Iraq Envoy Slams US Over Arms Supplies
WASHINGTON - Iraq’s ambassador to the United States Wednesday launched a withering attack on what he said was US slowness to provide basic weaponry to his country’s ill-equipped armed forces.
Samir Sumaidaie said the foot-dragging was inexplicable given President George W. Bush’s oft-stated desire for Iraqi forces to “stand up” and so allow US troops to withdraw from the frontlines. 
Rejecting suggestions that the Pentagon is reluctant to allow high-tech US weaponry to fall into Iraqi hands, the ambassador told reporters “we’re not talking about nuclear submarines” but basic arms like automatic rifles.
Despite being willing to pay out of its own funds, the Iraqi government has been “waiting and waiting and waiting” for Washington to come forward and has had to turn to other suppliers, such as China, for guns, he said.
“There’s constant frustration in the Iraqi government about the speed of equipping our armed forces,” Sumaidaie said. The Bush administration has come under fierce pressure at home recently to start pulling out of Iraq.
White House spokesman Tony Snow said he sympathized with the ambassador’s ire, while attacking the Democratic-led Congress for balking at the Bush administration’s own defense spending plans to supply US troops.
“In many ways those are the kind of signs that you want to see, which is an Iraqi government saying we want to be fully equipped and trained,” he said.
“We’re doing it as rapidly as we can. We understand the frustrations.
“These are matters that the president discusses regularly with the prime minister, and obviously are discussed on a regular basis with others.”
Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki said in January that the United States could dramatically and quickly cut its troop presence in Iraq if it provided enough weapons to the country’s embattled security forces.
The United States is said to have held back from supplying the Iraqi army with large quantities of weapons because some have ended up in the hands of militias and insurgents.
But under a recent “surge” of US troops into Baghdad and surrounding provinces, US commanders are now arming Sunni tribal leaders to take the fight to Al-Qaeda extremists who are accused of stoking Iraq’s communal bloodshed.
By the Pentagon’s count, there were 353,100 trained and equipped Iraqi security forces as of mid-July. That compares to 158,000 US troops in the country.
Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman acknowledged “it is clear that there is still much to be done with respect to equipping the security forces” of Iraq.
“But there is a program in place to do it in a very deliberate way, and do it in a way that ensures that they have the type of the equipment they need for the types of missions they are going to be conducting,” he said.
The Iraqi embassy was unable immediately to provide a detailed list of the arms it is seeking from the United States, as Congress awaits a pivotal report due in September that Democrats hope to lever into a timetable for withdrawal.
But Sumaidaie said among Iraqi troops’ needs are armored personnel carriers to replace their light pickup trucks, which leave them as vulnerable “cannon fodder” while US soldiers patrol in reinforced armor and heavy vehicles.
“This is not helping morale,” he said.
In May, Iraq said it was looking to buy more than 1.5 billion dollars’ worth of weapons from the United States including helicopters and automatic rifles, such as the M-16, to replace the Iraqi forces’ ubiquitous Soviet-designed AK-47 Kalashnikov.
Iraq’s Defence Minister Abdel Qader Jassim Mohammed said at the time a contract had been signed with the United States to set up “a foreign weapons sales office … to buy modern weapons and to ensure arrival of these weapons when the ministry asks for them.”
Also in May, Iran offered weapons and training to the Iraqi army after accusing Washington of not supplying Baghdad with the equipment needed to defend itself.
The offer came from Iran’s ambassador to Iraq, Hassan Kazemi Qomi, following a landmark meeting with his US counterpart. The two envoys followed up with a second meeting in Baghdad on Tuesday.
This time around, the United States accused Iran of stepping up its alleged support of militia fighters in Iraq, and US ambassador Ryan Crocker admitted afterwards the encounter had been marked by “heated exchanges.”
Copyright © AFP 2007
Just like Saddam. We’ll sell them lots of weapons, then in a couple of decades from now we’ll claim the existence of those weapons as justification for invading Iraq again.
Oh, and Tony Snow says we’re doing it as fast as we can??? Yeah right, we are the largest weapons manufacturer and sales machine in the world. That is sorta like McDonalds saying that producing Big Macs is a slow process.
The process is slow because we’re not sure if we really want to fully arm the Iranian backed and religiously based Shiite government that won the elections.
This is the real measure of the Bush administration — what previous American White House was unable to sell arms for cash?
It seems like the U.S. government is talking out of both sides of it’s mouth. It’s the usual neoconmen trick, such and such agency is ineffective so it should be abolished. Of course the agency is ineffective because the neoconmen are doing all they can to make it ineffective.
We can’t leave Iraq because Iraq can’t defend itself. It can’t defend itself because the Bush administration is making sure it can’t defend itself. Perhaps all the property and money of Bush and Cheney should be confiscated, because they are holding back the development of Iraq.
Much like the dismantling of the Iraq military immediately following the unprovoked attack, failure to provide arms and infrastructure is yet another way to prolong this insanely profitable genocide.
Given the Bush Monkey’s incompetence, it would come as no surprise to hear that they are worried they may be arming the wrong people, if, in fact they do make weapons available.
The former Iraq military was reportedly the 4th largest army in the world. Where now, are the weapons used by those forces? In the hands of the very “insurgents” who want the US the hell out of their country I would guess.
The decision as to whether or not to provide weapons to a people who we continue to bomb and starve is a complicated one. Problem is, most thinking people considered this before the illegal invasion…
This is just more proof that security is not on Cheerleader Bush’s agenda, only profits are.
Seems like they are employing their divide and conquer strategy on an unprecedented level. There are accusations that a lot of the suicide bombings could be done by the US/CIA, to maintain chaos, and “need” for US troops there.
The Iraqi gov. hasn’t got the arms they need yet because the Bush adm. is inept and corrupt, that’s all. And they probably don’t really want the Iraqi’s to gain too much control of the country, because then they could kick us out. The Bush Adm.’s goal is to occupy and control Iraq for the oil reserves, that is why they have built such a huge Embassy complex and drill oil out every day and help sell it for US and British private oil co.’s.
They should stop beating around the bush and make Iraq the 51st state of the United States.
Problem with the Bush mob is that they don’t seem to even understand the most primative law of alliances: “the enemy of my enemy is my friend”. All their actions seem to be governed by the simplest biological drive to establish themselves as the alpha of the pack. They want to attack Iran which supports the same government they are also supposed to be supporting. They deny it the arms needed because they fear that sooner or later the guns might be turned against them. The Sunnis get arms because they are sick of the Al Qaeda fanatics from Saudi Arabia that the US won’t do anything about — because the Saudis take orders with respect to Iran. And also, because Al Qaeda is often useful to the US, as in Soviet Afganistan and more recently in the Lebanon camp fight (they were supposed to fight Hesbollah, not the Lebanese army). It goes on and on; the belief is that the US has total supremacy and doesn’t need alliances with anyone — the alpha dog in the pack. Iran and the Shiites are the second biggest dog, at least in that oil rich part of the world, and so must be hammered down. I forget that there are always two faithful allies: Israel and England, but these also obey.
Bush lies all the time. He says support the troops and then fails to provide body armor nor HumVee armor.
He says Iraq should take more of the responsibility and then fails to deliver the weapons and equipment they need. All talk and no action.
The Bushie Stategy…ARM EVERYONE, AND DRAIN THE OILWELLS WHILE THEY ARE BUSY SHOOTING EACH OTHER
there is good money to be made in chaos and catastophe..just ask HALIBURTON
What is the Ambassador bitching about? he says they need small arms and they are willing to pay for them. Then he says they have to buy them from China. Sooooooo, buy them from China, whatever you need. China makes most of our military parts anyway. What difference does it make who they buy them from?__ None.
Well, maybe China wants the money up front and we would just ship them and put it on the cuff.__ This is all bullshit.
Man, If I were an Iraqi soldier, I would be super pissed drving around in the back of a open pickup dressed in my light coton uniform and my cheap-ass AK-47, while the US Troops hunker down in their heavily armoured APC dressed in the Robocop body armour whith a chain gun and a clip full of DU ammo.
Bet you dollars to donuts that they make the Iraqis drive down the roads first….200 yeards ahead of the Yankees
I am reposting my comments from another thread as I believe they relate here as well. (comments, caveats & insults welcome)
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Iraq is just the gas tank for the naval and air assets to start the real war to deal with the primary threat to American global authority.
China.
Control the oilfields in Iraq. Radioactively contaminate the oil in Iran making it unsafe for use for some 10,000 years or so (if it isn’t just incinerated by ground penetrating nuclear ‘bunker busters’
The only source that can supply China with the volume it will need after that will be the Saudis, who may refuse or set any price they choose, thus hamstringing China’s economic progress and limiting their ability to provide a prolonged military response.
Consider…
About 90% of the operational B1Bs, B2 Spirits and B52s have been quietly relocated to Guam in the last 3 years.
150 stored nuclear warheads collected from Rammstein AFB in Germany and sent…where?
U.S. Pacific Fleet commander Admiral Robert Willard has arrived on island and he’s scheduled to meet with Navy leaders and tour several facilities on Naval Base Guam later today.
The USS Buffalo has been homeported in Guam. The fast attack Los Angeles Class submarine arrived on Guam July 19 after being previously homeported in Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. The USS Buffalo will hold a change of command ceremony tomorrow relieving Commander Rian Humm by Commander Scott Pappano, who recently served at the Office of the Secretary of Defense.
The Buffalo now joins the USS City of Corpus Christi and the USS Houston at Apra Harbor.
The pieces are moving to their planned locations on schedule it would seem.
Essentially, most of the troops can come home as soon as the ‘embassy’ compound is finished, because it’s the mercenaries that are being paid to make sure that the oil keeps flowing to the Neocon lords that pay them.
Even those troops that supposedly guard this ‘government’ facility will eventually be sent home since it is actually a corporate HQ built with money from the US and Iraqi treasuries and the blood, pain and death of citizens and soldiers of both countries.
In other, all too familiar words ‘MISSION ACCOMPLISHED’.
For Iraq anyway, then it’s on to the next victim.
Chris Matthews on ‘Hardball’ was just going to discuss this problem when MSNBC broke with a news alert about Paris Hilton. We lucked out.
The Israeli’s don’t like the idea of the US selling Weapons to Iraq, So AIPAC doesn’t approve.
Iraq needs rifles…Calling Kissinger Asso,
Where are you Hank? They have the money,
what are you waiting for?
BushCo is raising an army in Iraq of Iraqis to attack Iran. It makes military sense and this subject is to bring more US money to the cause.
Since Tony Snow has just blamed Congress for not providing arms to Iraqi security forces, why doesn’t Congress tell us why he is wrong (or right)? Is it because the Administration and Congress have the same objective in mind: keep Iraq indefinitely divided and powerless, while the US and Israel move on to destroy the only other remaining obstacle to US military domination of the Middle East?
richard young July 27th, 2007 12:44 am
It is all a show. Iraq is a staging area for bigger operations.
Jesus Christ how much longer is the “Free Press/Whitehouse propaganda machine” going to go along with is this administration/republican congresses charade of this Orwellian/phony War.
Look, six years ago four airplanes were hijacked and crashed; three were flown into the office buildings. This was a tragedy which was not prevented by the top-notch security systems in place at the time. I’m confident they had encountered and prevented a number of horrific attacks in the past.
Terror attacks regrettably happen world-wide. I believe attacks have occurred in Spain, France, Japan and many if not most other nations of the world, including our own.
A reasonable response from our nation would have been to reinforce the Cockpit doors, lock them with deadbolts and write a procedure to keep them closed during flight. This would have been the only additional security necessary and would have prevented similar hijackings from occurring in the future.
Next gather our CIA/FBI type organizations with the help of our military intelligence forces find out who was responsible and bring them to justice. I’m sure the majority of the world would have provided the needed intelligence and support. This situation would have been over and similar attacks would have been prevented. This could have all been accomplished with very little cost and loss of life. We could have built world wide information ties to help protect ourselves and our allies from future attacks. Even if the attackers were not captured, we would have made this world a safer place for ourselves and our allies.
Instead the Bush administration aided by the Republican lead congress decided to create this horrific never-ending Orwellian War causing the destruction of millions of lives and wasting trillions of dollars of the American taxpayers’ money on the Halliburton type organizations. For what?
Gee I wonder why the rest of the world distrusts us. I guess as long as Republicans in congress has their Freedom Fries they don’t care. Makes me wish all freedom hating republicans would move to Dubai.
I’m sure as soon as they sign over the oil rights the Bush administration will gladly have our phony defense contractors make as many weapons as they can (while charging the Amercian tax payers 5 times the true value).
shadow and everyone,
Cheney/Bush need Osama bin Laden and Alqaeda to justify massive corporate war profits in Iraq. That is why they didn’t go after him in the mountains of Pakistan. So now, if Congress goes on a summer break this August, and if another terrorist attack happens, then Cheny/Bush would be free to dictate whatever they want without Congressional oversight. Thus, in my opinion, we are on the brink of an American holocaust.
Oh please!! The last thing Bush wants to do is arm the Arabs he is fighting. America has no allies in Iraq.
Bush/Cheney, with their 14 military bases, own Iraq and will not leave or give it back. My bet is that no foreseeable future administration will close those bases and leave Iraq. The U.S. needs to control the oil
Bush says when they stand up we’ll stand down. Well, he doesn’t want to stand down, so he makes it impossible for them to stand up.
Article summation: Stupid Americans we need more weapons so we can use then against you.
Tell them you need more cash for weapons..we must keep the cash flowing, we’ve gotten so used to it!!!