldn't seem to find it but about the same time as I posted that thread, there was also a thread here on ATS a while back about there being a recent shortage of 7.62 ammo because Uncle Sam was buying it up like popcorn. Hell of a cooincidence. Perpetuate profitable warfare by arming your opposition, or clerical error that lost half a million rifles... I know what I'd bet on.

“Alarmist”? What are you implying exactly?

Please stick to the topic and leave personal angles out of it.

[Quote] Yes, the report states that there was a time period where there were not proper accountability procedures in place.

Did we read the same document? I was referring to this one;

www.gao.gov...

Page 2 clearly states that MNSTC-I did not keep centralized record of weapons supplied to the Iraqis before 2005, blaming it on “insufficient staff and the lack of fully operational distribution network”.

Here’s what it means in layman's terms.

1. A guy orders a gun from a catalogue. Shipping terms clearly show a requirement for delivery confirmation, AKA signature of the recipient.

2. The shipping company delivers the package, but instead of getting the recipient to sign for the package, the driver had to just throw the box on the steps because he was late making other deliveries.

3. The gun simply disappears, and when the shipping company is confronted with the loss, they just say that they did not have enough staffing to assure delivery confirmation and any kind of record keeping for that matter.

4. The gun ends up on the streets and is used by criminals to kill people, while another gun is simply shipped as a replacement to the guy that originally bought it.

5. Nobody ever finds out if the gun was indeed picked up by somebody else, or if it was simply stolen by the driver since he knew that no records are kept of the deliveries.

How does that sound?

Only in 2005 did MNSTC-I set up property books and attempted to recover “lost” records.

I’m using quotations with “lost” simply because in the day and age of bar scanners, RFID tags and computerized data base systems, loosing things becomes increasingly difficult, especially when we are talking such massive amounts of stuff.

Loaded AK-47 weights about 4.5 kilos or 10 pounds.

110 thousand of them weight 495 tons or 1,100 pounds, and that’s with out shipping crates.

Average combloc tank weights around 45 tons, so going by net weight of the guns them self, it would be an equivalent of “missing” 11 tanks!

Tanks can move under their own power, while guns have to be MOVED by somebody, so are we to believe that somebody moved over 500 tons of gear with out anybody noticing?

We’re talking a convoy of trucks and a warehouse type scenario here, not a lost pair of socks.

[Quote] You're statement completely ignores the well established fact that the vast majority of weapons captured by the US can be traced to 1. The Saddam Hussein era 2. Iran and/or 3. China.

Proof please. Dates, numbers, facts, all would be appreciated.

Let’s start form the fact of disarmament of Iraqi population by coalition forces right after Saddams fall, allowing 1 weapon per household.

EVERY single day allied patrols go out to specifically sweep Iraq of illegal weapons.

How does Iran and China supply weapons to Iraq exactly?

If you read a little closer, the orders were given to maintain accountability (although there was a time gap when the original orders had lapsed), but orders were not given to consolidate the property books being the main point of the investigation.

crusader97, it seems that you just selectively pick snippets to support your opinion.

Lets make this one work. In order to understand this snippet;

"Two factors led to DOD’s lack of full accountability for the equipment
issued to Iraqi security forces (see fig. 2). First, until December 2005,
MNSTC-I did not maintain a centralized record of all equipment
distributed to Iraqi security forces. Second, MNSTC-I has not consistently
collected supporting documents that confirm the dates the equipment was
received, the quantities of equipment delivered, or the Iraqi units receiving
the equipment. "

One first has to read this snippet:

“Although the former MNSTC-I commander reported that about 185,000 AK-47 rifles, 170,000 pistols, 215,000 items of body armor, and 140,000 helmets were issued to Iraqi security forces as of September 2005,18 the MNSTC-I property books contain records for only about 75,000 AK-47 rifles, 90,000 pistols, 80,000 items of body armor, and 25,000 helmets.19 Thus, DOD (Department of Defense) and MNF-I (Multi-National Forces - Iraq) cannot fully account for about 110,000 AK-47 rifles, 80,000 pistols, 135,000 items of body armor, and 115,000 helmets reported as issued to Iraqi forces as of September 22, 2005.”

crusader97 which pages did both of these snippets came from? Meaning which one came first?

If you still choose to ignore these facts, I recommend watching a few movies, moving pictures and a thousand words in one package.

“Catch 22”, “Pentagon Wars”, “Buffalo soldiers”, “Air America”, “Mash”, and more.

All of the above clearly show the history of blatant thievery in our armed forces. Enjoy.

All i can say is:- oops or duck

Let me just say I have been to Iraq, I have worked alongside Iraqi units. That being said, I know for a fact that at least 25% of the people in The Iraqi Army are part of terrorist/extremist organizations.
There is a lot of corruption that is deep seeded and I am far from surprised that there are missing ak's. There are a lot of local systems in place to disseminate U.S. weapons and ammo directly from the U.S. hands to the Iraqi black market.
I have dug up several weapons caches at mosques containing U.S. munitions (ak-47, NATO rounds both 5.56 and 7.62, mortars, automatic weapons and explosives). The corruption here lies mostly with the Iraqi's themselves.
I will admit that the U.S. has full knowledge of this and continues to supply them however.

wow thats just incredible...so much firepower stolen
yeah somthing like what happens in lord of war must have happend hahaha all thoe guns gone?
how long did it take for them to notice them missing? did they open a crate and find bars of lead to make up for the weight or somthing?

Yahoo News
Italy probe unearths huge Iraq arms deal
By CHARLES J. HANLEY and ARIEL DAVID, Associated Press Writers
18 minutes ago
PERUGIA, Italy - In a hidden corner of Rome's busy Fiumicino Airport, police dug quietly through a traveler's checked baggage, looking for smuggled drugs. What they found instead was a catalog of weapons, a clue to something bigger.

Their discovery led anti-Mafia investigators down a monthslong trail of telephone and e-mail intercepts, into the midst of a huge black-market transaction, as Iraqi and Italian partners haggled over shipping more than 100,000 Russian-made automatic weapons into the bloodbath of Iraq....
For one thing, The Associated Press has learned that Iraqi government officials were involved in the deal, apparently without the knowledge of the U.S. Baghdad command — a departure from the usual pattern of U.S.-overseen arms purchases.

I don't know if this is the same 100,000 AK's they are talking about or not but this news just broke today. What a world this would be if there were no profit in war.

I don't think it was the AK-47s which got lost. The AK-47 is a 7.62 mm weapon and the Soviets stopped making this in 1974 when they introduced the AK-74. The AK-74 is a 5.45 mm weapon. This is what you see now days since its been over 30 years since the AK-47 has been replaced, and all the ex-soviet comrades who make copies have also converted to the AK-74 caliberation. If the Jihadists stole AK-47s, its not much of a loss, I hope George was insured.

They we're given to the proxy force that will invade or help with regime change in Iran, we just can not say "yeah we gave them to the enemies of our enemies."

Of course then again maybe they were just stolen.

[edit on 26-8-2007 by dmxny]

I have not read all replies yet, but I was wondering... if maybe they went "missing" to help either get America out of or force them to stay in the Middle East?

I know the whole keeping them in Iraq doesn't need to be explained, but I'll explain my other idea.

Perhaps they want to say, "Well, hey! They are just too #ed up and powerful out here, we should all come home and let the other mid-east countries take care of this!" Or something to that effect.

It seems more likely it's a way to keep troops in- but excuse me for a glimmer of hope that it'll get us out, no matter how bloody that exit strategy is.