Finally! M-16s! Bye, Bye Kalashnikov!

"Pictures from today's "Security Handover" ceremony in Karbala Province (via nahrain.com)--attended by PM Nouri al-Maliki--show a curious sight: Iraqi soldiers carrying M-16s!

It has been recently decided by the US military and the Iraq Ministry of Defense to phase-out the Kalashnikov as Iraq's basic infantry weapon, and to substitute it with the M-16.

The Kalashnikov is a great battlefield weapon, especially suited for Iraq's climate (...lots of sandstorms), but it was, how shall I put it, too cheap-looking. It was a symbol of a defunct Soviet past and the schooling of Iraq's military in the craft of Soviet warmaking. It also made no distinction between the legal military and the insurgency; both sides carried the Kalashnikov."
Talisman Gate