Billions In Iraq Military Equipment Missing - DOD Can't Account for Weapons Transfers

[MetaTrope]

I don't recall seeing this in LBN...did it get overlooked?

Billions In Iraq Military Equipment Missing

Days after acknowledging that it has not delivered more than one third of the equipment promised to Iraqi security forces, the Pentagon admits it can’t account for $19.2 billion worth of equipment including nearly 200,000 weapons.

The Department of Defense was supposed to deliver the equipment to Iraq’s army and police as part of a program to develop and train the country’s security forces. Instead, Baghdad officials have long complained that the equipment has not arrived and therefore the forces are ill equipped and poorly trained.

Now a thorough congressional investigation finally reveals the program’s appalling state of disarray, including the fact that no centralized records were ever kept and that at least 190,000 weapons are missing.

DOD Can't Account for Weapons Transfers

The Pentagon "cannot fully account for Iraqi forces’ receipt of U.S.-funded military equipment and weapons," the Government Accountability Office reports in the understated conclusion of a new study released Tuesday.

Specifically, the GAO audited data kept by the Multinational Security Transition Command-Iraq's (MNSTC-I) up until September 2005, and found the US could not account for 190,000 weapons that had been supposedly transferred to Iraqi control by that date. Though a centralization of records after that was supposed to improve accounting, GAO has found that incomplete follow-up makes it impossible to know if US-issued weapons are ending up in the right hands.

The report comes almost a month after PKK defectors first told a stunned Turkish media that their rebel group had received US-issued weapons, leading Ankara to request US officials investigate the report.

Pentagon officials visited Ankara this week as part of what the US embassy characterized as an "ongoing investigation that had been launched a number of months ago about possibly missing weapons." According to Turkish sources, the US delegation acknowledged that corruption by some American personnel may have played a role in getting US-issued weapons into PKK hands.

Turkey? Turkey? Where have I heard them mentioned before?

[Amonester]

1. ummmm... 19.2 BILLION$... 200,000 weapons....

Many possibilities to search for them:

1. Blackwater?
2. Royal Saudis smuggling them to the Sunnis in Iraq?
3. Cheney's closet?
4. All of the above?
5. None of the above?

My 2 cents on: 4.

[in_cog_ni_to]

2. $19.2 BILLION would have built a very nice bridge in Minneapolis.

:(