Attacks on American-led forces using a lethal type of roadside bomb said to be supplied by Iran reached a new high in July, according to the American military.I wonder how many attacks have been carried out by insurgents and terrorists in Iraq using weapons that the Coalition forces failed to secure after the invasion. We know that the Iraqi military weapons depots were not secured after the military colapsed.
The devices, known as explosively formed penetrators, were used to carry out 99 attacks last month and accounted for a third of the combat deaths suffered by the American-led forces, according to American military officials.
How many have been killed by the hundreds of thousands of weapons that were delivered by the United States to Iraq for Iraqi forces that were being trained. We know that no records were kept of who got those weapons, and that the recent GAO report says that hundreds of thousands can not now be located.
I wonder how many weapons are coming across the borders from Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Jordan and Syria, and how many people they are being used against. Are not the Sunni sources who finance terrorists and supply them with weapons in other places interested in supporting their allied factions in Iraq?
What is coming into Iraq from Turkey? Where do the Kurds get their weapons? Do weapons filter into the rest of Iraq from the Kurdish controlled areas?
I don't know the answers to any of these questions, in part because the news media have not provided me with that information. Why is that? Perhaps because it is easier to report from the press releases that the military hand out than to dig out the facts describing the broader picture and seek a more balanced report. Or perhaps the information I don't see is simply not important.
What does this all mean in terms of K4D?
In terms of this blog, I guess the message is that it is sometimes useful to think about the big picture and figure out what you should know. Lets take Iraq weaponry as an example.
What are the factions fighting in Iraq? We know about Kurds, Sunnis and Shiites. Is it likely that Iran is supplying all of these factions with arms? I doubt it? Where are the others getting their weapons?
We have been informed that three Shiite factions are fighting in Basra, now that the Brits are pulling out of that city. So we know that the Shiites are not unified. Are the Iranians supporting all those factions? If not, where are the armed Shiite factions not supported by the Iranians getting their weapons. With the huge numbers of unaccounted for weapons that we think are in Iraq from before 2002 and supplied by the Coalition since 2002, what is the relative importance of imports from Iran?
Look at the map. Which borders are most porous? Which are controlled on the Iraqi side by what factions? Which are the factions supported by the countries on the other sides of those borders? Which bordering country governments are strong enough to control long desert borders? Which are likely to supply weapons to partisans in a neighboring country. Which of these countries has internal factions that might reasonably be able to supply weapons to those they favor in Iraq?
I can't resist a final comment. We know that the U.S. military has been strongly criticized because it could not supply its soldiers with armored vehicles or even adequate body armor. Yet the Iranians are suspected of being able to supply covert forces in another country with adequate weaponry? Is there a disconnect here?
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