Current News |
U.S. Weapons, Given to Iraqis, Move
to Turkey
By DAVID S. CLOUD and ERIC SCHMITT
Published: August 30, 2007
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/30/washington/30contract.html?hp
WASHINGTON, Aug. 29 — Weapons that were originally
given to Iraqi security forces by the American
military have been recovered over the past year by
the authorities in Turkey after being used in
violent crimes in that country, Pentagon officials
said Wednesday.
The discovery that serial numbers on pistols and
other weapons recovered in Turkey matched those
distributed to Iraqi police units has prompted
growing concern by Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates
that controls on weapons being provided to Iraqis
are inadequate. It was also a factor in the decision
to dispatch the department’s inspector general to
Iraq next week to investigate the problem, the
officials said.
Pentagon officials said they did not yet have
evidence that Iraqi security forces or Kurdish
officials were selling or giving the weapons to
Kurdish separatists, as Turkish officials have
contended.
It was possible, they said, that the weapons had
been stolen or lost during firefights and smuggled
into Turkey after being sold in Iraq’s extensive
black market for firearms. Officials gave widely
varied estimates — from dozens to hundreds — of how
many American-supplied weapons had been found in
Turkey.
Over the past year, inquiries by federal oversight
agencies have found serious discrepancies in
military records of where thousands of weapons
intended for Iraqi security forces actually ended
up.
The disclosure of the weapons in Turkey, part of
those investigations, came on the same day that the
Army announced moves aimed at addressing a widening
scandal that has generated 76 criminal
investigations involving contract fraud in Iraq,
Kuwait and Afghanistan. Twenty civilians and
military personnel have been charged in federal
court as a result of the inquiries.
“The reports suggest we have serious issues in this
area,” Army Secretary Pete Geren told reporters on
Wednesday, adding that the criminal inquiries and
the reported diversion of Iraqi weapons to Turkey
were major reasons behind his decision to take
action now.
Mr. Gates sent the Pentagon general counsel, William
J. Haynes II, to Turkey last month for talks with
Turkish officials, who had been complaining for
months that American-supplied weapons were being
used in murders and other violent crimes carried
out, in some cases, by Kurdish militants.
Turkey’s allegations that Iraq was being used as a
sanctuary to carry out attacks inside Turkey have
strained relations between the Bush administration
and Ankara over the past six months, with Turkey not
ruling out a military intervention into northern
Iraq to stop the activity.
American officials said that it appeared that the
weapons found in Turkey were given to Iraqi units in
2004 and 2005 when, in the rush to build police and
army units, controls on distribution of firearms had
been much weaker. Gen. David H. Petraeus, who was
then in charge of training and equipping Iraqi
forces and who is now the top American commander in
Iraq, has said that the imperative to provide
weapons to Iraqi security forces was more important
at the time than maintaining impeccable records.
By checking serial numbers, American officials
confirmed that some of the recovered weapons, which
included handguns made by Glock, an Austrian weapons
manufacturer, had originally been bought by the
Defense Department for distribution in Iraq, the
officials said.
Geoff Morrell, a Pentagon spokesman, said at a
briefing on Wednesday that Mr. Gates was “deeply
troubled by the reports and allegations” about
problems accounting for American-supplied weapons in
Iraq.
Pentagon officials said Wednesday that the problem
of weapons turning up in Turkey was part of a larger
investigation being carried out by the Pentagon
inspector general, Claude M. Kicklighter, a retired
Army three-star general, into allegations that
American-supplied weapons had been improperly
accounted for and fallen into the wrong hands.
“General Kicklighter has informed the secretary that
he will remain in-country as long as it takes to
find out if record-keeping problems persist, and if
so, make recommendations to the commanders on the
ground how to fix those problems,” Mr. Morrell said.
American officials added that they had not seen firm
evidence that the firearms had been found in the
hands of Kurdish separatists from the outlawed
Kurdistan Workers Party, the hard-line Kurdish
separatist group that for years has used northern
Iraq as a sanctuary to carry out attacks inside
Turkey.
Turkish officials have complained in recent months
that Kurdish officials in senior positions in the
Iraqi government, including Massoud Barzani, the
president of the Kurdistan region, are actively
supporting the Kurdish Workers Party, known as the
PKK. Mr. Barzani and other Kurdish officials say
they do not support attacks by the PKK into Turkey.
At the Pentagon on Wednesday, Mr. Morrell said, “If
American-issued weapons have ended up in the hands
of criminals in Turkey or terrorists in Turkey, that
is not based upon the policy of this department or
this government.”
As the American authorities work to clamp down on
any illicit flow of American-supplied weapons to
insurgents, Mr. Geren, the Army secretary, announced
that two new review panels would address immediate
problems and systemic shortcomings in the
contracting system.
One panel of retired generals and civilian
contracting experts, led by Jacques Gansler, a
former top Pentagon acquisition official, will
examine the Army contracting system and report back
in 45 days how to improve its organization, staffing
levels, auditing ability and other functions to
prevent fraud, waste and abuse.
The second review, led by Lt. Gen. N. Ross Thompson
III and Kathryn Condon, two Army contracting
specialists, will examine current operations, Mr.
Geren said. It will look for improprieties in the
18,000 contracts awarded from 2003 to 2007 by the
Army’s big contracting office in Kuwait. Those
contracts to clothe, house and feed American forces
moving in and out of Kuwait are valued at more than
$3 billion. |
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