Weapons Given to Iraq Are Missing
GAO Estimates 30% of Arms Are Unaccounted For

By Glenn Kessler
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, August 6, 2007; A01

The Pentagon has lost track of about 190,000 AK-47 assault rifles and pistols given to Iraqi security forces in 2004 and 2005, according to a new government report, raising fears that some of those weapons have fallen into the hands of insurgents fighting U.S. forces in Iraq.

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Stohl said that insurgents frequently use small-arms fire to force military convoys to move in a particular direction -- often toward roadside bombs that target troops and vehicles. She noted that the Bush administration frequently complains that Iran and Syria are supplying insurgents but has paid little attention to whether U.S. military errors inadvertently play a role. "We know there is seepage and very little is being done to address the problem," she said.

Stohl noted that U.S. forces, focused on a fruitless search for weapons of mass destruction after Baghdad fell, failed to secure massive weapons caches. The failure to track small arms given to Iraqi forces repeats that pattern of neglect, she added.

Nicaragua defies US with Iran trade deal

· Tehran to fund projects in exchange for coffee, meat
· Washington warns of 'dangerous partner'

Rory Carroll, Latin America correspondent
Monday August 6, 2007
The Guardian

Nicaragua has signed contracts with Iran worth hundreds of millions of pounds in defiance of warnings from the United States.

President Daniel Ortega brushed aside Washington's concerns by agreeing to trade bananas, coffee and meat in exchange for Iranian help with infrastructure projects.

Mr Ortega and Iran's energy minister, Hamid Chitchian, signed the accords in Nicaragua's capital, Managua, on Saturday, cementing Tehran's toehold in what the US considers its backyard.

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Gus: dangerous partner indeed... Loaded with Hallal meat and coffee beans...

Different figures from Al Jazeera...

Half of US arms to Iraq 'missing'          
Since 2003, the US has spent  about $19.2bn to develop Iraqi security forces[EPA]
The US government cannot account for large amounts of weapons and armour given to Iraqi security forces in 2004 and 2005, a report by the Government Accountability Office (GAO), the investigative arm of the US congress, said.

At least 190,000 AK-47 rifles, 80,000 pistols, 135,000 items of body armour and 115,000 helmets are missing.
   
According to the GAO, the Pentagon has agreed with the findings and begun a review to ensure full accountability for the programme that aims to train and equip Iraqi forces.
 
"Our review of the 2007 property books found continuing problems with missing and incomplete records," the report said.
   
Approximately 54 per cent of the total weapons distributed to the Iraqi forces are said to be unaccounted for. 

At Military Contractor’s Trial, a $100,000 Buckle

By A. G. SULZBERGER

Several years ago, David H. Brooks, the chief executive and chairman of a body-armor company enriched by United States military contracts, became fixated on the idea of a memory-erasing pill.

It was not just fanciful curiosity. A veterinarian who cared for his stable of racehorses said Mr. Brooks continually talked about the subject, pressing him repeatedly to supply the pill. According to Dr. Seth Fishman, the veterinarian, Mr. Brooks said he had a specific recipient in mind: Dawn Schlegel, the former chief financial officer of the company he led until 2006, DHB Industries.

There is no memory-erasing pill. And so Mr. Brooks sat and listened this year as Ms. Schlegel, her memory apparently intact and keen, spent 23 days testifying against him in a highly unusual trial in United States District Court on Long Island that has been highlighted by sweeping accusations of fraud, insider trading, and company-financed personal extravagance.

DHB, which specialized in making body armor used by the military in Iraq and Afghanistan, paid for more than $6 million in personal expenses on behalf of Mr. Brooks, covering items as expensive as luxury cars and as prosaic as party invitations, Ms. Schlegel testified.

Also included were university textbooks for his daughter, pornographic videos for his son, plastic surgery for his wife, a burial plot for his mother, prostitutes for his employees, and, for him, a $100,000 American-flag belt buckle encrusted with rubies, sapphires and diamonds.

The expense-account abuse, the prosecution has said, represented a pittance compared with the $190 million that Mr. Brooks and another top employee are accused of making through a stock fraud scheme in which he falsified information about his company’s performance — including significantly overstating the inventory of bulletproof vests — to inflate the price of the stock before selling his shares in 2004.

As a whole, the accusations might present just another cautionary tale of excess and entitlement in a powerful individual, but Mr. Brooks’s story stands out because of details and characters that give it the strange and sordid depth of a long-running soap opera.