[R-G] Iraqis to Pay China $100 Million for Weapons for Police

[Anthony Fenton]

Copyright 2007 The Washington Post
All Rights Reserved
http://www.washingtonpost.com
The Washington Post

October 4, 2007 Thursday
Met 2 Edition

SECTION: FOREIGN; Pg. A12

DISTRIBUTION: Maryland

LENGTH: 1057 words

HEADLINE: Iraqis to Pay China $100 Million for Weapons for Police;
Experts Fear More Will Go to Insurgents

BYLINE: Robin Wright and Ann Scott Tyson; Washington Post Staff Writers

BODY:


Iraq has ordered $100 million worth of light military equipment from  
China for its police force, contending that the United States was  
unable to provide the materiel and is too slow to deliver arms  
shipments, Iraqi President Jalal Talabani said yesterday.

The China deal, not previously made public, has alarmed military  
analysts who note that Iraq's security forces already are unable to  
account for more than 190,000 weapons supplied by the United States,  
many of which are believed to be in the hands of Shiite and Sunni  
militias, insurgents and other forces seeking to destabilize Iraq and  
target U.S. troops.

"The problem is that the Iraqi government doesn't have -- as yet -- a  
clear plan for making sure that weapons are distributed, that they  
are properly monitored and repeatedly checked," said Rachel Stohl of  
the Center for Defense Information, an independent think tank. "The  
end-use monitoring will be left in the hands of a government and  
military in Iraq that is not yet ready for it. And there's not a way  
for the U.S. to mandate them to do it if they're not U.S. weapons."

News of Iraq's arms deal came as Army Lt. Gen. Raymond T. Odierno,  
the top U.S. commander for day-to-day operations in Iraq, told  
editors and reporters at The Washington Post yesterday that he  
expects a U.S. troop presence will be required in the country for a  
minimum of "at least three to five more years" and will involve  
25,000 to 50,000 troops, depending on security conditions.

Detailed planning is underway for the U.S. military to begin scaling  
back its primary mission from one of fighting a counterinsurgency to  
an advisory and training role, which will involve pulling U.S. troops  
out of Iraqi cities and closing some U.S. bases, Odierno said.  
Odierno and Talabani, who met separately with Post editors and  
reporters, said they expect their governments to finalize a long-term  
bilateral security pact in 2008.

The capabilities of Iraqi security forces are pivotal to the U.S.  
exit strategy in Iraq, with the creation of a viable police force  
critical to reconciliation. Talabani said only one in five Iraqi  
police officers is armed and called for faster weapons delivery from  
the United States to beef up Iraq's fledgling army.

Iraq's police force is noted for infiltration by militias and  
insurgents out to use national resources for their own ends, said  
William D. Hartung, director of the New America Foundation Arms and  
Security Initiative. "Besides, aside from possibly wanting newer  
models, there are piles of arms and weapons floating around in Iraq,"  
he said.

The Chinese arms deal sheds light on the larger dispute between the  
United States and Iraq over rebuilding Iraq's armed forces and  
police. Iraqi officials have long complained about the supply of  
weapons and equipment for their personnel, noting that Iraqi security  
forces often patrol in pickup trucks without body armor along the  
same routes as U.S. troops wearing flak jackets and riding in armored  
vehicles.

"There is general frustration in the Iraqi government at the rate in  
which Iraqi armed forces are being equipped and armed," Iraqi  
Ambassador Samir Sumaidaie told reporters this summer. "This is a  
collaborative effort between the Iraqi government and the government  
of the United States, and the process is not moving quickly enough to  
improve the fighting capacity of Iraqi armed forces. A way must be  
found to improve this process."

Talabani yesterday expressed frustration with the delays. "The  
capacity of the factories here are not enough to provide us quickly  
with all that we need, even for the army. One of our demands is to  
accelerate the delivery of the arms to the Iraqi army."

Iraq has become one of the largest buyers of U.S.-made weapons. Army  
Gen. David H. Petraeus, the top U.S. commander in Iraq, told the  
Senate Armed Services Committee last month that Baghdad has signed  
deals to buy $1.6 billion in U.S. arms, with another $1.8 billion in  
possible weapons purchases.

Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman said the United States is "working  
closely" to help Iraq obtain "appropriate and necessary" military  
equipment. But U.S. officials concede delivery problems.

"We haven't converted toaster factories to produce carbines and we're  
working hard just to supply our own troops," said an administration  
official involved with Iraq policy. "Our factories are working for  
our own troops. So it's true we don't have the ability to provide  
these rifles and other equipment they're looking for."

In 2004 and 2005, the United States bought 185,000 AK-47s from an  
Eastern European country -- after Iraqis rejected U.S.-made M-16  
assault rifles -- as part of a $2.8 billion program to deliver  
military equipment to Iraq. But a recent Government Accountability  
Office report said that 110,000 of them were unaccounted for, with  
about 30 percent of all arms distributed to Iraqi forces by the  
United States since 2004 missing.

Nevertheless, Odierno said, recent improvements in Iraq's security  
since the U.S. troop buildup have exceeded his expectations, with  
attacks down in September to the lowest level since January 2006 and  
U.S. troop casualties declining since June. A major factor has been  
U.S. operations against al-Qaeda in Iraq, whose sanctuaries have been  
reduced by 60 to 70 percent since January, he said. He warned,  
however, that the group can regenerate.

Another factor has been the unexpected willingness of Sunni tribes to  
cooperate with U.S. and Iraqi forces, he said. But Odierno said he  
remains concerned over recent statements from Iraq's Shiite ruling  
faction demanding that the U.S. military stop recruiting Sunni  
tribesmen f0r Iraq's police force.

"That's uncomfortable to them, and I think that's part of why it's so  
important. This is about reconciliation," Odierno said. "We have to  
continue to move forward."

He said the U.S. military is shifting more of its resources to  
targeting Shiite militias, including what Odierno called "surrogates"  
who are trained, armed and funded by Iran, as well as "special  
groups" affiliated with the Mahdi Army of Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr.

"We are starting to see at low levels a split between those [Shiite  
militias] who have some relationship with Iran . . . and those who do  
not," Odierno said. He said the significance of the "fissures" is not  
yet clear.

Staff writer Dafna Linzer contributed to this report.

GRAPHIC: IMAGE; Lt. Gen. Raymond T. Odierno said U.S. troops are  
likely to be in Iraq for "three to five more years."