Friday, December 07, 2007

Free Guns to Good Home

CBS News has acquired the November 30th Inspector General Report on Iraq, also known as the "Management of the Iraq Security Forces Fund in Southwest Asia - Phase III.

You thought the billions in cash was the only thing that cannot be accounted for? Not only are we out billions of dollars in cold hard cash but it turns out those missing billions probably were driven away by fully armed "Iraqi Security Forces" in dump trucks and tractor-trailers.....provided by the US Army courtesy you and me. From CBS News:

Auditors for the Inspector General reviewed equipment contracts totaling $643 million but could only find an audit trail for $83 million.

The report details a massive failure in government procurement revealing little accountability for the billions of dollars spent purchasing military hardware for the Iraqi security forces. For example, according to the report, the military could not account for 12,712 out of 13,508 weapons, including pistols, assault rifles, rocket propelled grenade launchers and machine guns.

Italics mine.

Let me get this straight...the U.S. military can only account for less than 800 of 13,500 weapons they have supplied to the "Iraqi security forces." What did they do just open the warehouse and issue everyone a basket and a chit for whatever they wanted? Do the weapons we issue not have serial numbers or was it nobody could find a pencil? Is it fair to question whether these missing weapons are now being used by the insurgency against our forces?

This kind of crap just blows my mind. When I was on the Navy pistol team in Hawaii I had to sign for every bullet I was issued and I had random checks that the pistols I was issued were still in my possession and properly stowed and maintained. You would think the Iraqis would have had to at least sign a receipt or something for a whole damn rocket launcher. I wonder if this whole weapons issue mess was managed by contractors and not the military. This just is just too big a screw-up for me to think it was pure military alone.

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