ERBIL, Kurdistan Region – According to a report released today by Amnesty International, a recently declassified Department of Defense (DoD) audit revealed that the US Army lost track of over $1 billion in military equipment in Iraq and Kuwait that could have been used to commit atrocities.
The audit, from September 2016, revealed that the DoD “did not have accurate, up-to-date records on the quantity and location” of a vast amount of equipment being sent to Kuwait and Iraq to arm the Iraqi army. The recently declassified audit was obtained by Amnesty International following the Freedom of Information requests.
“This audit provides a worrying insight into the US Army’s flawed – and potentially dangerous - system for controlling millions of dollars’ worth of arms transfers to a hugely volatile region,” said Patrick Wilcken, Amnesty International’s Arms Control and Human Rights Researcher.
Amnesty’s report builds on previous findings by international rights organizations that were critical of arms deals with Baghdad.
“It makes for especially sobering reading given the long history of leakage of US arms to multiple armed groups committing atrocities in Iraq, including the armed group calling itself the Islamic State,” said Wilcken.
The transfers came under the Iraq Train and Equip Fund (ITEF), a joint US-Iraqi program. In 2015, US Congress designated $1.62 billion to go towards military equipment to combat the advance of ISIS in Iraq.
The equipment included tens of thousands of assault rifles (worth $28 million alone), hundreds of mortar rounds and hundreds of Humvee armored vehicles which were meant to be used by the Iraqi army as well as Kurdish Peshmerga forces.
As discovered by the DoD audit, ITEF was inefficient in handling the transfer of weapons. Record keeping in arms depots in Iraq and Kuwait included information logged into multiple spreadsheets or even hand-written receipts. Also, large quantities of military equipment being entered into multiple spreadsheets increasing the risk of human error as well as incomplete records which indicates that authorities were unable to locate military equipment location or status.
The audit also claimed that the DoD did not track ITEF transfers following delivery to Iraqi authorities, even though they are required to carry out post-delivery checks.
“The need for post-delivery checks is vital. Any fragilities along the transfer chain greatly increase the risks of weapons going astray in a region where armed groups have wrought havoc and caused immense human suffering,” said Wilcken.
The consistently lax controls within the Iraqi chain of command in documenting DoD deliveries and record keeping poses the risk of having arms ending up in the hands of terror organizations such as ISIS as well as paramilitary militias who have no rights to the equipment.
Following the audit, the US military has pledged to increase the tracking and monitoring of future arms transfers into Iraq.
“Any state selling arms to Iraq must show that there are strict measures in place to make sure the weapons will not be used to violate rights. Without these safeguards, no transfer should take place,” Wilcken stated.
In January another human rights organization claimed Iraq’s Shiite militia forces have received weapons and ammunition from local and foreign governments, including Iraq, Iran, Russia, and the United States, without any accountability and they have carried out human rights abuses including summary executions and abductions.
“The question about being sure weapons won't be used in the vengeful killings is something that we as PMU [Paramilitary Unit] forces affiliated to the Iraqi government take very seriously," the Iraqi war media directorate stated in a response to a previous Human Rights Watch report.
"The supplier of weapons is not supplying these weapons directly to the PMU forces but in fact is doing so to the Iraqi government which we belong to and the government provides these to all its security forces, including the federal police, the army, the counter terrorism forces and others under the Iraqi government umbrella," it added.
“The question about being sure weapons won't be used in the vengeful killings is something that we as PMU [Paramilitary Unit] forces affiliated to the Iraqi government take very seriously," the Iraqi war media directorate stated in a response to a previous Human Rights Watch report.
"The supplier of weapons is not supplying these weapons directly to the PMU forces but in fact is doing so to the Iraqi government which we belong to and the government provides these to all its security forces, including the federal police, the army, the counter terrorism forces and others under the Iraqi government umbrella," it added.
The Arms Trade Treaty, propagated by the United Nations for Disarmament Affairs, has strict regulations in place to prohibit arms transfers or diversion of arms that could fuel atrocities. Iraq and the United States are not signatories of the treaty.
