The Pentagon cannot account for 190,000 AK-47 rifles and pistols given to Iraqi security forces in 2004 and 2005, or about half the weapons earmarked for soldiers and police, according to a government report.

The Government Accountability Office, the investigative arm of the US Congress, said in a July 31 report to lawmakers that the Defense Department also cannot account for 135,000 items of body armour and 115,000 helmets reported to be issued to Iraqi forces as of September 22, 2005.

The GAO said the Pentagon concurred with its findings and has begun a review to ensure full accountability for the programme to train and equip Iraqi forces.

“However, our review of the 2007 property books found continuing problems with missing and incomplete records,’’ the GAO report said.

The report raised concerns that weapons provided by the United States could be falling into the hands of Iraqi insurgents, just as lawmakers and policymakers in Washington await a September report on the success of US President George W Bush’s surge strategy for stabilizing Baghdad. One senior Pentagon official told The Washington Post that some weapons probably were being used against US troops. He said an Iraqi brigade created in Fallujah disintegrated in 2004 and began fighting American soldiers.

Many in Washington view the development of effective Iraqi army and police forces as a vital step toward reducing the number of US troops in Iraq.

Since 2003, the United States has provided about 19.2 billion dollar to develop Iraqi security forces, the GAO said. The Defense Department has recently asked for another 2 billion dollars to continue the train-and-equip program.

The Congress funded the program for Iraqi security forces outside traditional security assistance programs, providing the Pentagon with a large degree of flexibility in managing the effort, the GAO said.

“Officials stated that since the funding did not go through traditional security assistance programs, the DOD accountability requirements normally applicable to these programs did not apply,’’the GAO report said.
Military officials in Iraq reported issuing 355,000 weapons to Iraqi security forces from June 2004 through September 2005, including 185,000 rifles and 170,000 pistols, the GAO said.

But the Defense Department could not account for 110,000 rifles and 80,000 pistols, the GAO said. Those sums amount to about 54 percent of the total weapons distributed to the Iraqi forces.

The GAO quoted officials as saying the agency responsible for handling weapons distribution was too short-staffed to record information on individual items given to Iraqi forces.

Accountability procedures also could not be fully implemented because of the need to equip Iraqi forces rapidly for combat operations, the GAO found.

37 KILLED IN BOMB BLAST
Bomb attacks killed 37 Iraqis on Monday. A suicide bomber blew up a truck packed with explosives in a northern Shiite village and a booby trap killed nine people in a Baghdad minibus queue, reports AFP from Mosul (Iraq). The truck bomber detonated his deadly charge in Al-Quba, killing at least 28 people and wounding another 50, said provincial police spokesman Brigadier General Abdulkarim Khalaf Al-Juburi.

 Of them, at least eight were seriously injured, he added. The  village is located 20 kilometres north of the much larger town of Tal Afar. Thousands of US and Iraqi security forces focus on pushing insurgents out of Baghdad and other flashpoint cities under a five-month-old security plan. Militants have increasingly resorted to attacks on villages and rural areas.

In the capital, a roadside bomb killed nine Iraqis. It ripped through an unofficial stop for one of the battered minibuses used by thousands of people in the city, security and medical officials said. The device, hidden on the side of the road, blew up after a minibus stopped to collect waiting passengers in the Diyala Bridge neighbourhood in the southern suburbs, security officials said.

Shrapnel got sprayed in the area as Iraqis got on and off the minibus shortly before the main rush hour and as others stood waiting for a different line.

The Al-Zafaraniyah hospital said nine people were killed including a woman. Eight wounded persons were brought in with mainly burn injuries.

Monday’s violence came as Iranian and US officials held security talks in Baghdad, in a bid to ease the violent insurgency in war-torn Iraq.