Let’s Make an Arms Deal updated
This is a classic. It came in yesterday, so if you haven’t read it now’s the
time.
Their discovery led anti-Mafia investigators down a monthslong trail of telephone
and e-mail intercepts, into the midst of a huge black-market transaction,
as Iraqi and Italian partners haggled over shipping more than 100,000 Russian-made
automatic weapons into the bloodbath of Iraq. … ..For one thing, The Associated Press has learned that Iraqi government officials
were involved in the deal, apparently without the knowledge of the U.S. Baghdad
command — a departure from the usual pattern of U.S.-overseen arms purchases.Why these officials resorted to “black” channels and where the
weapons were headed is unclear.(snip)
Iraqi middlemen in the Italian deal, in intercepted e-mails, claimed the
arrangement had official American approval. A U.S. spokesman in Baghdad denied
that.(snip)
Although this official refused to discuss details, he said “most”
of the 105,000 weapons were meant for police in Iraq’s western province of
Anbar. That statement raised questions, however, since Pentagon reports list
only 161,000 trained police across all 18 of Iraq’s provinces, and say the
ministry has been issued 169,280 AK-47s, 167,789 pistols and 16,398 machine
guns for them and 28,000 border police.(snip)
The Pentagon, meanwhile, has described the Interior Ministry’s accounting
of police equipment as unreliable.Here in Italy, Razzi expressed puzzlement at the Iraqi officials’ circumvention
of U.S. supply routes.“It seems strange that a pro-Western government, supported by the U.S.
Army and other NATO countries on its own territory, would seek Russian or
Chinese weapons through questionable channels,” the anti-Mafia prosecutor
wrote in seeking the arrest warrant that short-circuited the complex deal.
Shorter version: We’ve lost all control.
Just one other thing. This also means that not only has Mr. Bush & Co. inspired a world-wide state sponsored arms race, but also a larger arms market in the wider Middle East.
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