The Pentagon cannot account for 14,030 weapons (in Iraq)

[ProSense]

Audit finds missing U.S. weapons in Iraq

By JOHN HEILPRIN, Associated Press Writer 2 hours, 9 minutes ago

WASHINGTON - Nearly one of every 25 weapons the military bought for Iraqi security forces is missing, a government audit said Sunday. Many others cannot be repaired because parts or technical manuals are lacking.

A second report found "significant challenges remain that put at risk" the U.S. military's goal of strengthening Iraqi security forces by transferring all logistics operations to the defense ministry by the end of 2007.

The Pentagon cannot account for 14,030 weapons — almost 4 percent of the semiautomatic pistols, assault rifles, machine guns, rocket-propelled grenade launchers and other weapons it began supplying to Iraq since the end of 2003, according to a report from the office of the special inspector general for Iraq reconstruction.

The missing weapons will not be tracked easily: The Defense Department registered the serial numbers of only about 10,000 of the 370,251 weapons it provided — less than 3 percent.

more...

This is Baghdad. What could be worse?

[Fridays Child]

1. Yes, they can. They just don't want to.

They've been stolen and sold on the black market. Insurgents who are picking off Americans have those weapons.

[Kutjara]

2. My guess is that about 60%...

...of the weapons are in the hands of Iraqi insurgents, and 40% have been sold to gangs and other miscreants back here. Just spreadin' the love.

[leftchick]

3. what a shock!

NOT! And how about all of the unsecured weapons depots? No one mentions the fact that those depots and the loss of a few hundred thousand pounds of explosives are the reason for the massive amounts of IEDs in Iraq. Forget the freakin foreign sources it is THERE! We gave it to them!!!

Bring Them Home!!!!

[FloridaPat]

4. Don't forget the 40,000 disserters from the US forces.

I'm really suprised that's all that's "missing" after 4 years of war. Considering the trucks, car, vans, helicopters etc are in bad shape because the sand has eaten them thin to non-working, I would suspect the same for the guns too.

And how the hell can the DOD not have the serial numbers of 360,000 weapons? Wouldn't they be on the purchase order? The receipt? How do they even know there are that many guns there? Wasn't there something about the troops bring their own guns?

[w4rma]

5. Want to bet those parts and tech manuals were stolen to fix insurgents' weapons

when they broke down from too much use?

[Miss Chybil]

6. I doubt they even came with manuals. Or, they lost them.

Whatever happened, the missing manuals aren't the problem...

[BrotherBuzz]

7. Two bits says the number of weapons lost is off by a power of ten

Cynical, I am.

[Jeffersons Ghost]

8. K&R

[Recursion]

9. This is the military?

The Defense Department registered the serial numbers of only about 10,000 of the 370,251 weapons it provided

Ummm... this is the same DoD that required 3 hand receipts when I wanted a damn canteen cup?

[gratuitous]

10. Well, your canteen cup isn't protected by the Second Amendment

And the military didn't want any UN busybodies swooping down in black helicopters to confiscate weapons from law-abiding and freedom-loving Iraqis, so they cleverly didn't keep track of who they gave the weapons to, what the serial numbers were, or anything else. Just try and disarm these people now, you libruls!

Seriously though, is there anything that hasn't been a total fuck-up in Iraq?

[spanone]

11. So my question is, where the hell are they, and why don't they know?

And what, if anything, will John Warner do about it?

[radfringe]

12. When you take into consideration

that they can't find ONE guy, living in a cave in Afghanistan -- it's not surprising they can't find 14,030 weapons in Iraq when the Commander'n Chief can't find his own butt with his hands in his back pockets