Newsgroup: it.politica.internazionale
Titolo: Sportività degli USA in Iraq

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/chi-iraq1aug06,1,7279286.story?ctrack=1&cset=true
WASHINGTON - 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 highest previous estimate of unaccounted-for weapons had been 14,000, in 
a report issued last year by the inspector general for Iraq reconstruction.
The new report from the Government Accountability Office indicates the 
United States has spent $19.2 billion trying to develop Iraqi security 
forces since 2003, the GAO said, including at least $2.8 billion to buy and 
deliver equipment. But the GAO said weapons distribution was haphazard and 
rushed, and failed to follow established procedures, particularly from 2004 
to 2005, when security training was led by Gen. David Petraeus, who now 
commands all U.S. forces in Iraq.
Talk about it at 'The Swamp'
The report also indicates that 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.
The Pentagon did not dispute the GAO findings, saying it has launched its 
own investigation and indicating it is working to improve tracking. Although 
controls have been tightened since 2005, the inability of the United States 
to track weapons makes it nearly impossible for the U.S. military to know 
whether it is battling an enemy equipped by American taxpayers.
"They really have no idea where they are," said Rachel Stohl, a senior 
analyst at the Center for Defense Information who has studied small-arms 
trade and received Pentagon briefings on the issue. "It likely means that 
the United States is unintentionally providing weapons to bad actors."
One senior Pentagon official acknowledged that some of the weapons probably 
were being used against U.S. forces. He cited the Iraqi brigade created at 
Fallujah that quickly dissolved in September 2004 and turned its weapons 
against the Americans.
'Very little is being done'
Stohl said insurgents frequently use small-arms fire to force military 
convoys to move in a particular direction -- often toward roadside bombs 
that target troops and vehicles. She noted that the Bush administration 
frequently complains that Iran and Syria are supplying insurgents but has 
paid little attention to whether U.S. military errors play a role. "We know 
there is seepage and very little is being done to address the problem," she 
said.
Stohl said that U.S. forces, focused on a fruitless search for weapons of 
mass destruction after Baghdad fell, failed to secure massive weapons 
caches. The failure to track small arms given to Iraqi forces repeats that 
pattern of neglect, she added.
The GAO is studying the financing and weapons sources of insurgent groups, 
but that report will not be made public. "All of that information is 
classified," said Joseph Christoff, the GAO's director of international 
affairs and trade.
In an unusual move, the train-and-equip program for Iraqi forces is being 
managed by the Pentagon. Normally, the traditional security assistance 
programs are operated by the State Department, the GAO reported. The Defense 
Department said this change permitted greater flexibility, but as of last 
month it was unable to tell the GAO what accountability procedures, if any, 
apply to arms distributed to Iraqi forces, the report said.
Iraqi security forces were virtually non-existent in early 2004, and in June 
of that year Petraeus was brought in to build them up. No central record of 
distributed equipment was kept until December 2005, and even now the records 
are on a spreadsheet that requires three computer screens lined up side by 
side to view a single row, Christoff said.
The GAO found that the military was consistently unable to collect 
supporting documents to "confirm when the equipment was received, the 
quantities of equipment delivered, and the Iraqi units receiving the 
equipment." The agency also said there were "numerous mistakes due to 
incorrect manual entries" in the records.
The GAO reached the estimate of 190,000 missing arms -- 110,000 AK-47s and 
80,000 pistols -- by comparing the property records of the Multi-National 
Security Transition Command for Iraq against records Petraeus maintained of 
the arms he had ordered. Petraeus' figures were compared with classified 
data and other records to ensure that they were accurate enough to compare 
against the property books.
Gaps in Petraeus' records
In all cases, the gaps between the two records were enormous. Petraeus 
reported that about 185,000 AK-47 rifles, 170,000 pistols, 215,000 pieces of 
body armor and 140,000 helmets were issued to Iraqi security forces from 
June 2004 through September 2005. But the property books contained records 
for 75,000 AK-47 rifles, 90,000 pistols, 80,000 pieces of body armor and 
25,000 helmets.
A military commander involved in the program at the time, speaking on 
condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss the report, 
acknowledged in an e-mail, "We did issue some items, including weapons, body 
armor, etc. to new Iraqi units that were literally going into battle."
But, the commander argued, "there was, frankly, not much of a choice early 
on: We had very little staff and could have held the weapons until every 
piece of the logistical and property accountability system was in place, or 
we could issue them, in bulk on some occasions, to the U.S. elements 
supporting Iraqi units who were needed in the battles of Najaf, Fallujah, 
Mosul, Samarra, etc."
During the Bosnian conflict, the United States provided about $100 million 
in defense equipment to the Bosnian Federation Army, and the GAO found no 
problems in accounting for those weapons.
Much of the equipment provided to Iraqi troops, including the AK-47s, 
originates from countries in the former Soviet bloc. In a report last year, 
Amnesty International said that in 2004 and 2005 more than 350,000 AK-47 
rifles and similar weapons were taken out of Bosnia and Serbia, for use in 
Iraq, by private contractors working for the Pentagon.

 
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