Are U.S.-Supplied Arms Killing American Troops in Iraq?
In case you missed the shocking story in today’s Washington
Post about stockpiles of arms that were given to Iraqi security forces by
the United States and simply disappeared, Glenn Kessler’s report sums up the
irresponsible and even reckless ways in which U.S. officials distributed lethal
weapons without making sure that they would not end up in the hands of
America’s enemies. As Kessler reports, “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.”
It was mind-boggling enough, when we learned earlier that huge sums of money disappeared mysteriously in Iraq during the early post-invasion phase, but it is even more shocking that American troops are presumably killed and maimed by insurgents who use those “disappeared” arms.
While Washington complains rightly that Iran supplies insurgents
with explosive devices used to kill American soldiers, American-supplied weapons found their way into the hands of the enemy—whether
home-grown insurgents or al-Qaeda in Iraq. Kessler writes that a “senior
Pentagon official acknowledged that some of the weapons probably are being used
against U.S. forces.”
That’s precisely why it is not enough to stop the flow of weapons from America’s adversaries to insurgents and terrorists. Unless the United States curbs its own poorly monitored supply of arms and equipment for military and police forces of so-called moderate Arab factions and states in the region, the most extremist elements will continue to benefit. For that reason I argued a while ago against supplying the Palestinian Authority’s security forces, seemingly under the control of President Mahmoud Abbas, with weapons and other equipment. Just as large quantifies of rifles and pistols disappeared from Iraqi military units, material earmarked for Abbas’s security forces could well end up with extremists outside the president’s control--unless an effective monitoring system can be put in place.
Finally, there is no guarantee that weapons and equipment made available to Lebanon's military that is faced by al-Qaeda-inspired terrorists, would not end up with Hezbollah and/or other terrorist groups.
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