The Pentagon should know how many weapons there are in Afghanistan. Right? Maybe not...

[zulchzulu]

Well, maybe not. Obama made the suggestion in the debate in Austin that US troops in Afghanistan do not have enough weapons and protection. The Pentagon released a statement disagreeing with that assertion.

Obviously, the Pentagon keeps good records and certainly can attest where all the weapons are going in the so-called War on Terror, right?

Well...maybe not so much.

Maybe they forget a little story last August where the GAO said that the Pentagon doesn't know where 30% of the weapons are that were sent to Iraq from 2004 onward.

Weapons Given to Iraq Are Missing
GAO Estimates 30% of Arms Are Unaccounted For
By Glenn Kessler
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, August 6, 2007; Page A01

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 author of the report from the Government Accountability Office says 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.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/08/05/AR2007080501299.html

I guess we can count on the mainstream media to check out these stories, although they are a couple months old. The Pentagon certainly should know all about how many weapons are accounted for in Afghanistan based on their Iraqi Occupation records. Right? So they are missing 30% in Iraq. Afghanistan is...um....different.

[spindrifter]

1. Oh, no, all it takes is a little

reprogramming. That's right! The "missing" 30% are in Afghanistan, along with a brazillion Kalashnikovs and who knows what else. When I was there a few months ago, I talked to a number of civilians, all of whom had their own guns...but only vague accounts of where they actually came from. Only one of them was "licensed."