The Pentagon "cannot fully account for Iraqi forces’ receipt of U.S.-funded military equipment and weapons," the Government Accountability Office reports in the understated conclusion of a new study released Tuesday.

Specifically, the GAO audited data kept by the Multinational Security Transition Command-Iraq's (MNSTC-I) up until September 2005, and found the US could not account for 190,000 weapons that had been supposedly transferred to Iraqi control by that date. Though a centralization of records after that was supposed to improve accounting, GAO has found that incomplete follow-up makes it impossible to know if US-issued weapons are ending up in the right hands.

The report comes almost a month after PKK defectors first told a stunned Turkish media that their rebel group had received US-issued weapons, leading Ankara to request US officials investigate the report.

Pentagon officials visited Ankara this week as part of what the US embassy characterized as an "ongoing investigation that had been launched a number of months ago about possibly missing weapons." According to Turkish sources, the US delegation acknowledged that corruption by some American personnel may have played a role in getting US-issued weapons into PKK hands. But the GAO report makes it evident that incompetence may have played a bigger role than malfeasance:

Although the former MNSTC-I commander reported that about 185,000 AK-47 rifles, 170,000 pistols, 215,000 items of body armor, and 140,000 helmets were issued to Iraqi security forces as of September 2005,18 the MNSTC-I property books contain records for only about 75,000 AK-47 rifles, 90,000 pistols, 80,000 items of body armor, and 25,000 helmets.19 Thus, DOD and MNF-I cannot fully account for about 110,000 AK-47 rifles, 80,000 pistols, 135,000 items of body armor, and 115,000 helmets reported as issued to Iraqi forces as of September 22, 2005.

Part of the lack of accurate accounting resulted from the failure to maintain a centralized system to track the weapons and equipment transfers--a problem the MNSTC-I attempted to rectify by establishing a new system in December 2005. Despite the efforts, the GAO found that "since the beginning of the program, MNSTC-I has not consistently collected supporting documents that confirm when the equipment was received, the quantities of equipment delivered, or the Iraqi units receiving the equipment."

Since 2003, Congress has provided $19.2 billion to develop Iraq's security forces, all of which was to be run outside the DOD's usual channels for training and equipping foreign armies. This was designed to give DOD greater flexibility in managing the Iraqi training program, but it also apparently removed the accountability requirements that come embedded in US security assistance programs.

According to the GAO, "DOD officials stated that, since the funding did not go through traditional security assistance programs, the DOD accountability requirements normally applicable to these programs—including the registration of small arms transferred to foreign governments—did not apply."

The GAO makes clear the MNF, DOD, or MNSTC-I had not established clear guidelines for accountability as of July 2007. The GAO even discovered confusion among US military officials over whether or not the serial numbers of weapons transferred to Iraqi forces were supposed to be recorded or not.

Stabilizing Iraq: DOD Cannot Ensure That U.S.-Funded Equipment Has Reached Iraqi Security Forces gaoweapons.pdf