190,000 US Weapons MISSING
By Nicole Belle Sunday Aug 05, 2007 9:02pm
Guardian UK: (h/t Gregory)
The US has lost about 190,000 weapons issued to Iraqi security forces since the 2003 invasion, according to an official report published in Washington.
The weapons include AK-47 machine guns, pistols, body armour and helmets, some of which will have ended up in the hands of insurgents.
The disclosure adds to the picture of the chaotic and clumsy administration of Iraq that has been emerging over the last four years.
You think?
The 20-page report is entitled Stabilising Iraq: department of defence cannot ensure that US-funded equipment has reached Iraqi security forces. It says that the Pentagon and the multinational force in Iraq responsible for training "cannot fully account for about 110,000 AK-47 rifles, 80,000 pistols, 135,000 items of body armour and 115,000 helmets reported as issued to Iraqi forces as of September 22, 2005."The US during this period was desperate to get the Iraqi security forces up and running and was arming them as fast as it could.
The failure of the US to account for so many missing weapons is an embarrassment for the White House after months in which it has repeatedly accused Iran of supplying weapons and explosives to the insurgents.
Sickening...
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Well....What the fuck do you expect when your Congress and the AssClowns of the ReichWing are in the pockets of.....
These evil bastards.
This is easy to explain. Our masters don't care if this war is won or lost. The primary goal is to sustain our involvement there and make as much money as possible. You do that by making sure that the Iraqis kill each other. The Pentagon probably has given these weapons to all sorts of groups, even ones killing U.S. soldiers.
A.Citizen @ 1:
And if you want more of this why just vote for this famous candidate.
Wasn't General Petraeus incharge of training while this was taking place?
Iraq security forces probably sold them to terrorists so they could feed their families for a few days.
The President’s MAN IN THE FIELD, General Betray-Us, was in charge of those ONE-HUNDRED-AND-NINETY-THOUSAND weapons that got “lost” in Iraq.
WHAT THE FUCK? That weasle should be court-martialed! The Democrats better be prepared to question him about this issue when he comes to Congress in September... as a matter of fact, WHY ARE THEY NOT ISSUING SUPENAS NOW?
In the US, a citizen will get SERIOUS FEDERAL PRISON TIME if found posessing EVEN ONE weapon stolen from a federal armory.
A HUNDRED AND NINETY THOUSAND AUTOMATIC WEAPONS AND BODY ARMOR MISSING???
Doesn’t ANYBODY take responsibility for ANYTHING anymore? ONE THIRD of the weapons distributed to Iraqi units in “training” have DISAPPEARED!!
HEADS SHOULD ROLL!! and Betray-Us should be the first one on the chopping block.
Did anybody see Wes Clark on KO tonight....he explains it very well.....1st it was ammo dumps loaded with bombs ooopppsss.....IED's ..2nd...what was it 9 or 10 million dollars ooppsss might aswell fund the terrrists..3rd....190,000 fucking weapons......unfuckingbelievable.........lets just arm those assholes so they can shoot at our troops...heckof a job booshit.
If anybody's interested I'm having a special this week: AK-47's $495, 45 automatics $200, and RPG's $850. Get 'em while their hot.
gord @ 4:
Why yes he was. And the mission was called hasty, haphazard and not at all following the rules for handing out high powered rifles to an entire fucked up and fucked over populace...Or I heard words to that effect.
Who knew they had rules for that sort of thing...
:roll:
Damn that Bill Clinton and his roving p*nis!
-GSD
OOOOPS
AbbeyHoffmansGhost @ 8:
you better be carefull what you say...their watching and most likely will come and pay you a visit....
"The failure of the US to account for so many missing weapons is an embarrassment for the White House..".
Bush's White House, "embarrassed"? Who is this fool trying to kid?
For that matter, embarrassed by whom? Certainly not by congressional democrats, the gutless wonders who lack the will to fight when the chips are down.
I caught this story last week at Effwit
LongTooth @13,
You have it partially right. They just forgot who they gave the weapons to. I think that they may have also forgotten where Iraq is and what we were doing there in the first place.
Actually Mudshark, it was 9 BILLION dollars lost by Bremer and his crack team of pros.
Someone in the NRA is smiling :)
Cowboy Boy -- stop hating on the troops, man. They're trying their best and it's comments like yours are what made all these weapons mysteriously vanish. Scientists funded by the Ministry of Truth have revealed that criticism of the government has a direct correlation with government incompetence. Do you know what this means? It means that BLOG POSTS LIKE YOURS MAKE GEORGE BUSH A BAD PRESIDENT.
Shocking, I know.
What can you do? Well, the first thing that you can do is to pressure the site-owners to turn over this blog to the Ministry of Truth so that it can be examined for seditious and dangerous content. Then we can release pre-approved pro-administration blog posts that you can then add to this site that will better reflect the truth. So what do you say? Are you going to strike a blow for freedom, friends, or are you going to continue emboldening the insurgency movements?
Whilst the fact that enough arms to run a decent war have been lost is appalling on its own, I find the fact that the US govt supplied AK-47s instead of a US design quite interesting too. I mean, AK-47s are made everywhere & hard to identify where they come from at the best of times. At least if a US design was used you could easily pick out whether insurgents were using then against US forces.
=my2c
BC
Blink TWICE... and the Bush Administration coughs up ANOTHER UNBELIEVEABLE EXAMPLE OF COMPLETE INCOMPETANCE!
And I would bet a Green-Back American Dollar that this story doesn't even get up into the MSM news cycle in the next couple of days. Keith reported on it tonight, with commentary from Wesley Clark... and C&R has the story here... and then it gets dropped like a HOT POTATO... because the Surge is going SO WELL.
Clark said that the Bushies IGNORED all the lessons to be learned from military actions in Kosovo and Bosnia (including his own experience in COUNTING THE GUNS UNDER YOUR CONTROL.)
If you don't STUDY History, then you are condemned...
Here's another report that you guys haven't covered:
http://www.globalpolicy.org/security/issues/iraq/occupation/report/full.pdf
from the Executive Summary
I'm sure some retired general will get demoted for this. Then it's business as usual...carry on....nothing to see here.
O.k. so we have this. We have the instance were the two british itel guys were caught disguised as muslims going around shooting innocent civilians.
Any notice a pattern?
Cowboy Bob in Austin @ 20:
Wow.
I am continually amazed how often lately I get the opportunity to do this, but...
-George Orwell
it's like Noam Chomsky says,
Its a scene from the movie, "Lord of War".
Sounds like a variation of Operation Gladio is in the works for the Middle East to me...
So, who sold the US 110,000 AK-47's that were suppose to go to Iraq?
Russia? China? Cuba? North Korea?
Your tax dollars at work.
It's not imcompetance, it's intentional.
vivek @ 25:
Where is Noam when you need the guy? I have lost all respect for this man.
wow!!! that is news-- thank god weapons would never be MISSING like that in the good ol usa-- and how many high schools are there in america??? i wonder if msnbc is covering this??? just think how many terrorists these missing weapons will arm . . .
It was on General Petraeus' watch that this loss of weaponry happened and is to be held accountable. It is quite clear that he is criminally incompetent-- he has enabled the enemy --what sort of general is that? He should be arrested and put on trial, and if he cannot be trusted to record the serial numbers of those weapons, why should we trust anything else he does or he says, like e.g. the surge is working? For the good he does, Ben Laden himself may as well be in charge of our forces!
Chuck @ 27:
False flag terrorism?
St. Petraeus was in charge of this debacle. Does he write his own condolence letters to the families, or does he delegate that too?
Chris @ 29:
Ditto
In the words of Jon Stewart doing Herr El Uber Prezidente 4 Life George Busch:
"heheheh."
This is from 2003:
How much do you want to bet if you were to do a chemical signature trace on *all* car bomb IEDs blown up in Iraq, the vast majority of the explosives used for those have come out of that stolen cache?
One school of thought is that for the Neo-Cons the war is going perfectly, because this sort of chaos is what *exactly* they wanted, all along.....
Now, I'm a gonna go puke.
~Nyc
What great "progress"! Ya gottta love it!!!
Now, excuse me while I go beat my head against a wall a couple hundred times. :D:D:D
The Champ is out.
mr.ed @ 34:
NO he just does what Rummy did...preprinted,printed signature..............I'm sure he has a stack ready to go
Nycholas W. Alberts @ 36:
Or maybe they are insane and everything's going according to plan.
The Pentagon bills our own troops for damaged and missing equipment. So, all they have to do is send a bill to the Iraqis responsible for losing their equipment, and us taxpayers will recover our money, right?
*crickets*
Chris @ 2:
I believe they not only don't care, but that it's a deliberate policy. That's what keeps us there "maintaining stability" and hanging in until the oil rights are conceded to multinational interests. I was reluctant to believe this (I first heard it from Randi Rhodes at Air America) until the evidence began to build. This is just another brick in the wall. In addition, the presence of permanent US bases in Iraq will (supposedly) discourage Iraq and other oil producers from switching from the dollar to the euro as the currency of choice for oil payments, and the continued strife, (perpetuated partly through the indiscriminate spread of our weapons to combatants in the area) provides cover and a superficial "reason" for the construction of those bases.
It is SO agregious, IT LOOKS INTENTIONAL...
What it IS is a WAR CRIME.
Losing track of NINE BILLION DOLLARS in that situation WAS A WAR CRIME.
Accidentally KILLING 900,000 innocent civilians IS A WAR CRIME.
Allowing "civilians" to SACK historical museums was a WAR CRIME.
Making billions of dollars in PROFIT for providing "security services" is a WAR CRIME.
I really don't think they're THAT SMART... I think they are THAT DISHONEST.
Marco @ 16:
Thanks Marco...thats actually what I though but I said to myself nawwwwwwww...that can't be right.......so I figured I'd lowball it....sheeesh...unfuckingbelievable.....no really.
I'd like the answers to where those weapons came from??
were they captured and re issued? Were they purchased from china? did they arrive from the old soviet block? where were they manufactured?
you just don't lose that many weapons...redirect them to another army, send them to another destination, but lose??? Only the naive would believe that.
The other component is during the past 6 months there were discussions on the defense bill over issuing nice new "American designed" weapons using the.223 round.
The reason was the Iraqi's did not have enough weapons, or the weapons they had were worn out... that reason fails to stand now that the GAO report is out..
seems the AK 47 is going to be as ubiquitous as the old M-1,
perhaps the missing weapons will turn up on the streets of iran during the revolution
They just blew off 9 Bill...I guess they figured they'd make it back in the long run
One detail I find curious is that AK-47s are included in these arsenals instead of M-16s and its many variants.
Why would the US arm its ally (the Iraqi security forces) with the favorite assault rifle of terrorists and former Soviet-bloc armies instead of assault rifles that visually declare "Made in the US" or "We're on the same side!"? Could it be that they don't want to confuse the matter later on when they anticipate having to shoot at the same guys they currently consider allies? Is this the lesson of Afghanistan and the Russians? Yeah, I know that the AK-47 is a much more rugged and in some aspects a better weapon than the American-made M-16s (just read BLACKHAWK DOWN to know why and how), but it just seems very odd to me.
mc
Fox News Alert @ 28:
Why wouldn't the US supply the Iraqi army with better made weapons from somewhere like the US, Britain, Israel, or Germany?
Perhaps it's because they want the source to be suspect for the very reason that they specifically intend to supply some part of the insurgency.
Charles @ 47:
The AK47 is a better weapon.....jams alot less.....which raises the question.....why aren't our guys armed with them.
In Semptember General Petraeus will refer to this debacle as "slow progress." We'll be hearing a lot of that buzz phrase in the coming months as the Bush regime strategizes to change the goalposts and kick the ball down the road. Pardon the sports analogy.
and now they have body armour too.....gggggrrrrreeeaaatttttt!
This is same old same old news. Remember when the GAO determined that over 1 trillion dollars was unaccounted for by the Pentagon? How about that plane full of US currency that went missing under Paul Bremer's nose? These guns haven't been given to anybody, they've been SOLD in the black market, where middle men-- I won't say whom, because it might not be patriotic-- are pocketing the cash, sending it to offshore bank accounts, or smuggling the cash back into the States. I spoke to a very patriotic elite soldier back from Iraq (Purple Haeart, a true hero, etc.) who described Iraq as a modern version of the Wild West and told me, "If the people of the United States really knew what was going on in Iraq, there would be a revolution." And he was dead serious.
Were they really given AK-47s, or is that the general name the reporter is using to identify all Kalishnikov firearms? Were they issued newer models like the SU or 74?
I guess the real questions is, Why these specific assault rifles? But I suppose I'm repeating myself.
WHAT???? NO UNIFORMS?
They've been supplying the insurgency from the get go...
O! Freedom!
BC @ 19:
Actually AKs can be identified by thier tool and die markings. Romanians have different markings than Chicom etc...
anyway....I'd be interested in the source of the ones currently
missing...this gives an idea why...http://www.smallarmssurvey.org/files/sas/publications/o_papers_pdf/2003-op10-russia.pdf
Wow, this arsenal could probably solve each and every crisis in Africa if given to the needy hands. God. USA has become barely a logo at this point and that is really unfortunate.
Well, since Bush and Cheney and Snow have likely not read this report, they can simply dismiss it and act like nothing is wrong.
"Haven't had a chance to read it. Things are looking up in Iraq. We are turning a corner. I see progress. Give us six more months. Major combat operations have ended. Strolling the streets of Baghdad is like a summer weekend spent at the Mall of America. Blah blah blah."
Congressional Hearings in September:
"General Petreaus, before we get into the line of questioning retarding your SPECTACULAR SUCCESS with THE SURGE in securing safety and security in Baghdad... would you tell me, sir, WHO SIGNED FOR the missing automatic rifles, pistols, and body armor that was reported missing in August... and, also, where were the AK47's purchased... and how much did you pay for each one of them?"
Answer:
"Senator, we have become aware that one of our PFC's in the Baghdad Green Zone Armory failed to secure those items, and we are conducting a full investigation to determine whether or not any Spec. 4's or E-5's were involved in this unfortunate incident. If we find any illegal activity as a result of this investigation, I guarantee that we will bring the full weight of Military Justice down on these law-breakers."
Bob you ole dawg, showing your age and experience with that speedy 4 lingo...
ever since they did away with spec 5s and the like all spec 4s are now just specialists..
(grin)
Call me cynical, but I'd be willing to bet that these weapons didn't just "disappear". Somewhere, someone has a nice wad of cash stashed away from the sale of these weapons. After all, we are selling arms to nearly every side of every conflict in the Middle East, why would it be a surprise that so much has gone unaccounted for?
General Betray Us Mr. September Genius strikes again
Maybe they're in the same place as those pallet loads of $100 bills that they lost.
Somebody better start counting our aircraft carriers.
Lovely.
First it was just the missing $8 bln (pallet of money) missing.
Now this. It seems like every day is another big story of total incompetence and nincompoopery (I better be careful coining new words like that, bush will steal them) from this administration.
What will tomorrow bring? Pakistan selling nukes to Iraqi separatists? More skullduggery in the republican party?
Soon they will all be feeling the nice warmth that Rev. Falwell is feeling now.
myiq2xu @ 62:
i see our minds were on the same thing. We never did hear any more about that pallet did we.
"The failure of the US to account for so many missing weapons is an embarrassment for the White House " Nothing is an embarrassment for this white house. They have no fear, they have no shame, they will never be held accountable.
LOL! what about the missing 9 BILLION dollars? HILARIOUS!
Cowboy Bob in Austin @ 58:
Media coverage of testimony:
Look - Hillary has tits!
Melton @ 46:
This caught my attention as well. I can only assume it is because the AK is cheaper to make and less reliable than the M-16.
(BTW: To the original source of the article, an AK-47 is not a "machine gun", it's an "assault riffle".)
Gee, creative contracting. The company making the multi-billions to produce the weapons in the first place simply get to double the order. What the heck, the American taxpayer will get the check and leave a 50% gratuity.
mudshark @ 53:
no wait.... they have them too...
[...] Court Contact the Webmaster Link to Article white house 190,000 US Weapons MISSING » Posted at Crooks and Liars on Monday, [...]
That's all?
What does "...will have ended up" mean? Either a thing (insurgents/al Qaeda/boogeyman) are stealing the weapons and whatnots or someone is keeping very poor records.
I wonder if chimpy will say the "insurgents" are sabotaging our financial records.
That many weapons should never come up short like this. These are the weapons they supplied to the Sunnis.
chimpy: We must be vigil in our plight of killing the onslaught of terrorists or terrorist like quality around the world. We will only use diplomacy if nukes are mutual otherwise all other, duck.
I want to thank congress. Thank heaven you haven't any backbones. You know what side your bread is buttered on. Wait until September rolls around and I will pull another bullshit one-liner out my ass just for my 29%er buddies. Yahoo! September??? September??? Why does that month seem special? I can't remember...darth? turdblossom? Help me remember.
BTW -- Do y'all remember when the snowman of the uninformed said mockingly with that chimpy/gonzo smirk on his face that the dems should be doing the peoples' work. As if that was real funny.
Mugsy @ 68:
The AK is as reliable as it gets, reliability and acccuracy are two very different things ;-)
Most of those weapons are from the Saddam era, i.e. that is the arsenal Iraq possesed. It is just that now the arsenal went from the Iraqi army onto the insurgents... Keep it up George! Inverse king Midas touch indeed...
mudshark @ 12:
I see chimpy got to you.
Hey, remember our "War Czar"? Has anybody asked him about this??? 110,000 AK-47 rifles, 80,000 pistols, 135,000 items of body armor and 115,000 helmets - jesus fucking Christ, the insurgents are better armed than our guys! What I'd like to know is which scumbag member of the Iraqi "government" is working part time as an arms dealer? This much military hardware just doesn't go missing; it has to be deliberately rerouted elswhere. Man, it's at a point where you just can't even get angry anymore. All you can do is throw up your hands and say "Well, what the fuck!" Goddamnit! I don't even want to think of what can happen next! MOTHERFUCKER!
Uh oh send England, Israel, and Poland to invade us. Not only have we helped Al-Qaeda rebuild but now we are arming them.
http://www.crooksandliars.com/2007/06/06/the-tragedy-of-col-westhusing/
These 'leakages' aren't new, but the good news is, not all of it has ended up in the hands of insurgents. The best gear's in the hands of 'contractors'.
We were told Iran was supplying weapons only to find out it was the USA all the time. General Petraeus was in charge and messed up now he's in charge of all of our troops.
Now many more mistakes will he make before he get replaced. Bush is going through all the Generals just to keep the troops in the Iraq Civil War. For anyone who's interested 4 soldiers died today. We are losing 3 to 4 soldiers a day while US/Iraq leaders are on vacation.
The AK is a Russian made weapon so that makes me wonder,,,,, did we buy these from the ruskies to give to Iraqi troops and if so why? What is the real reason our troops and our government would give away AK-47s. If in Afghanistan we found Chinese made weapons would we say the Chinese were supplying them when maybe we had bought them and given them away? What the hell is really going on here.
And to the poster who says the AK is a better weapon than the M-16..... I totally disagree.
The middle American numbskulls at Free Republic are bashing the congresswoman who raised this concern to the President.
Do they know that their children and grandchildren are gonna foot the bill for this? Not to mention all the troops from the red states that go and die over there.
I cant wait for the new season of American Idol.
I assume that our grunts are still totin those Mattel toy rifles that were so despised by Vietnam era infantrymen. The stocks and forearms were plastic and would break all to pieces. I remember one hot little skirmish where they had piled the rifles of the wounded and dead grunts together and practically all of the plastic stocks and forearms had been shattered from the rifles. I had to stare a little while and wonder which planet our grand planners came from? At least in the GI's mind the AK-47, with its wooden stock and forearm, was a much superior rifle although it was heavier. Whoever sold those rifles should have at least sold the m-16s and kept the AK-47s for the GIs. It would have been practical, but it wouldn't have been patriotic! Don't talk patriotic in front of a soldier, most of them would probably spit!
An artillery Captain friend from Vietnam who served multiple tours in Vietnam and spent much of one tour in Danang, told me that it was not unusual for supply people to return to the states as millionaires!
You can listen to an interview between CBC and the pentagon auditor at cbc.ca/asithappens.
It was interesting to note when the reporter asked about whether these weapons were used by the insurgents to kill US soldiers. The answer was it is classified. I would suspect that to mean yes. His answer about using AK-47's is that the Iraqi soldiers were more familiar with AK-47's. If my child or husband was killed in Iraq I would be demanding that this information be declassified.
Fan_of_Man @ 67:
[Deleted. Conspiracy theory]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:M16_and_AK-47_length_comparison.png
Sweet, sweet gun. This incident alone can extend the war by 2 to 3 years. Geez. If Poles and Holes got their hands on 110,000 AK-47 rifles and 80,000 pistols in 1939, WWII would have never happened, the brief episode would have been called 2 Front Anti-Nazi Slaughter. This incident can very well ruin every American, but what the hell, there is always Nascar and American Idol to distract the mass from the reality.
Gomer Petraeus?
Organized fuckup - what a way to profit.
We've probably given or sold the insurgents and the militias a weapon to fight us with that is superior to our own. Not since General Custer do I remember an equal madness. Some of General Grant's cronies were selling the Indians weapons. The weapons that the Indians were getting were the new lever action Winchester rifles, vastly superior to the Seventh Calvary's old civil war issued rifles.
If we do not exit Iraq very soon, an enraged citizenry and an enraged military will make political hell for those clones who want guzzle at the trough a while longer. The Kurds let it be known today that they would not consider psas for the oil of their region which amounts to nationalization of the oil. The Iraqi Prime Minister's spokesman stated that no oil legislation would even be considered until the occupiers of Iraq, leave. It is over! Bush's only hope is to start a bigger war using the Saudis to try to finagle the crude. Dream on, but the Saudis were not born yesterday and they are not about to let us steal their oil! Do not let your dreams become an even more traumatic nightmare for our nation. The world is derisively laughing at us. Even their laughter is deadly!
Then on the other hand, I'm a Libra, if you want a perpetual war and permanent bases so WE can control that oil, it works out just fine. Black boy in Jenna La., I think, maybe Miss. one of those KKK controlled states is serving a life sentence for getting in a fight with a white boy...after an effigy was hung from a tree in the school yard. I'm beginning to feel like the Jews under Hitler...time to get out of the country.
This sure feeds every paranoid conspiracy theory I try not to believe, for sanity's sake. egads, what is next?
gord @ 4:
Yup indeedy! Our very own Bushified savior... General David Howell Petraeus ran the operation "Guns for needy tots and insurrgents in Iraq." It sort gives ya a nice warm glow knowing that he's now in charge of everything!
Charles Bowman @ 83:
I think most of the carry M4's now:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M4_carbine
metal stock
1.2 of a GUN per 1 US Soldier... given away to the enemy. Call it whatever you want, I call it creating unfair advantage.
Can anyone tell me why the Bush regime is so though on our soldiers?
[Deleted. We thought you "got it". Restrict your blogwhoring to the open thread]
[This poster only blogwhores. I'm ready to ban-Sitemonitor]
The Kalishnakov automatic rifle was originally produced in the Soviet Union. But nowadays many gun manufacturers around the world make variations of the AK-47 assault rifle, including US companies. These weapons could have come from several different sources. Try watching the History Channel once in awhile.
Two movie quotes:
"The AK-47 is the preferred weapon of our enemy. It has a very distinct sound when fired."
From "Heartbreak Ridge"
And
"The best of all things will happen. The war will go on."
Robert Shaw as the German tank commander in "The Battle of the Bulge"
IMO Patreaus had no hand in this. I am not at all convinced that a man of his character would knowingly allow this to happen. He doesn't have that much control over the situation. But if any blame ever gets passed around, I'm certain it will land on his shoulders. I consider our military as much a victim of this abortion of a war as the people they have been sent to "protect". I refuse to lay the blame for the consequences of this imperialistic invasion on the very people who have devoted their lives, however misguidedly, to protecting the United States of America.
Question: Same 200,000 AK47s as Before OR 190,000 Additional Weapons?
Remember the 200,000 AK47's reported in '03 or '04 that were purchased, not distributed, but then lost? Is the mainstream just picking up the old story or is this a new development? Are they for false flag attacks or possibly even replacements for the thousands of guns and shovels needed to dump next to the bodies of innocent Iraqi civilians killed indiscriminately on the sides of the roads?
JK
I don't know who is more incompetent, Bush or the stupid people running the military.
Completely fricken amazing. There have been cases in the US Army where whole bases have been closed down to look for a single missing firearm. I myself have gotten an article 15 when I was in the army for accidently grabbing the wrong rifle during a training exercise. Yet here we have 190,000 missing firearms and who is being held accountable for all of this? Personally I think the whole chain of command leading up to the lack of accountability for these weapons should be court martialed and stripped of rank, and any supposed allied forces who received these weapons but couldn't keep account of them should be completely cut off from any further assistance and the Iraqi government should be pressured to send those responsible for 'losing' all these weapons to jail.
However, one would have be living in a cave for the last six years to believe anyone is actually going to be held accountable for all of this.
I guess in most conflicts there are those who profit from fueling all sides.
steve @ 94:
Doesn't this mean we ought to invade ourselves to stop us from supplying our enemies?
Let's cut off the insurgency at its source: Washington!
Brace yourselves folks, we are in this shit for the long haul, like it or not.Bush met with all these fools last week including the democratic party to which there is a small group of them that still don't get it , these right wing media thugs have been re-set in position to attack from all angles and, to lay the his laws down and by God he pulled the shit off.
Who cares? They’re only going to be used to shoot our soldiers. Since when do we give a damn about those? They only cost a couple dollars a bag last time I was at the grocery store.
As a more serious aside, the CIA and US intelligence community used to keep warehouses of AK-47s and other soviet-produced equipment during the Cold War. They’d use it during dirty operations to frame insurgents and revolutionaries as being ‘funded and supplied by the USSR’ when they wanted cover for helping their dictator pals suppress them.
It's not inconceivable they still keep stuff like that around. Of course, now we're not so interested in framing the Soviet Union. Iran however…
"Hun, have you seen my AK-47?"
Seriously though, I'm not a gun expert but isn't the AK-47 a Soviet weapon? I thought it strange that the US is supplying those weapons instead of M-16s. I also thought it was a rifle and not a machine gun.
It just seems strange the US military has inventory of these rifles and that our forces and American trained Iraqi forces are actually using them.
So I guess we've misplaced several MIG fighter jets as well.
Chip @ 105:
We use AK-47's to mask where the weapons are coming from. We arm all sides. Bullet sales are up along with the poppie crop.
I know where those weapons are: They're being pointed at our troops.
At an average weight of 4,300 grams each...
that's FIVE HUNDRED TWENTY-TWO TONS OF AK-47's!
How do you lose 500 TONS of automatic rifles?
With 16" barrells, laid end to end... you would have a straight line of 'just barrels' that stretches over TWENTY-EIGHT MILES!!!
How do you lose 28 miles of BARRELS??
AK's have a firing rate of 600 rounds per minute. If all of these weapons emptied a continuous burst of a 30-round magazine simultaneously, you could expend over THREE MILLION ROUNDS in THREE SECONDS!
(It was once estimated that the average "kill rate" during WWII was one dead enemy combatant for 1000 rounds fired. At that rate, we're talking about THREE THOUSAND DEAD AMERICAN GI'S DURING THOSE THREE SECONDS.)
General Betray-Us LOST THAT KIND OF FIRE-POWER under his command? Why is he still wearing those stars?
Fox News Alert @ 28:
How about... Iran?
Remember how the US always claims that Iran is supplying the insurgency?
So the US buys them through a cover and then gives them to the insurgents.
They cannot just give them to them but they can simply 'lose' them.
And whacha know? They find Insurgents carrying iranian made AK47s that came from Iran...
Similar to the Iran-Contra scandal.
Never forget who you are dealing with here people. They are truly the ones this site refers to with the 'crooks and liars' title.
Face it people, the US is run by thugs.
@why AK47's?
because they know the weapon, can get parts and ammo for it easier.
The AK47 IS the weapon of choice around the world.
Cowboy Bob in Austin @ 108:
The article suggest that the weapons were lost around 2005, when General Patraeus was in Fort Levenworth. Thus ultimate responsibility for this debacle would fall under General Casey I believe. Right now we probably won't know about Pattraeus' screwups for another year, hopefully in time to have an effect on the 2008 elections.
Cowboy Bob in Austin @ #107
" 522 tons of AK-47's
The cargo capacity of a C-17 is 85 tons.
So that would mean 6 to 7 plane loads.
The AK-47's were not lost.
[...] 4. Put 130,000 weapons, and other military gear into the hands of insurgents and terrorists. [...]
And I should be worried about weapons from Iran?
If anyone wants to know who's been funding the insurgents, just look at the enormous caches of weapons, body armor, and money that we've lost.
This administration is always blaming others for their failures. They've been ramping up their fingerpointing at Iran, while all this time it has been the INEPT handling of this war that is the sole cause of the insurgency.
But... due to their intense love of Jesus and their fanatical worship of Cult Leader Bush, the Republican party is incapable of understanding this simple 1 + 1 equation.
Doesn't arming the enemy constitute treason? Or has that definition been modified to apply only to Democrats who ask when we might leave?
mudshark @ 12:
I welcome them with open sights.
Good fodder for conspiracy corner. U.S. military use a lot of AK-47s?
If they _wanted_ to continue the chaos, they couldn't do a better job than see that nearly 200,000 weapons find their way to the other side. Who sells them the ammo? Or do they have enough of that from the dumps that were left unguarded in the race to Baghdad?
That little gem was reported on CNN yesterday. Just one of those 'one-time', 'oh by the way' one little sentence deals. That was all you heard the rest of the day about it. Interesting that. There was a big article from the AP this morning about how the escalation actually maybe working and the military wants two more years to continue.
Isn't it obvious why these weapon went missing? Two words: Bill Clinton.
Jerry, the reason you heard very little about it is because the media has a liberal bias.
They are not missing. They are right next to the WMD's. See, that was easy.
I was trying to get a grasp on exactly how many 190,000 guns would look like...so I imagined 190,000 pennies...stacked 10 high (like when I used to roll pennies as a kid...hell, in college...) and that gave me a better perspective....
someone should hang for this. I vote for cheney...Bush...Rummy...or all three.
Wheee!!! I feel so much safer with Bush in charge and Congress giving him complete and absolute control of the government!
Can someone explain why we provided AK-47's in the first place? Where did we get those from - a CIA garage sale?
How else would the insurgency be able to fight to justify the occupation- better AK-47's than IED's? oh wait they have both...
Charles @ 40:
Not to mention that an enlisted troop who loses his/her weapon will do jail time.
AbbeyHoffmansGhost @ 115:
What kind of price break can I get on large quantity on the RPGs?
Well of course 190,000 small arms have gone missing...the guys who stole those pallets of cash we airlifted into Baghdad can't exactly guard the money with stick and stones, ya know! I mean, any idiot in possession of billions of dollars in cash in a chaotic war zone would pay particular attention to security issues lest all that money fall into the wrong hands - D'UH!!!!
Well, almost any idiot.
Terrible @ 125:
For you my friend I can do 15% off if you take a gross, 25% off for 10 gross or more. These are brand new in unopened boxes and for a limited time for each gross you buy I will throw in a free box of grenades. Hurry while offer lasts.
So, what are the odds that a good chunk of that missing 9 billion $ ends up being laundered into Republiscum election campaigns?
These fuckers make Nixon look like a boy scout.
To my point about Nixon:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YuyjxWoGZ2w
What I want to know…
Are these weapons in addition to the 200,000 AK-47s that went missing
a year or so ago courtesy of a Bosnian air transport company
contracted by the Pentagon and still held unaccountable…
…or is this a revision downward of the same mismanagement action, with
the perpetrator of the disappearance's name cleansed from the PR
packet?
…OR: Is it a mathematical addition problem that the Pentagon is
obfuscating on purpose, or relying on the 'fog of war' to obscure?
190,000 + 200,000 = 390,000…
Also: Could these folks have been involved with running Osama
bin-Laden's KLA buddies around Central Asia at the CIA's behest just a
decade or so ago?
Questions Questions Questions…
In Full: http://leighm.net/wp/2007/08/06/bozniaks_47s/
gord @ 4:
Yes, he was. that must be why he's the man we all trust now.......this is so pathetic. We don't need to be complaining about Iran providing weapons and training, we are doing it to ourselves!! Could anything be more FUBAR?
Bill O'Lielee @ 35:
yup!
The civil war was deliberately planned. Part of the strategy was to shoot at Americans so as to enrage them. In 2006 Anderson Cooper on CNN showed Israeli/camera rifles shooting at Americans:
http://www.blacklistednews.com/view.asp?ID=1263
That's why there are permanent bases, to maintain permanent instability. This will continue for generations.
*
This is a great way to recruit new soldiers for the US Army. To think our military is better equiping the insurgents than their own.
these weapons aren't missing...they were diverted. we are arming somebody for some future war or black op, guaranteed,
So, 190,000 guns are missing, in a nation that is already awash in weapons?
How did anyone notice?
WTF is the US doing with AK-47's in the first place? Aren't those soviet made weapons? Also, it's so totally fucking obvious - the military industrial complex DOES NOT WANT THIS WAR TO END! They're not "losing" weapons to insurgents, they're giving the insurgents weapons through back channels to keep the war going ad infinitum. Just like Prescott Bush a few generations ago who literally got away with funding both sides of WWII. It does not stop... War is big business for a select few. Apathy is horrendous. People, wake the fuck up!
I would agree with Shane and Plasticsoul because I've always believed that the US, er, "coalition" is behind the "Sunni Insurgency."
AbbeyHoffmansGhost @ 128:
Let me check with my Mozambique bank connection and I'l get back to you.
RickinSF @ 139:
ummmmm, yup! - you smart! you real smart! -- now im gonna send the gestapo after you.
America arming the "New Boogieman"!!! --- making them appear scarier than ever before. So the American sheep can have a months worth of mind-numbingly stupid tv and to get sheep all scared and hysterical!!!
Attack Iran ! Attack Iran!!
The sheep have spoken.
Im leaving this fucking stupid ass country.
xand316 @ 115:
Who armed, trained and supported Osama and the Mujahedeen?
Who supported and financed Saddam?
Who supported the Taliban?
Who supported South American, African, European and Asian dictators, theocracies, oligarchies and other madmen?
Aiding and abedding makes you equally guilty of what those you support do.
Those above might have been thugs, but the godfather of the mafia is still alive.
Funny thing is they all come from just a few countries and even worse they come from countries who claim to support freedom and liberty.
If we want peace in this world we have to get rid of the godfather and make sure they can never come back.
We should start with BushCo.
xand316 @ 115:
Yes it is and our goverment supplied a world full of scum with weapons, money and whatnot.
As long as our thugs can do what they want there will never be peace.
frank @ 143:
The world exists as it does today b/c of our foreign policy since WWII. We need a serious change in how we conduct our world affairs.
Earlier I posed a query:
Also: Could these folks have been involved with running Osama
bin-Laden's KLA buddies around Central Asia at the CIA's behest just a
decade or so ago?
Questions Questions Questions…
A little closer to a definitive answer:
Viktor Anatolyevich Bout (born January 13, 1967 in Dushanbe, USSR; now Tajikistan, according to his official passport. However, Bout stated in a 2002 radio interview that he was born near what is now Ashgabat, Turkmenistan, and a 2001 South African intelligence file listed him as Ukrainian in origin[citation needed]. He is a Russian arms dealer, nicknamed “the Merchant of Death.”
Recent reports suggest he is also operating in Iraq using front companies and Cargo Airlifts (Airline Transport, Air West, Aerocom and TransAvia Export). Bout came to officials’ attention in the 1990s, when he was accused of supplying arms to rebels in West Africa after a cease-fire agreement had been brokered. At that time he owned or was using many airlines, including Air Cess and Centrafrican, which were later forced to shut down by authorities. He was also the official arms supplier and dealer to the deposed regime of Charles Taylor in Liberia.
In May 2006, when 200,000 AK-47 assault rifles went missing in transit from Bosnia to Iraq, one of Bout’s airlines was the carrier.[1]
[…]
A list of his customers includes such notable regimes & groups as:
Some of Bout’s arms customers include:
* Northern Alliance (Afghanistan)
* Taliban (Afghanistan)
* Abu Sayyaf (Philippines)
* UNITA (Angola)
* RUF (Sierra Leone)
* Charles G. Taylor (Liberia)
Some of Bout’s transport-only customers include:
* United States government, through intermediary sources, in Iraq
* KBR, Halliburton and FedEx, through intermediary sources, in Iraq
* UN in humanitarian deliveries to Angola and for tsunami relief
More, with linkage: http://leighm.net/wp/2007/08/09/bozniaks_47s_upd1/
Cheney probably stole them so that Halliburton could sell them again.
I think it's safe to say the only parts of this stash that will return at some point are the bullets....
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