WASHINGTON, Aug. 29 — Weapons that were originally given to Iraqi security forces by the American military have been recovered over the past year by the authorities in Turkey after being used in violent crimes in that country, Pentagon officials said Wednesday.
The Reach of War
Go to Complete Coverage »The discovery that serial numbers on pistols and other weapons recovered in Turkey matched those distributed to Iraqi police units has prompted growing concern by Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates that controls on weapons being provided to Iraqis are inadequate. It was also a factor in the decision to dispatch the department’s inspector general to Iraq next week to investigate the problem, the officials said.
Pentagon officials said they did not yet have evidence that Iraqi security forces or Kurdish officials were selling or giving the weapons to Kurdish separatists, as Turkish officials have contended.
It was possible, they said, that the weapons had been stolen or lost during firefights and smuggled into Turkey after being sold in Iraq’s extensive black market for firearms. Officials gave widely varied estimates — from dozens to hundreds — of how many American-supplied weapons had been found in Turkey.
Over the past year, inquiries by federal oversight agencies have found serious discrepancies in military records of where thousands of weapons intended for Iraqi security forces actually ended up.
The disclosure of the weapons in Turkey, part of those investigations, came on the same day that the Army announced moves aimed at addressing a widening scandal that has generated 76 criminal investigations involving contract fraud in Iraq, Kuwait and Afghanistan. Twenty civilians and military personnel have been charged in federal court as a result of the inquiries.
“The reports suggest we have serious issues in this area,” Army Secretary Pete Geren told reporters on Wednesday, adding that the criminal inquiries and the reported diversion of Iraqi weapons to Turkey were major reasons behind his decision to take action now.
Mr. Gates sent the Pentagon general counsel, William J. Haynes II, to Turkey last month for talks with Turkish officials, who had been complaining for months that American-supplied weapons were being used in murders and other violent crimes carried out, in some cases, by Kurdish militants.
Turkey’s allegations that Iraq was being used as a sanctuary to carry out attacks inside Turkey have strained relations between the Bush administration and Ankara over the past six months, with Turkey not ruling out a military intervention into northern Iraq to stop the activity.
American officials said that it appeared that the weapons found in Turkey were given to Iraqi units in 2004 and 2005 when, in the rush to build police and army units, controls on distribution of firearms had been much weaker. Gen. David H. Petraeus, who was then in charge of training and equipping Iraqi forces and who is now the top American commander in Iraq, has said that the imperative to provide weapons to Iraqi security forces was more important at the time than maintaining impeccable records.
By checking serial numbers, American officials confirmed that some of the recovered weapons, which included handguns made by Glock, an Austrian weapons manufacturer, had originally been bought by the Defense Department for distribution in Iraq, the officials said.
Geoff Morrell, a Pentagon spokesman, said at a briefing on Wednesday that Mr. Gates was “deeply troubled by the reports and allegations” about problems accounting for American-supplied weapons in Iraq.
Pentagon officials said Wednesday that the problem of weapons turning up in Turkey was part of a larger investigation being carried out by the Pentagon inspector general, Claude M. Kicklighter, a retired Army three-star general, into allegations that American-supplied weapons had been improperly accounted for and fallen into the wrong hands.
“General Kicklighter has informed the secretary that he will remain in-country as long as it takes to find out if record-keeping problems persist, and if so, make recommendations to the commanders on the ground how to fix those problems,” Mr. Morrell said.
American officials added that they had not seen firm evidence that the firearms had been found in the hands of Kurdish separatists from the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party, the hard-line Kurdish separatist group that for years has used northern Iraq as a sanctuary to carry out attacks inside Turkey.
Turkish officials have complained in recent months that Kurdish officials in senior positions in the Iraqi government, including Massoud Barzani, the president of the Kurdistan region, are actively supporting the Kurdish Workers Party, known as the PKK. Mr. Barzani and other Kurdish officials say they do not support attacks by the PKK into Turkey.
At the Pentagon on Wednesday, Mr. Morrell said, “If American-issued weapons have ended up in the hands of criminals in Turkey or terrorists in Turkey, that is not based upon the policy of this department or this government.”
As the American authorities work to clamp down on any illicit flow of American-supplied weapons to insurgents, Mr. Geren, the Army secretary, announced that two new review panels would address immediate problems and systemic shortcomings in the contracting system.
One panel of retired generals and civilian contracting experts, led by Jacques Gansler, a former top Pentagon acquisition official, will examine the Army contracting system and report back in 45 days how to improve its organization, staffing levels, auditing ability and other functions to prevent fraud, waste and abuse.
The second review, led by Lt. Gen. N. Ross Thompson III and Kathryn Condon, two Army contracting specialists, will examine current operations, Mr. Geren said. It will look for improprieties in the 18,000 contracts awarded from 2003 to 2007 by the Army’s big contracting office in Kuwait. Those contracts to clothe, house and feed American forces moving in and out of Kuwait are valued at more than $3 billion.
Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/30/washington/30contract.html?_r=1&th&emc=th&oref=slogin
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P.S. COMMENT:
What audacity to blame the government of Iran or even Syria, of contributing to insurgence or rebellion in Iraq?
When weapons that are "supposedly" intended to combat the Insurgents become the weapons that are used against the Authority that sent them to the WAR ZONE?
Who is conducting these weapon convoys, The Three Stooges, Sergeant Bilko? This is like an F-Troop (the sitcom) episode: "Don't Look Now, One of Our Cannons is Missing"—Where the heck are we? Hekawi?
Is it time to send in Curtis Sliwa and his Guardian Angels to rectify the chaos in Iraq?
Blogmaster.
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