Petraeus and Weapons Lost in Iraq

As a follow-up to my post on lost weapons in Iraq the other day, I note that I’ve seen a bunch of people link to a Washington Post story:

The United States has spent $19.2 billion trying to develop Iraqi security forces since 2003, the GAO said, including at least $2.8 billion to buy and deliver equipment. But the GAO said weapons distribution was haphazard and rushed and failed to follow established procedures, particularly from 2004 to 2005, when security training was led by Gen. David H. Petraeus, who now commands all U.S. forces in Iraq.

(Bolding and italicizing mine.)

Iraqi security forces were virtually nonexistent in early 2004, and in June of that year Petraeus was brought in to build them up. No central record of distributed equipment was kept for a year and a half, until December 2005, and even now the records are on a spreadsheet that requires three computer screens lined up side by side to view a single row, Christoff said.

I noted a while back there were reasons to question whether Petraeus really is the best the US military has to offer… after all, he was in charge of training Iraqi security forces, and it seems perhaps the biggest problem in Iraq is the non-performance of Iraqi security forces. (On the plus side, those of them that are double dipping so to speak don’t perform that well when they take off their uniforms and take potshots at US soldiers either.)

But the Washington Post raises another issue. As Omar Bradley noted, “The amateur talks about strategy. The professional talks about logistics.”

And then there’s this very, very scary paragraph….

The GAO is studying the financing and weapons sources of insurgent groups, but that report will not be made public. “All of that information is classified,” said Joseph A. Christoff, the GAO’s director of international affairs and trade.

Why would something like this be classified – don’t the insurgents know where their weapons are coming from? My belief – the Saudis are financing the insurgency.