Withdrawing

Perhaps the single-biggest logistical complication to withdrawing from Iraq will be getting all the weapons out of there. It's something that really ought to be done thoroughly and may well extend the length of the withdrawal process by months. Here's a lovely little story, though, about how we're not stopping weapons proliferation in Iraq today, when our troop presence in the country is at nearly its highest level.

Here's the GAO report GAO report itself.

Comments

[JimPortlandOR]

Ah, yes, 'flexibility':

train-and-equip program for Iraqi forces is being managed by the Pentagon. Normally, the traditional security assistance programs are operated by the State Department, the GAO reported. The Defense Department said this change permitted greater flexibility, but as of last month it was unable to tell the GAO what accountability procedures, if any, apply to arms distributed to Iraqi forces, the report said.

Indeed the DoD has flexibility. Flexibility to arm each of the 3-10 sides in this conflict with no one knowing who has what weapons.

One wonders what level of small arms would be considered the saturation level? Two or six weapons per citizen?

Maybe this is just a NRA program to protect the fourth amendment.

[david]

Not sure why this is such an issue. The equipment could simply be destroyed. We're pretty good at blowing things up