Italy Probe Unearths Huge Iraq Arms Deal

An Iraqi carries a Russian-designed machine gun at a funeral, July 27, 2007, in Karbala, an Iraqi city dominated by Shiite Muslim militias. Italian authorities have broken up an alleged illegal plot to ship 5,000 such machine guns, along with 100,000 assault rifles, into Iraq. Iraqi police supposedly would have been the end users, but Shiite militias are known to have obtained weapons through police channels. (AP Photo/Ghassan al-Yassiri, File) (Ghassan Al-yassiri - AP)

In Baghdad, the Interior Ministry wouldn't discuss the AK-47 transaction on the record. But a senior ministry official, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the matter's sensitivity, acknowledged it had sought the weapons through al-Handal.

Asked about the irregular channels used, he said the ministry "doesn't ask the supplier how these weapons are obtained."

Although this official refused to discuss details, he said "most" of the 105,000 weapons were meant for police in Iraq's western province of Anbar. That statement raised questions, however, since Pentagon reports list only 161,000 trained police across all 18 of Iraq's provinces, and say the ministry has been issued 169,280 AK-47s, 167,789 pistols and 16,398 machine guns for them and 28,000 border police.

A July 26 Pentagon report said 20,847 other AK-47s purchased for the Interior Ministry have not yet been delivered. Iraqi officials complain that the U.S. supply of equipment, from bullets to uniforms, has been slow.

A Pentagon report in June may have touched on another possible destination for weapons obtained via secretive channels, noting that "militia infiltration of local police remains a significant problem." Shiite Muslim militias in Iraq's civil war have long been known to find cover and weapons within the Interior Ministry.

In fact, in a further sign of poor controls on the flow of arms into Iraq, a July 31 audit report by the U.S. Government Accountability Office said the U.S. command's books don't contain records on 190,000 AK-47s and other weapons, more than half those issued in 2004-2005 to Iraqi forces. This makes it difficult to trace weapons that may be passed on to militias or insurgents.

The Pentagon, meanwhile, has described the Interior Ministry's accounting of police equipment as unreliable.

Here in Italy, Razzi expressed puzzlement at the Iraqi officials' circumvention of U.S. supply routes.

"It seems strange that a pro-Western government, supported by the U.S. Army and other NATO countries on its own territory, would seek Russian or Chinese weapons through questionable channels," the anti-Mafia prosecutor wrote in seeking the arrest warrant that short-circuited the complex deal.