The Iraq Arms Deal

As I was surfing across the internet yesterday, I happened across an interesting article about an arms deal intercepted by Italian authorities almost by accident. Now when I say arms deal, I should not the deal – worth roughly forty million dollars – would have shipped more than 100,000 Russian-made automatic weapons into Iraq, as if more automatic weapons are just what the doctor ordered in Iraq. What’s most disconcerting about the deal – besides the sheer size of the deal – is the fact that the American government seemed to be oblivious to the fact that this deal was going down with involvement from Iraqi government officials. According to the Associated Press, Iraqi government officials were involved in the deal, apparently without the knowledge of the U.S. Baghdad command, marking a departure from the usual pattern of arms purchases overseen by the U.S.

The exposure of this arms deal brings to mind two questions: What does it say about the state of our intelligence operations that we didn’t catch a deal of this magnitude, and what does it say about the state of our relations with the Iraqi government that they’re cutting side deals on the black market for over 100,000 Russian-made automatic weapons?