Stumble it!Who says we haven’t done anything for the people of Iraq?
posted in Iraq by themaiden |Not so, I say. In fact, we’ve armed them. What could be more friendly?
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.
190,000 weapons?
Concerning the likelihood that insurgent forces have been at least in part funded by US taxpayers, “one senior Pentagon official … cited the Iraqi brigade created at Fallujah that quickly dissolved in September 2004 and turned its weapons against the Americans.”
How could this happen?
Well, “weapons distribution was haphazard and rushed and failed to follow established procedures”. Oh my! You mean we bungled something else?
Who was charge? The man now in charge of the whole force in Iraq, obviously.
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 H. Petraeus, who now commands all U.S. forces in Iraq.
Petraeus apparently kept no “central record of distributed equipment … for a year and a half, 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.”
In all fairness to Petraeus though. He was understaffed, under fire, and probably not prepared to handle this kind of thing anyway. Traditionally, the State Department, not the Pentagon, handles “security assistance programs” and so would presumably have been better at it, though with this particular State Department I am less than sure.
Elsewhere in Iraq, in what I can only describe as brilliant insanity, we seem to be arming militias on purpose. The US military, not apparently content with fighting the militias that arm and fund themselves has expanded “its efforts to recruit and fund armed Sunni residents” presumably so that these residents can protect their local neighborhoods. That is, so that they may act as a police force. The military has also ditched formal training– which has itself failed rather miserably– opting for “hiring them on contracts and providing them with uniforms without waiting for access to lengthy police and army training programs”. But it isn’t like they are completely without instruction. “You have the green light,” Gibbs answered. “But they have to follow the rules. You can’t just shoot anybody. No vengeance . . . But the bad guys — I don’t care. Go get them.”
Now…
According to a February-March 2007 poll, 51% of the Iraqi population approve of the attacks on Coalition forces. When broken down along sectarian lines, over 90% of the Arab Sunni, many of whom were among those who held power under President Saddam Hussein, approve of the attacks.
And we are giving them guns? On purpose? And paying them? I’m sorry. Something doesn’t make sense here.
This move is supposed to be “the most significant trend in Iraq “of the last four months or so” and one that could help propel slow-moving efforts at national reconciliation among Iraq’s main religious sects and ethnic groups.”
Again, I’m sorry. How does arming people who are already killing each other “propel efforts at national reconciliation”?
Not only is there a danger that the new militias will turn on us and on other Iraqis, there is also significant worry that the Iraqi government will target the new militia– the two groups do have a bad history, after all.
Targeting the Sunni recruits would be easy for the government after their names are provided for vetting, Campbell said. “What we have to make sure is they don’t take those names and turn around and say, ‘Hey, this is our targeting list.’ We’re very cognizant of that.”
U.S. Widens Push to Use Armed Iraqi Residents
Really, very little of this makes sense. It all smells strongly of very profound desperation. That and the ridiculous wishful thinking that has characterized this war from the get-go. “Oh, well… see… we’ll go in with 25 soldiers and a tank. The people will rise up, overthrow Hussein, Bush will marry an Iraqi prince and ride off into the sunset on a white unicorn to live happily ever after.”
[Edit: 8 August 2007-- a related post from the web.]Canossa: “Lord of War” Indeed.[/edit]
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