Courtesy of the US Taxpayer: 172 Million Bullets for Iraq

Posted by Ilan Goldenberg at Democracy Arsenal:

http://www.democracyarsenal.org/2007/06/172_million_bul.html


Iraq Slogger reports that the Pentagon is buying 172 million bullets for the Iraqi Security Forces (That’s about 500 bullets per ISF Member). They are also ordering 20K grenades for RPG-7 Launchers.

Now on the one hand, if you are going to build a military you need to give it weapons. But on the other, does this anyway seem like a good idea? Iraq is already in the midst of a civil war. The security forces are notoriously unreliable and sectarian. The likelihood is that a good portion of these weapons will end up being used in sectarian violence or eventually against American troops. In fact, the situation is so bad that Brian Katulis, an Iraq expert at the Center for American Progress, is now arguing that we should stop training Iraqi Security forces all together.

Increasingly it appears the United States is training and arming different sides of Iraq’s multiple civil wars rather than creating a national army and police force willing and able to protect the nation’s fragmented political leadership

Most of Iraq’s violence is related to a vicious struggle for power that only has a political solution. Training and skills building are not the fundamental issue for Iraq’s security forces. In fact many of Iraqi security forces have more training than hundreds of U.S. soldiers being deployed as part of this surge. Their problems are motivation and allegiance.

There are no good solutions for getting us out of the hole that is Iraq. But as a first step I might suggest that at the very least we stop digging.



PS: <I wonder if this was part of the supplemental...>

That should do it, don't you think?