Tuesday, December 18, 2007

The irony of it all

Dec.18, 2007

The irony of it all

The US contention that Iranians are financing insurgents in Iraq and also supplying arms and ammunition to them could have some grain of truth because gun-running has always been a lucrative trade. Furthemore, Iranians could also have an interest in not allowing the US military pacify Iraq since they fear that they could be the next target if and when Washington manages to stabilise Iraq. Recent intelligence findings that Iran had dropped a nuclear weaponisation programme in 2003 have not eased the situation because Washington insists that Iran remains a threat to regional and international stability and security.
The US has cited the discovery of explosives, guns and roadside bombs of a particular kind to support its charge that Iran is backing the insurgency in Iraq.
It is known that Iraq was awash with weapons when the US invaded and occupied it in 2003. The weapons disappeared, only to reappear in the hands of insurgents. Today, there does not seem to be any shortage of weapons in Iraq for the insurgents to continue their anti-US war.
The irony is that many weapons that the insurgent are using are US-made and sent to Iraq for distribution to Iraqi security forces. According to reports, hundreds of thousands of guns, small and big, and entire consignments of ammunition that the US sent to Iraq have simply disappeared.
The latest such report has come from the US government's accountability office, which says that the US military in Iraq has lost track of another 12,000 weapons, including more than 800 machine-guns (not to mention 2,100 new electricity generators to half a dozen garbage trucks).
The same office revealed earlier this year that 190,000 Kalashnikov assault rifles and automatic pistols earmarked for Iraqi government forces had gone astray in 2004 and 2005 and could be in insurgent hands.
The question here is not why the US military is not more careful with weapons and equipment paid for by the American taxpayer and seems to be a key source for insurgents who are waging war against American soldiers.
The question is how the US military loses track of weapons and ammunition and how the missing items end up with the insurgents.
It does say something about the reliability of Iraqi forces that the US military is supposed to be training to take over security of the country somewhere down the line. Beyond that, however, is the reality that many of the Iraqi security forces, in service and under training, do not owe genuine allegiance to the US or the central government. It is acknowledged that a good number of Iraqi security forces came from the ranks of sectarian militias. For them, whatever is happening in Iraq is transitional and they owe their allegiance to their political leaders who they expect to protect their interests when the Americans are gone.
And still Washington believes — or at least insists — that it is on track to realising its strategic objectives of enthroning a US-friendly regime in Baghdad that would give priority to US interests over Iraqi interests.