Some 190,000 assault rifles and pistols supplied by the US to Iraqi security forces in 2004 and 2005 have gone missing, according to a report issued here yesterday, and may have fallen into the possession of insurgents.
The embarrassing disclosure, by the watchdog Government Accountability office (GAO), means that the Pentagon does not know what happened to roughly a third of the arms it has provided to train and equip Iraqi forces - an effort whose success is crucial to restoring some semblance of order in the country.
Wow, nice number. And there's more.
In addition, some 135,000 pieces of body armour and 115,000 helmets have also vanished, again perhaps to end up in the hands of insurgents.
So the Cheney Administration has actually handed weapons and armor to those very enemies who kill our brave soldiers? Is this what they mean when they say, "Support the Troops?"
Relax! It was just a "clerical error":
Bookkeeping deficiencies allowed thousands of weapons issued to Iraqi security forces in 2004 and 2005 to then go missing, Gen. David H. Petraeus, the top U.S. commander in Iraq, said yesterday.
Wait. Was that the same General Petraeus who is supposed to prop up the war with his report in September?
But the affair could be even more problematic for the White House, given that, during the two years under scrutiny, the programme was headed by General David Petraeus, now the top US commander in Iraq, in charge of the current troop "surge". President George Bush now lauds his talents on an almost daily basis, as the man who will finally give the US the upper hand against the insurgents.
This should make for some fun during his report to Congress. Does the spin start tomorrow?
Somehow this massive number of guns, 190,000, reminds me of a famous scene from The Matrix:
"Guns. Lots of guns."
Heckuva job.
Heckuva.
2 comments:
Here's the spin... "Imagine what would happen if the Democrats were in charge! 380,000 guns would be missing! But because of the Republicans strong stand against terror, only 190,000 are missing! So, thanks to this administration, you can see how much safer our troops truly are!"
Imagine the pilloring if it were a Dem President.
Wait, it wouldn't have happened with a Democratic President.
We wouldn't be in Iraq.
If we were, we'd have handled the post war with the Bush/Cheney/Rumsfeld hubris.
Dems don't hate government. Repubs do. They want to "drown it in a bathtub" so that all their rich friends on top of the private section can increase the gap between the rich and the poor in America.
That's their only real project.
Post a Comment