Weapons, legal and illegal, flood Iraq

Since the U.S. invasion in 2003, when looters ransacked armories and deserting Iraqi soldiers took their rifles home, this bloodied land has been flooded by a sea of weapons fed from both the legal and illegal market.

Besides more than 700,000 rifles and other weapons arming the new Iraqi army and police, at least seven million guns are believed in the hands of civilians, including insurgents and sectarian militias, in a nation of 27 million, the Geneva-based research group Small Arms Survey reports.

More are pouring in: The Pentagon said July 26 that some 122,000 fresh weapons are in the official supply pipeline for Iraqi security forces. Many more come via black-market channels.

Some glimpses into the Iraqi arms bazaar:

UNTRACEABLE WEAPONS

Auditors reported July 31 the U.S. command's books don't contain records of 190,000 AK-47s and other weapons, more than half those issued in 2004-2005 to Iraqi forces. When such U.S.-bought weapons are found in insurgent or militia hands, they can't be traced to soldiers or police who may have passed them on.

MISSING GUNS

"Large portions" of the equipment, including guns, supplied to police in the western province of Anbar are missing from police stations, Marine officers told the U.S. Congress in May. The Pentagon says the Interior Ministry's accounting of police equipment is unreliable.

RIFLE EXCHANGE

Iraq plans to buy at least 100,000 U.S.-made M-16 and M-4 assault rifles for its army, to replace Russian-designed AK-47s. Soldiers will be fingerprinted and photographed with their new guns' serial numbers to ensure accountability. But their discarded AK-47s will be a tempting target for black marketers.

ARMS SMUGGLING

Daily reports from Iraqi and U.S. forces tell of smuggled arms from Iran, Syria or elsewhere entering Iraq in trucks, on motorcycles, even on donkeys' backs. Last January, police knocked on an oil tanker's false bottom and found that a four-tanker convoy was transporting machine guns in hidden compartments.

SPILLOVER

Turkey complained last month that U.S. weapons supplied to Iraqi security forces were turning up in the hands of anti-Turkish Kurdish separatists based in northern Iraq. Last year, Iran said U.S. weapons were flowing from Iraq to "disruptive" elements, presumably meaning Iranian Kurds.