It’s an unfolding investigation, with many conclusions still to be drawn, but the implications of this story are absolutely huge. It’s about thoroughgoing corruption in the procurement of weapons for the Iraqi armed forces. We’ve already heard about how the U.S. “cannot fully account for about 110,000 AK-47 rifles, 90,000 pistols, 80 items of body armor, and 115,000 helmets reported as issued to Iraqi security forces as of Sept. 22, 2005.” Which would seem to explain the countless kidnappings and wanton massacres carried out by men wearing legit Iraqi army and police uniforms. Well, apparently it goes deeper than that, and American officers may themselves be involved in criminal wrongdoing.
General David Petraeus, hailed by war supporters as some sort of god among men, has some interesting things to say:
General Petraeus has said that the imperative to provide weapons to Iraqi security forces was more important than maintaining impeccable records.
In an interview on Aug. 18, General Petraeus said that with ill-equipped Iraqi security forces confronting soaring violence across the country in 2004 and 2005, he made a decision not to wait for formal tracking systems to be put in place before distributing the weapons.
“We made a decision to arm guys who wanted to fight for their country,” General Petraeus said.
Or fight against American troops, it seems. This extraordinary and much-discussed op-ed [$], by seven service members questioning the very purpose of the war, contains the following passage:
A few nights ago … we witnessed the death of one American soldier and the critical wounding of two others when a lethal armor-piercing explosive was detonated between an Iraqi Army checkpoint and a police one. Local Iraqis readily testified to American investigators that Iraqi police and Army officers escorted the triggermen and helped plant the bomb….
[…]
As many grunts will tell you, this is a near-routine event. Reports that a majority of Iraqi Army commanders are now reliable partners can be considered only misleading rhetoric.
So not only did the U.S. disband the Iraqi army, sending thousands upon thousands of armed Iraqis home without jobs. In the name of providing order and security, it then flooded Iraq with more weapons, without the proper accountability checks in place, leaving the process open to widespread corruption and, ultimately, facilitating attacks on American soldiers.
Something to remember when rabid rightists accuse war opponents of failing to support our troops in the field.
[Update: The plot thickens … some of the missing weapons have turned up in Turkey. The continual border tension between Turkey and Iraqi Kurdistan may soon get worse….]
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