Report: 14,000 Weapons Given to Iraqi Forces Are Lost
This article is from the archive of The New York Sun before the launch of its new website in 2022. The Sun has neither altered nor updated such articles but will seek to correct any errors, mis-categorizations or other problems introduced during transfer.
WASHINGTON — More than 14,000 weapons supplied to Iraqi security forces by the American military have disappeared, according to a report by a congressional watchdog.
It blamed inadequate transportation operations and equipment tracking and said the Pentagon had failed to establish a proper logistics system for the fledgling Iraqi armed forces.
The special inspector general of Iraqi reconstruction, Stuart Bowen, said problems, which included the lack of a functioning health-care network for Iraqi troops, had handicapped efforts to hand over security operations to the Iraqis.
There has been strong criticism in America of the Iraqi security forces’ inability to meet the insurgent challenge almost four years after the invasion.
But Mr. Bowen’s report laid substantial blame for the failure at the door of the Pentagon.
“Upward of 320,000 Iraqi security forces have been trained to date, but if they can’t be supplied and sustained in operations in the field, then we’re not going to get the full value of that investment,” he said.
In a country awash in weaponry — after the war the American military failed to secure the vast weapons and explosives caches built up under Saddam Hussein — the “missing” weapons are a small part of the total armory.
