The New York Times reports:
"David Petraeus, the four-star general who led troops in Iraq for the past year, will be nominated by President Bush to be the next commander of U.S. Central Command, Defense Secretary Robert Gates said Wednesday.
"Gates said he expected Petraeus to make the shift in late summer or early fall. The Pentagon chief also announced that Bush will nominate Army Lt. Gen. Ray Odierno to replace Petraeus in Baghdad. Central Command oversees the wars in Iraq and in Afghanistan."
Back in 2004-05, Gen. Petraeus was in charge of arming and training Iraqi security forces. During that time, some 190,000 U.S. weapons ended up missing: that's about 30% of the weapons we taxpayers sent there -- more than one weapon for each U.S. soldier serving in Iraq.
Some people wonder if any of those weapons ended up on the black market or in enemy hands.
The story broke more than seven months ago, and the media seems to have forgotten about it. Petraeus explained the situation to Fox's Alan Colmes back in August:
"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....'"
The Bush Administration knew for many months beforehand that it would likely invade Iraq. What stopped officials from establishing weapons-accounting procedures before invading a country where they planned to hand out weapons?
In August, the New York Times reported that federal agencies were investigating numerous criminal cases including fraud and kickback schemes involving billions of dollars of weapons and supplies sent to Iraqi and American forces. A former top aide to General Petraeus was among the investigation targets:
"Part of the criminal investigation is focused on Lt. Col. Levonda Joey Selph, who reported directly to General Petraeus and worked closely with him in setting up the logistics operation for what were then the fledgling Iraqi security forces. That operation moved everything from AK-47s, armored vehicles and plastic explosives to boots and Army uniforms." (NY Times)
Reports don't specify why Selph was under investigation, so it may not be related to the 190,000 missing weapons.
I'd still like to know how the missing-weapons issue is being resolved.
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