200,000 Ak-47 Assault Rifles Missing In Iraq? - It’s Business As Usual - Thanks Rummy

How can it happen that four planeloads of Kalashnikov assault rifles vanish from Bosnia and apparently wind up in Iraq? Put it another way 200,000 AK-47s have gone missing and there’s very good grounds to believe that the US government paid handsomely to have them delivered to person or persons unknown in Iraq, and by person or persons unkown I do not mean the Iraqi government.

HAVE 200,000 AK47S FALLEN INTO THE HANDS OF IRAQ TERRORISTS?
FEARS OVER SECRET U.S. ARMS SHIPMENT

SOME 200,000 guns the US sent to Iraqi security forces may have been smuggled to terrorists, it was feared yesterday.

The 99-tonne cache of AK47s was to have been secretly flown out from a US base in Bosnia. But the four planeloads of arms have vanished.

Orders for the deal to go ahead were given by the US Department of Defense. But the work was contracted out via a complex web of private arms traders.

And the Moldovan airline used to transport the shipment was blasted by the UN in 2003 for smuggling arms to Liberia, human rights group Amnesty has discovered.

It follows a separate probe claiming that thousands of guns meant for Iraq’s police and army instead went to al-Qaeda

[snip]

A Nato spokesman said: “There’s no tracking mechanism to ensure they don’t fall into the wrong hands. There are concerns that some may have been siphoned off.”

[snip]

Meanwhile, Aerocom, the Moldovan air firm at the centre of the 200,000 missing AK47s, was stripped of its licence by its national authorities a day before the first shipment.

Two other companies in the complicated sale claim to have papers proving the guns were delivered in Iraq but refuse to show them.”

Full report here [This link and all exterior links open in new windows - markfromireland].

US in secret gun deal

Small arms shipped from Bosnia to Iraq ‘go missing’ as Pentagon uses dealers

Ian Traynor in Zagreb
Friday May 12, 2006
The Guardian

The Pentagon has secretly shipped tens of thousands of small arms from Bosnia to Iraq in the past two years, using a web of private companies, at least one of which is a noted arms smuggler blacklisted by Washington and the UN.

According to a report by Amnesty International, which investigated the sales, the US government arranged for the delivery of at least 200,000 Kalashnikov machine guns from Bosnia to Iraq in 2004-05. But though the weaponry was said to be for arming the fledgling Iraqi military, there is no evidence of the guns reaching their recipient.

Full story here

The AK-47 is a superbly well-designed weapon:

  • It’s simple and cheap to manufacture.
  • It’s very easy to clean and maintain.
  • It’s very rugged.
  • It’s very reliable.

It has these desirable characteristics because of several features of its design. It has a large gas piston, lots of clearance between its moving parts, and a tapered cartridge case. All of which mean that it can take a lot of abuse and a lot of foreign matter and fouling and still cycle properly. - The down side of this reliability is that it’s not the most accurate weapon in the world.

Depending on where it’s made the factory cost of a new AK-47 is in the region of US$75.00 [seventy five US dollars]. AKs are in heavy demand and the demand is rising for example:
Last year [2005] the US bought the following to equip the new “Iraqi” army:

  • 100,000 Kalashnikov rifles,
  • 100,000 flak jackets,
  • 110,000 pistols,
  • 6,000 cars and pickup trucks,
  • 230 million rounds of ammunition.

- That was before the program to build an “Iraqi” army really began to get off the ground, and was also at the time when the desertion rate was very high nor does that figure include supplies for the various militias and “security agencies.”

Nor is Iraq the sole source of demand. Venezuela is building up its defenses against an American attack and it’s not just interested in high tech weaponry of the sort it can acquire from Spain or of the deal that Israel was forced to drop or their recent deal with Russia. For obvious reasons the Venezuelan is interested in asymetric warfare defense and is actively acquiring expertise in that field:

“Instructors made comparisons to Viet Cong guerrilla attacks on U.S troops, including the use of secret tunnels, poisons and home-made weapons.

Venezuelan officers have also been sent to Havana to learn civilian-military cooperation from the Cubans as part of the training, said National Guard Gen. Juan Alberto Hernandez

[snip]

“They will guarantee resistance against an invading force in their areas. They’ll be trained in weapons and other home-made artifacts,” said instructor Benavides. “They can be confused with the populace and that is part of asymmetric war.”

Reuters via Herald-Sun 06 Mar 06 “Venezuelans prepare for invasion”

That’s just one source of the rise in demand, there are lots of promising little wars brewing in Africa as well.

However back to Iraq. Quite aside from “official demand” and the demand from various militias there’s a further source of demand, ordinary householders. Under a “law” passed by Bremer every Iraqi household is entitled to one weapon. American troops do NOT confiscate them during searches. By no means all households have a weapon yet, but as the American occupiers continue to engage in policies that actively encourage the break up of Iraq, that’s an oversight that many Iraqis are rushing to correct. After the Samarra bombing the average price of a Russian-made AK-47 went from from US$112 to US$290 literally overnight while bullets jumped to 33 cents up from 24 cents again literally overnight. It’s continuing to climb somewhat and even a large influx of AKs aimed purely at this civilian market will not depress the price enough for arms dealers to make windfall profits.

The temptation to “mislay” a large consignment and make a hefty profit is clear. But how could it have happened? The answer lies here:

“And the Moldovan airline used to transport the shipment was blasted by the UN in 2003 for smuggling arms to Liberia, human rights group Amnesty has discovered.”

Moldova has the unenviable distinction of being the second poorest country in Europe (some say it’s the poorest.) Its bureaucracy is notoriously corrupt and the airline in question is owned by Victor Bout. Bout whose links to blood diamond trade and willingness to supply arms to everybody and anybody are notorious was designated by the US Treasury under Executive Order 13348 [PDF] on April 26th last year. Bout who is a fugitive from justice in two countries is also strongly suspected of smuggling arms to the Taleban. But has been selling to the US PX in Iraq since at least 2004 (he’s cheap) as well as ammunition (same reason.)

By now my readers won’t be surprised to learn that the main contractors who carried out the deal on behalf of the US Government be said to be above reproach:

“The Pentagon commissioned the US security firms Taos and CACI - which is known for its involvement in the Abu Ghraib prison controversy in Iraq - to orchestrate the arms purchases and shipments. They, in turn, subcontracted to a welter of firms, brokers, and shippers, involving businesses based in Britain, Switzerland, Croatia, Moldova, and Bosnia” [Guardian report cited above - mfi]

Nor will I suppose will my readers be surprised to learn that people have been writing about and reporting on for a long time now. Nothing seems to be have done.

How could it happen? Greed, corruption, cronyism, the Bush administration’s omnipresent incompetence, and of course a government not overly concerned with what happens to the country they invaded and are now occupying. The fact that Rumsfeld’s “reforms” meant the decimation of US logistical capacity to make room for contractors made this sort of scandal inevitable. Who could all those weapons have gone to? Everybody and anybody, and that includes householders, assorted militants, and of course all the assorted variations on a peshmerga theme.

Heck of a job Rummy, heck of a job, I’m surprised that US casualties are as low as they are.

markfromireland

PS: The cost of an Ak-47 in Beirut has still not dropped.