Iraq caught making massive black market arms deal

[ck4829]

"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.

As the secretive, $40 million deal neared completion, Italian authorities moved in, making arrests and breaking it up. But key questions remain unanswered.

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.

Why these officials resorted to "black" channels and where the weapons were headed is unclear."

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070812/ap_on_re_mi_ea/iraq_operation_parabellum

For some reason, when I first heard this, I quickly remembered a story that went down the memory hole faster than you can say "quagmire." I think this has something to do with Maliki's shadow government that has been almost completely forgotten. Here's a refresher if you need to remember.

"Iraq's prime minister has created an entity within his government that U.S. and Iraqi military officials say is being used as a smokescreen to hide an extreme Shiite agenda that is worsening the country's sectarian divide.

The Office of the Commander in Chief has the power to overrule other government ministries, according to U.S. military and intelligence sources.

Those sources say the 24-member office is abusing its power, increasingly overriding decisions made by the Iraqi Ministries of Defense and Interior and potentially undermining the entire U.S. effort in Iraq.

In a joint news conference, Iraq's ministers of interior and defense vigorously denied allegations the Office, as it is known in Baghdad, is run to achieve sectarian goals.

"It is a consultation office and coordination, nothing else," said Defense Minister Abdul-Qader al-Obeidi."

http://www.cnn.com/2007/WORLD/meast/05/01/iraq.office/index.html

[The Magistrate]

1. We Are So Out Of Our League Here, Sir, Even Laughter Is Failing

You are quite correct to connect these two stories.

Everything going on in Iraq at present is best understood as major contenders seeking to improve their positions for the intensification of civil war that will follow the withdrawl of U.S. forces. The leading Shia parties are using their government positions to recruit, train and arm their militias. Various Sunni elements are now 'co-operating' with the U.S. in order to secure arms and training for their militias. Both groups intend shooting it out with the other on a much grander scale than they can at present as soon as opportunity presents itself. We are being played from so many directions it is not possible to keep track.

[libodem]

2. When I have thought about the

militias the picture in my head was of about 50 rag tag civilians banded together for a common cause. But in a post yesterday I read something like 50,000. And armed with automatic weapons. Can we say barbed-wire in the quagmire. We are SO fucked.

[The Magistrate]

3. Indeed, Ma'am

This is not a handful of loony old boys playing in the woods at resisting the United Nations on weekends. These are private political armies, many with tribal roots in a society of nomad warrior tradition in which tribal identity is still a major social structure, of much more importance to most people than any state structure. Fifty thousand is not a patch on the number of men under arms in these forces. Most of the police and soldiers of the 'new Iraq' formations we have been creating are militia members whose principal loyalty is to their private sectarian and tribal leadership. Large portions of those militias so associated with the government remain outside the official bodies, and then there are groups that remain wholly outside the official umbrella, through extremist character of various sorts, or tribal rivalry with government groups. Add to these Shia elements the Sunni bodies such the Anwar Salvationists, and the various Kurdish factions, and a figure of roughly a million men under arms seem reasonable as a global total, and that without taking into account groups devoted solely to attack occupation forces and their native allies.

[libodem]

4. I was watching the 4 part series

in the video section ( concerning a documentary) rehashing what a grave mistake it was to disband the Iraqi Army and the Debathifcation Program. It just put all of those disenfranchised men in complete opposition with the invading occupation. So many horrible mistakes were made at the beginning of the 'power curve' that the effect is exponential in it's increase of disastrous results. Any red-blooded American in the same position, of fighting off an occupation in their home country, would absolutely fight to the death. How can we blame THEM? They are being Patriots. Quagmire is an inadequate description of this utterly inept fiasco.

[will_in_chicago]

6. I am worried as well

The civil war could turn into a war by proxy with Iran backing the Shia, Saudi Arabia backing the Sunnis, and the Kurds hoping that Turkey does not invade.

[seemslikeadream]

5. Victor Bout

Where are you?

http://www.pbs.org/frontlineworld/stories/sierraleone/bout.html