Posted by The Crux |
General David Petraeus told Fox Radio that 190,000 weapons were lost in Iraq due to clerical errors. Given this reasonable explanation, perhaps we were unduly upset by the fact that more weapons are missing in Iraq than the number of soldiers we have there.
The Washington Post reported:
"'Some percentage' [i.e., 30% (nearly one-third)] of weapons the U.S. military provided to the Iraqi army and Iraqi police units were not tracked by serial number because there were no procedures in place to do so within the Iraqi units, Petraeus said in an interview broadcast last night on Fox News Radio's Alan Colmes Show.
"From a practical standpoint, Petraeus added, it was more important to get the weapons to the Iraqis as they started to enter the fight against a strong insurgency than it was to keep meticulous records.... 'We weren't going to stay there in the dark and make guys do a serial-number inventory....'"
A logical choice! Serial numbers are for sissies -- and so is setting up weapons-accounting procedures before invading a country where one plans to hand out weapons.
I know that Iraq hadn't attacked us (and we'd found no WMDs), but President Bush was determined to invade in March 2003. An orchestrated media campaign was already underway. Postponing the invasion would have been inconvenient and made our nation seem soft-on-terrorism.
Then again, terrorists weren't the issue in March 2003: Iraq wasn't rife with terrorists back then, and (as the President later admitted) there was no link between Iraq and 9/11.
My mind reading skills are still vacationing, but I'm sure President Bush had reasons for flooding a war zone with unaccounted-for weapons that could end up in enemy hands.
Is the massive loss of weapons a normal occurrence during war? I don't know, but the U.S. reportedly had no accounting problems when arming Bosnia in the '90s (Washington Post).
Andrew Sullivan had an interesting comment:
If I were eager to maintain a semblance of military independence from the agenda of extremist, Republican partisans, I wouldn't go on the Hugh Hewitt show, would you? And yet Petraeus has done just that. I think such a decision to cater to one party's propaganda outlet renders Petraeus' military independence moot.... The only thing worse than a deeply politicized and partisan war is a deeply politicized and partisan commander. But we now know whose side Petraeus seems to be on: Cheney's. Expect spin, not truth, in September."
Interesting point. In July, Paul Krugman questioned Petraeus' objectivity on different grounds: a 2004 op-ed, in which Petraeus gave the impression that victory in Iraq would come soon. (BN-Politics) I suppose it all boils down to how one defines "soon."
Ravings of a Semi-Sane Mad Woman summed up what may be many people's reactions when they hear Petraeus' explanation:
"The sun was in their (the bookkeeper's) eyes! The dog ate my homework. I was late because I had a flat tire.... I'm almost starting to feel sorry for Petraeus. The crap they make him say: sort of like Tony Snow."
Newshound has more about Petraeus' interview with Colmes.
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