I'm a member of the Perspectives bi-partisan forum and recently criticized the Bush administration for losing track of 190,000 weapons that were issued to the Iraqi Security to forces. My theory was that those weapons were stolen by members of the Iraq security force and put into the hands of various competing factions waging war against the American military in Iraq.
A fellow who calls himself Conservative Virginian wrote this reply:
He is the Commander In Chief, not an employee in the warehouse. According to the Government Accountability Office the blame is shared between Congress and the Department of Defense. Of course it is still the big evil George Bush's fault right? Is there anything that occurs in this country which is not Bush's fault? Last poll I saw had George Bush's Iraq approval ratings higher than Congresses, explain that away. The reality simply does not support the irrational claims of the Bush Haters.
How is Congress responsible for the loss of weapons in Iraq?
The Washington Post writes:
The GAO found that the military was consistently unable to collect supporting documents to "confirm when the equipment was received, the quantities of equipment delivered, and the Iraqi units receiving the equipment." The agency also said there were "numerous mistakes due to incorrect manual entries" in the records that were maintained.
The GAO reached the estimate of 190,000 missing arms -- 110,000 AK-47s and 80,000 pistols -- by comparing the property records of the Multi-National Security Transition Command for Iraq against records Petraeus maintained of the arms and equipment he had ordered. Petraeus's figures were compared with classified data and other records to ensure that they were accurate enough to compare against the property books.
In all cases, the gaps between the two records were enormous. Petraeus reported that about 185,000 AK-47 rifles, 170,000 pistols, 215,000 pieces of body armor and 140,000 helmets were issued to Iraqi security forces from June 2004 through September 2005. But the property books contained records for 75,000 AK-47 rifles, 90,000 pistols, 80,000 pieces of body armor and 25,000 helmets.
A military commander involved in the program at the time, speaking on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss the report, acknowledged in an e-mail, "We did issue some items, including weapons, body armor, etc. to new Iraqi units that were literally going into battle."
You can blame Congress but the Congress that was in charge during that moment in time was the rubber-stamp Republican Congress, not the current 110th Democratic Congress.
George Bush is Commander in Chief and "decider" on war policy in Iraq. If the Commander in Chief approves a plan to put 300,000 AK-47s into the hands of various feuding factions in Iraq, then he's responsible. Congress has nothing to do with that process except oversight of the plan and George W. Bush has claimed Congress has no authority to do so .
What the hell is Bush doing in Iraq? I was under the impression that he was training Iraqis to police their own society and keep law and order. Indiscriminately passing out 300,000 assault rifles to Iraqi citizens is not contributing to the stability of Iraq. Particularly since 100,000 of those assault rifles are now missing in action.
Haven't you even wondered about why Bush chose to put Chinese made AK 47s into the hands of Iraqi citizens? Ultimately as Commander in Chief, Bush approves any plan to arm the local populous and why is he arming them with Chinese AK 47s? Does Bush like to trade with the Chinese? Yes he does but that's not the reason why the weapons are AK 47s.
The answer is not so obvious unless you think about it, and then it makes perfect sense.
The Chinese made AK 47 is the weapon of choice for both al Qaeda and the army of Iran. If Bush armed the local populous with American made M-16s it would be obvious that American supplied assault rifles were being used to kill American soldiers.
If our soldiers were confiscating M-16s from the bodies of dead Shiite insurgents it wouldn't be long before our own soldiers would be asking why they're being shot at with American supplied weapons!
The reason why Bush is arming Iraqis with AK 47s is so he can blame Iran or even al Qaeda for arming the insurgents, which is exactly what Bush has done over the past few years. The arming of the Iraq security forces with AK 47s immunizes Bush from criticism that American made rifles are being used to kill American soldiers.
An ex-Marine on the Perspectives forum supported my analysis:
Bravo, Mr. Populist! You pretty much settled that one. When I was in the USMC, we had a fairly low opinion of the dog faces in the Army; however, even back then the soldier boys kept a record of the serial numbers of weapons issued. I don't know when they stopped, but I do know that the USMC continues this perhaps antique practice. I've read one blog that says these AKs were manufactured in China without serial numbers at the request of the purchaser, the DoD.
In reality the Bush administration is probably supplying the various competing insurgencies with more weapons and military training than Iran or al Qaeda is ever capable of doing.
When you look at the bigger picture, Bush is attempting to conceal the fact that American supplied rifles are being used by the insurgents to gun down American troops. If the American public knew that Bush was arming the insurgency they wouldn't tolerate this war for another day.