Pentagon loses almost 200,000 weapons in Irak by Ioana Madalina Tantareanu

The 200,000 U.S. supplied rifles and pistols for the new Iraqi security forces are unaccounted for. according to Congress. The Government Acountability Office informed congress that loose records of the Pentagon caused losing track of nearly 110.000 AK-47 rifles and about 80.000 pistols, provided for the new Iraqi army and national police. The GAO (investigative arm of Congress) also found about 250,000 pieces of body armor and helmets to be missing. A reviewing report issued in July 31, which follows an October accounting by the Defense Department's inspector for Iraqi reconstruction, shows continuous problems with missing and incomplete files, and a total of 500,000 weapons misplaced. The auditors were unable to say if the weapons were stolen,used by insurgents or were still in Iraqi hands, but a Pentagon official, that stated some of the weapons were destroyed and some went back to Iraqi forces, says "anything is possible". Pentagon's Bryan Whitman declared on Monday he is not aware of any reports on U.S. weapons designated for Iraqi security forces, and the weapons mostly dated back to Saddam's rule and none of them had serial numbers. Coalition commanders tightened procedures for tracking weapons, and since June Iraqi forces have been issued U.S. rifles which are electronically traced. Coalition trainers did not keep any record of the weapons used, so there is no way of discovering when the weapons have been delivered, and officials blame it all on the lack of a "fully operational distribution network" The Defense Department begun a review "to ensure proper accountability is in place for the Iraq train-and -equip program", while Pentagon officials stated on Monday that the accounting systems should be "continuously improved upon and refined".

by Ioana Madalina Tantareanu for PocketNews (http://pocketnews.tv)

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