"How Many Guns Did the U.S. Lose Track of in Iraq and ..." Topic

…Afghanistan?

"Early this year, a Facebook user in Baghdad using the name Hussein Mahyawi posted a photograph of a slightly worn M4 assault rifle he was offering for sale. Veterans of the latest war in Iraq immediately recognized it. It was a standard American carbine equipped with a holographic sight, a foregrip that was military-issue during the occupation and a sticker bearing a digital QR code used by American forces for inventory control. Except for one detail — an aftermarket pistol grip, the sort of accessory with which combatants of the current generation often pimp their guns — it was a dead ringer for any of the tens of thousands of M4s the Pentagon handed out to Iraqi security forces and various armed militias after toppling Saddam Hussein in 2003. And here it was on the open market, ready for bids.
Was this a surprise? No. A little more than four years after the United States withdrew all its military forces from Iraq, and not quite two years after a smaller number of American troops began returning to the country to help fight the Islamic State, the open sale of such an M4 was part of Iraq's day-to-day arms-trafficking routine. Mahyawi's carbine was another data point attesting to an extraordinary and dangerous failure of American arms-trafficking and public accountability and to a departure from a modern military's most basic practice: keeping track of the guns.
Since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, the United States has handed out a vast but persistently uncountable quantity of military firearms to its many battlefield partners in Afghanistan and Iraq. Today the Pentagon has only a partial idea of how many weapons it issued, much less where these weapons are. Meanwhile, the effectively bottomless abundance of black-market weapons from American sources is one reason Iraq will not recover from its post-invasion woes anytime soon…."
Full article here
link

Amicalement
Armand

Before those, they used stones and scimitars, or machetes, so, I doubt the M4 rifles are really the issue……..

Lots of AKs to be had in the region too.

The question sort of answers itself, doesn't it? They lost track and do not know. But what's 1.5 million fire arms between friends? And don't forget, you can't justify a perpetual, global War on Terror unless the baddies can be well supplied with weapons with which to commit atrocities and thus allow you to sell the forever-war to your tired and angry citizens. Gotta keep the charnel house humming along so the gravy train can flow.

I think a more important question is why can former BBC reporters be allowed to mess up such a good thing, just because they have moral impulses which they can't control? Isn't this a kind of moral terrorism which threatens our economic well-being? What we need is more media control to tamp down these do-gooders and their naive idealism. You can't make an omelette without breaking some eggs and the more eggs broken, the bigger the omelette! This is not trickle-down economics, this is haemorrhage-up economics, pure and simple!

Cheers.
The insane Rod Robertson.

"guns don't kill people, people kill people" so its ok to flood countries with them as it wont lead to more deaths, presumably?

Where did I leave that tinfoil hat…..

Pentagon handed out to Iraqi security forces and various armed militias after toppling Saddam Hussein in 2003

Once a weapon is issued to the "end user nation". In many cases it does not remain with the end user. Especially in the Mid East, Africa and A'stan …

Just like last year the Iraqis abandoned 42 M1 MBTs, 52 M109 155mm SPFA and about 2300 HMMWVs. When they were attacked by Daesh. Now something that big is easier to account for. But regardless … Those big weapons systems were not intended to be abandoned and looted … But for the Iraqis to use to liberate their lands from Daesh.

Not really a matter of the US "lost track of" than the Iraqis having no accountability for the equipment they were given, or just not really caring

Yes. The weapons were transferred to Iraqi security services.

The US did not lose track of them.

I suspect there are a lot more, better reasons Iraq won't recover from her woes, anytime soon……

Once the Iraqis became the End User, it is their responsibility to account for them. It appears the Iraqi Supply Clerks are not any better than their Infantrymen and Tankers …