Accounting for the unaccounted for rifles

Washington Post:

Bookkeeping deficiencies allowed thousands of weapons issued to Iraqi security forces in 2004 and 2005 to then go missing, Gen. David H. Petraeus, the top U.S. commander in Iraq, said yesterday.

"Some percentage" of weapons the U.S. military provided to the Iraqi army and Iraqi police units were not tracked by serial number because there were no procedures in place to do so within the Iraqi units, Petraeus said in an interview broadcast last night on Fox News Radio's "Alan Colmes Show."

From a practical standpoint, Petraeus added, it was more important to get the weapons to the Iraqis as they started to enter the fight against a strong insurgency than it was to keep meticulous records.

"We occasionally likened it to building the world's largest aircraft while in flight and while being shot at," the general said. "But we gradually started putting those procedures into place."

...

Petraeus, who then led the security training effort, said Iraqi units were ready to fight but did not have the equipment they needed just as Moqtada al-Sadr's influence grew in the summer of 2004. He described one case in which U.S. forces flew into the war zone of Najaf at night, their helicopters under fire, and "actually [were] kicking two battalions' worth of equipment off the ramp and getting out of there while we still could."

"That type of decision was something that we made at the time because those forces needed those weapons and that equipment," Petraeus told Colmes. "We weren't going to stay there in the dark and make guys do a serial-number inventory and sign them up, and that is what happened. We believe those weapons all certainly were given to Iraqi units."

...

When you are up to you ass in alligators, you don't have time to collect serial numbers. It is not a matter of competence or corruption under the stress of an emergency. What happens is after the emergency is passed, some people will take advantage of the emergency action. We saw this in New Orleans after Katrina where the rush to get aid to victims led to outright fraud by many who wanted to take advantage of that emergency. The numbers and amount in Katrina was significantly more than the number of unaccounted for rifles in Iraq.

If we wanted to use the logic of the left, we could just say the unaccounted for rifles never existed. that is what they are saying about Saddam's unaccounted for WMD. Yes, those who say those rifles existed must be lying.