Oh dear..

[Adrian II]

Link (http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/article313538.ece)

Even if this is not true, the fact that Allawi confirms it and the document of the Iraqi Board of Supreme Audit apparently proves it, is reason enough to doubt that the Iraqi situation is going anywhere.

In some of my weaker moments, I tend to think that the U.S. might as well, you know, just leave... Just pack it up and leave Iraq. Go home. Take the show elsewhere. To New Orleans, or wherever it is that American soldiers are really needed.

[Ja'chyra]

A few points:


Military equipment purchased in Poland included 28-year-old Soviet-made helicopters. The manufacturers said they should have been scrapped after 25 years of service

Equipment is frequently used past it's recommended life, and if maintained properly is perfectly safe to do so.


A shipment of the latest MP5 American machine-guns, at a cost of $3,500 (£1,900) each, consisted in reality of Egyptian copies worth only $200 a gun

MP5's are H&K guns, so German, and are not by any means the latest. It is also a sub-machine gun as opposed to a machine gun.


A deal was struck to buy 7.62mm machine-gun bullets for 16 cents each, although they should have cost between 4 and 6 cents.

7.62mm rounds cost about £0.21 per round.

The amount of money lost is quite staggering, but I would've expected the information given to a bit more accurate.

[Adrian II]

Equipment is frequently used past it's recommended life, and if maintained properly is perfectly safe to do so.Not according to the manufacturers, apparently. And did you know there are American MP5's (http://www.hkpro.com/HK94.htm)? I wouldn't know about the cost of bullets. Maybe they are £0.21 a round in your supermarket, but don't national armies tend to get discounts?...

Anyway, the amount missing is staggering. The whole thing defies the imagination.

[Geoffrey S]

Brings back memories of that whole oil-for-food programme scandel.

[Ja'chyra]

That is the army discount ~:)

That was actually a different variant of the MP5, H&K own the IPR for the MP5 but it is possible that some were made in the US either by a US section of H7K or under license.

Anyway, we digress.

I would have thought that it would make sense for the US to provide arms and ammo to the Iraqi's, either gratis or for payment, until proper contracts are set up. This signing contracts on scraps of paper seems like an obvious scam and someone must have got rich out of it.

[Spetulhu]

That is the army discount ~:)

They don't even say what kind of ammo it's about!

7.62 NATO ammo?

Russian 7.62X39? Iraq used Soviet hardware. Russian squad MGs eat the same ammo as the AKM copies they have.

Or perhaps Russian 7.62X53R?


That was actually a different variant of the MP5, H&K own the IPR for the MP5 but it is possible that some were made in the US either by a US section of H7K or under license.


H&K is a major provider of weapons even if they can't rightfully sell to warring countries. IIRC they have a plant in Turkey that they used to get around the EU embargo against the warring ex-Yugoslavia.

[Tribesman]

MP5's are H&K guns, so German,
British Aerospace/Royal Ordinance owns H&K , so British ~;)

IIRC they have a plant in Turkey that they used to get around the EU embargo against the warring ex-Yugoslavia.
They have many plants and licensing agreements worldwide .
One of their usual methods of getting round EU arms embargos is to manufacture (but not assemble them) within the EU . send them to Switzerland for assembly , then re-import the finished weapons from Switzerland and ship them on to their final destination , often transhipped via another non-EU country to further avoid any accusations of sanctions busting .

[Ja'chyra]

MP5's are H&K guns, so German,
British Aerospace/Royal Ordinance owns H&K , so British ~;)

[B] .

If only that were true, we wouldn't have as many problems with IPR.