Flow of Weapons to Iraq Still a Problem

WASHINGTON (AP) — Weapons the U.S. provides to Iraqi security forces may still be ending up in the hands of terrorists, insurgents and criminals, the Defense Department inspector general told Congress on Tuesday.

While U.S. commanders have made progress in controlling the flow of tens of thousands of munitions into Iraq, "there still remains work to be accomplished," Claude Kicklighter said in prepared remarks obtained by The Associated Press.

Appearing behind closed doors for a briefing before the House appropriations defense subcommittee, Kicklighter said his office received complaints nearly a year ago from Turkish officials that weapons intended for Iraq's growing military and police forces were being used by militant groups in Turkey.

"We were also beginning to find some weapons that the U.S. had supplied to (Iraqi security forces) were in the hands and control of insurgent groups and U.S. contractors in Iraq," he said.

Investigators found that a contractor implicated in a bribery scheme in Kuwait had a contract to run a warehouse where weapons for Iraq's police force were stored, Kicklighter said.

Based on that information, Defense Secretary Robert Gates directed Kicklighter to examine how much oversight U.S. authorities had over the weapons bought with U.S. tax dollars.

In a July report, the Government Accountability Office said that until December 2005, U.S. commanders in Iraq had no centralized set of records for the shipping of weapons to Iraqi forces.

The Multinational Security Transition Command-Iraq said 185,000 Russian-designed AK-47 rifles, 170,000 pistols, 215,000 sets of body armor and 140,000 helmets had been issued to Iraq troops by September 2005, according to the report.

But due to incomplete record-keeping, the command couldn't be certain if the Iraqis received 110,000 of the rifles or 80,000 of the pistols. More than half of the body armor and helmets couldn't be tracked.

As of last September, the Defense Department still had not settled on how the security transition command should track weapons.

Kicklighter's prepared testimony does not mention specific weapons or the steps the military has taken to ensure the firepower gets to the right places.

A multi-agency assessment team that includes representatives from the inspector general's office, U.S. Central Command, and the State and Justice departments plans to return to Iraq in March for a follow-up review.

Beyond tightening the delivery of pistols and rifles, the United States needs to expand a more formal process for selling larger pieces of battle gear to the Iraqis, Kicklighter told the subcommittee. Known as "foreign military sales," this is a more regimented and transparent system used with other U.S. allies who spend their own money for American-made aircraft, tanks and ships.

In December, the Defense Department began adding dozens of personnel to a badly understaffed office in Baghdad to speed Iraq's requests for weapons, which have increased from $200 million to more than $3 billion over the past year.

Kicklighter also said Iraq's logistics chain needs improvement. Without a better way to store and issue gear, Iraqi authorities won't be able to outfit their forces properly, he said.

Reforming Iraq's antiquated system for supporting combat and police units is expected to take at least another year, however. In September, an independent commission chaired by retired Marine Corps Gen. James Jones called logistics "the Achilles' heel of the Iraqi ground forces."
AP