US Military Sent over $1 Billion Worth of Light Weapons To “Multiple Armed Groups” in Iraq
Report of Amnesty International
Management and Logistical Failure? Quoting a recently declassified US government audit, Amnesty International reports that the US Army “has failed to keep tabs on more than $1 billion worth of arms and other military equipment” channelled to Iraq under the Iraq Train and Equip Fund (ITEF).
In 2015, US Congress appropriated $1.6 billion for the ITEF program. The funds were earmarked to fight against the ISIS in response to Obama’s counter-terrorism campaign launched in Summer of 2014. In a bitter irony, a large number of these weapons landed up in the hands of terrorists including the ISIS.
The 1.6 billion were spent on light weaponry. It’s all for a good cause: The shipments of weapons and ammunition were according to reports dispatched to Iraq (c/o the Iraqi Armed Forces) to be distributed to armed groups involved in fighting ISIS-Daesh.
Some of the shipments unfortunately went astray or landed in the wrong hands, according to Patrick Wilcken, an Amnesty researcher on International’s Arms Control and Human Rights. This was