The US May Have Delivered 200,000 AK-47s to Insurgents in Iraq – War Construction Money Used To Buy Submachine Guns + Explosives

May 11th 2006

The US May Have Delivered 200,000 AK-47s to Insurgents in Iraq – War Construction Money Used To Buy Submachine Guns Explosives

AK-47

The insurgents in Iraq may have 200,000 new assault weapons to use against US forces. But where did these weapons come from; the Russians, the Chinese, Osama Bin Laden? No, evidently they were delivered to Iraq by the U.S. Department of Defense.

The Northern Ireland newspaper, The Daily Mirror, reported that a 99-ton cache of AK-47s was supposed to be delivered to Iraqi security forces. According to Los Angeles Radio Station KNX News Radio, the U.S. Department of Defense used a complex web of private arms dealers to fly the shipment from a U.S. base in Bosnia to Iraq.

According to KNX reporter Steve Marshall, NATO and U.S. officials have already voiced fears that the arms - sold by US, British and Swiss firms - are being passed to insurgents. Two companies involved in the transaction claim the weapons were delivered to Iraq, but refused to show any paperwork as evidence.

Marshall reported that a NATO spokesman said "There's no tracking mechanism to ensure they don't fall into the wrong hands. There are concerns that some may have been siphoned off." Comment on this article at our Forum

Amnesty International spokesman, Mike Blakemore said “It's unbelievable that no one can account for 200,000 assault rifles. If these weapons have gone missing it's a terrifying prospect." According to the report, American defense chiefs hired an American firm to take the guns from the 90s Bosnian war, to Iraq. The flights, which supposedly took off between July 2004 and July 2005 were not recorded by air traffic controllers in Baghdad.

This comes on the heals of another recently exposed slip-up. The Chicago Tribune reported that $8.6 million in reconstruction contracts has been lost and possibly used to buy “submachine guns, grenade launchers and other arms in the United States.” A businessman named Philip Bloom, who worked in Iraq, has pled guilty to three counts of conspiracy, bribery and money laundering last month.

Bloom, who was arrested in November, took millions of dollars in Iraqi reconstruction contracts and offered money, cars, premium airline seats, jewelry, alcohol, even sexual favors from women at his villa in Baghdad as bribes to U.S. officials who directed the money to companies he controlled.

Another U.S. contractor, Robert J Stein, pleaded guilty in February for his role in the scheme. Two lieutenant colonels in the U.S. Army Reserve have also been arrested, while three other officers have been implicated but not yet charged. According to an Associated Press Report, Bloom is facing 40 years in prison and almost $8 million in penalties.

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