U.S. still uncertain about stolen ammo

WASHINGTON – Four years after invading Iraq, the U.S. military still does not know how many tons of explosives were stolen from the country’s massive prewar stockpiles or how many weapons caches remain unsecured, according to a government audit made public Thursday.

Many of the looted munitions have since made their way into the roadside bombs and other improvised explosive devices responsible for the bulk of U.S. troop deaths in Iraq.

The Government Accountability Office report blamed a lack of manpower, inadequate planning and misplaced priorities for the military’s failure to account for and immediately secure weapons during and after the U.S.-led invasion in 2003. The number of unaccounted munitions “could range significantly from thousands to millions of tons,” said an unclassified version of the report released at a congressional hearing.

The report warned that some weapons stockpiles may still be vulnerable to looting and could fall into the hands of insurgents and terrorists. As recently as October, government investigators could not confirm all weapons sites had been physically secured, and said no nationwide tally had apparently been carried out by the Department of Defense.

“Such an assessment … would assist (the department) in conserving lives and resources, and avoiding or mitigating unnecessary risks,” the GAO report’s primary author, Davi M. D’Agostino, testified.

The report pinned particular blame on several prewar assumptions that turned out to be incorrect, including a belief that Iraqi resistance would be short-lived and that Iraqi forces would immediately provide internal security.

It also faulted the Pentagon for not setting up a program to manage and destroy conventional munitions until well after major combat operations were declared over.

A retired general involved in top-level prewar planning told the panel he agreed that U.S. action on the munitions was inadequate.

“The GAO report is exactly right,” said retired Marine Corps Lt. Gen. Gregory S. Newbold, the director of operations for the Joint Chiefs of Staff from October 2000 to October 2002 who left the service partly in protest of the handling of the war.

However, Newbold backed away from a GAO recommendation for a nationwide survey of weapons sites, saying it would only add to the “bloated bureaucracy” in Iraq.