H
Harry Hope
Guest
Tisdale, who recalled seeing a briefcase stuffed with stacks of $20
bills under Saffar's desk, said he thought Saffar enriched himself
selling American stocks along with guns he acquired from the streets.
.....................................................................................................
Saffar denies any wrongdoing, including any arms dealings.
Nearly a half-dozen U.S. and Iraqi workers say his gun business was an
open secret at the armory.
Elsewhere, U.S. officers short-circuited the chain of custody by
rushing to Baghdad's airport to claim crates of newly arrived weapons
without filing the necessary paperwork.
And Iraqis regularly sold or stole the American-supplied weapons, U.S.
officers and contractors said.
A shipment of 3,000 Glocks issued to police cadets disappeared within
a week when they were sold on the black market, said a U.S. officer
involved in distributing weapons.
Other military sources said the weapons would fetch between five and
seven times more than the $200 a police cadet would earn in a month.
U.S. military commanders say Iraqi security guards are suspected of
stealing hundreds of weapons last year in about 10 major thefts at
arms depots at Taji and Abu Ghraib.
The investigations into missing weapons are among the most serious in
the widening federal inquiries into billions of dollars in military
contracts for the purchase and delivery of weapons, supplies and other
materiel to Iraqi and U.S. forces.
Already there is evidence that some U.S.-supplied weapons fell into
the hands of guerrillas responsible for attacks against Turkey, an
important U.S. ally.
..........................................................................................................
Many of those weapons were issued when Gen. David H. Petraeus, now the
top U.S. commander in Iraq, was responsible for training and equipping
Iraqi security forces in 2004 and 2005.
....................................................................................................
Petraeus has said that he opted to arm the Iraqi forces as quickly as
possible, before tracking systems were fully in place.
The Pentagon says it has since tightened its record-keeping for the
weapons, but government auditors said in interviews that they were not
yet convinced that an effective system was in place.
"The problem goes well beyond bookkeeping," said Joseph A. Christoff,
the director of international affairs and trade for the Government
Accountability Office.
Another GAO official said, "There were inquiries from soldiers finding
enemy weapons caches, finding AK-47s, and they would ask, 'Did we give
these to them?"'
.........................................................................................................
The Iraqi commanders could barely keep track of their troops, much
less stocks of new weapons, he said.
He estimated that 30 percent of the equipment that he and Cox
delivered went to Iraqi soldiers who reported for duty one day and
disappeared the next.
........................................................................................................
In July, the company, American Logistics Services, which later became
Lee Dynamics International, was suspended by the Army from doing
future business with the government amid accusations that the company
paid hundreds of thousands of dollars in bribes to military
contracting officers.
The company had won $11 million in contracts to manage five warehouses
with arms and other equipment in Iraq.
The company's armory, a long concrete building divided into two
sections in the back, was a logistics hub for the new Iraqi police.
Crates of AK-47s and Glock pistols purchased by the Pentagon were
trucked to the armory by armed convoys from a large warehouse at Abu
Ghraib, and Saffar issued them to cadets.
It was also from this 1,800-square-foot building and six adjacent
40-foot-long metal shipping containers that Saffar plied his personal
arms trade, co-workers said.
He sold guns from the black market and from captured stocks.
"There wasn't anybody there who didn't know what he was doing," said
Nordgaarden, the Alaska state trooper.
Tisdale said Saffar had a steady stream of customers, from Iraqis to
South African private security contractors.
"There were truckloads of stuff moving out of that armory without my
authorization," Tisdale said.
Tisdale said that he complained repeatedly to two top American
Logistics executives, but they assured him that Saffar's dealings were
proper.
The company has not responded to requests for comment.
Tisdale and other co-workers said they believed that a U.S. military
official, Lt. Col. Levonda Joey Selph, an Army officer who oversaw the
warehouse contract and whose activities have been part of the
investigation into American Logistics, also must have known about the
arms dealings.
Tisdale said the colonel regularly visited the armory and met with
Saffar.
Nordgaarden recalled seeing Selph at the warehouse eight to 10 times
over a year.
In a brief encounter outside her northern Virginia home, Selph would
say only that she was not guilty of any wrongdoing, and that she was
under orders not to speak to the press.
She would not say whose orders.
http://www.rutlandherald.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20071111/NEWS04/711110386/-1/RSS10
November 11, 2007
Truckloads of U.S. weapons have gone missing in Iraq
The New York Times
WASHINGTON
bills under Saffar's desk, said he thought Saffar enriched himself
selling American stocks along with guns he acquired from the streets.
.....................................................................................................
Saffar denies any wrongdoing, including any arms dealings.
Nearly a half-dozen U.S. and Iraqi workers say his gun business was an
open secret at the armory.
Elsewhere, U.S. officers short-circuited the chain of custody by
rushing to Baghdad's airport to claim crates of newly arrived weapons
without filing the necessary paperwork.
And Iraqis regularly sold or stole the American-supplied weapons, U.S.
officers and contractors said.
A shipment of 3,000 Glocks issued to police cadets disappeared within
a week when they were sold on the black market, said a U.S. officer
involved in distributing weapons.
Other military sources said the weapons would fetch between five and
seven times more than the $200 a police cadet would earn in a month.
U.S. military commanders say Iraqi security guards are suspected of
stealing hundreds of weapons last year in about 10 major thefts at
arms depots at Taji and Abu Ghraib.
The investigations into missing weapons are among the most serious in
the widening federal inquiries into billions of dollars in military
contracts for the purchase and delivery of weapons, supplies and other
materiel to Iraqi and U.S. forces.
Already there is evidence that some U.S.-supplied weapons fell into
the hands of guerrillas responsible for attacks against Turkey, an
important U.S. ally.
..........................................................................................................
Many of those weapons were issued when Gen. David H. Petraeus, now the
top U.S. commander in Iraq, was responsible for training and equipping
Iraqi security forces in 2004 and 2005.
....................................................................................................
Petraeus has said that he opted to arm the Iraqi forces as quickly as
possible, before tracking systems were fully in place.
The Pentagon says it has since tightened its record-keeping for the
weapons, but government auditors said in interviews that they were not
yet convinced that an effective system was in place.
"The problem goes well beyond bookkeeping," said Joseph A. Christoff,
the director of international affairs and trade for the Government
Accountability Office.
Another GAO official said, "There were inquiries from soldiers finding
enemy weapons caches, finding AK-47s, and they would ask, 'Did we give
these to them?"'
.........................................................................................................
The Iraqi commanders could barely keep track of their troops, much
less stocks of new weapons, he said.
He estimated that 30 percent of the equipment that he and Cox
delivered went to Iraqi soldiers who reported for duty one day and
disappeared the next.
........................................................................................................
In July, the company, American Logistics Services, which later became
Lee Dynamics International, was suspended by the Army from doing
future business with the government amid accusations that the company
paid hundreds of thousands of dollars in bribes to military
contracting officers.
The company had won $11 million in contracts to manage five warehouses
with arms and other equipment in Iraq.
The company's armory, a long concrete building divided into two
sections in the back, was a logistics hub for the new Iraqi police.
Crates of AK-47s and Glock pistols purchased by the Pentagon were
trucked to the armory by armed convoys from a large warehouse at Abu
Ghraib, and Saffar issued them to cadets.
It was also from this 1,800-square-foot building and six adjacent
40-foot-long metal shipping containers that Saffar plied his personal
arms trade, co-workers said.
He sold guns from the black market and from captured stocks.
"There wasn't anybody there who didn't know what he was doing," said
Nordgaarden, the Alaska state trooper.
Tisdale said Saffar had a steady stream of customers, from Iraqis to
South African private security contractors.
"There were truckloads of stuff moving out of that armory without my
authorization," Tisdale said.
Tisdale said that he complained repeatedly to two top American
Logistics executives, but they assured him that Saffar's dealings were
proper.
The company has not responded to requests for comment.
Tisdale and other co-workers said they believed that a U.S. military
official, Lt. Col. Levonda Joey Selph, an Army officer who oversaw the
warehouse contract and whose activities have been part of the
investigation into American Logistics, also must have known about the
arms dealings.
Tisdale said the colonel regularly visited the armory and met with
Saffar.
Nordgaarden recalled seeing Selph at the warehouse eight to 10 times
over a year.
In a brief encounter outside her northern Virginia home, Selph would
say only that she was not guilty of any wrongdoing, and that she was
under orders not to speak to the press.
She would not say whose orders.
http://www.rutlandherald.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20071111/NEWS04/711110386/-1/RSS10
November 11, 2007
Truckloads of U.S. weapons have gone missing in Iraq
The New York Times
WASHINGTON
