coolieno99
Junior Member
China had supplied arms to Iraq before. Iraq must be happy with past dealings with China.:coffee:
Iraq reveals $100 million purchase of Chinese arms Alarmed analysts cite lax monitoring
By Robin Wrightand Ann Scott Tyson
Washington Post
WASHINGTON - Iraq has ordered $100 million worth of light military equipment from China for its police force, contending that the United States is unable to provide the materiel and is generally too slow in delivering arms, Iraqi President Jalal Talabani said Wednesday. The China deal, not previously made public, has alarmed military analysts who state that Iraq's security forces already are unable to account for more than 190,000 weapons supplied by the United States. Many are believed to be in the hands of Shiite and Sunni militias, insurgents and other forces seeking to destabilize Iraq and target U.S. soldiers. "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."
Meanwhile, the New York Times reported Wednesday that the former Blackwater USA employee who is the sole suspect in the killing last Christmas Eve of a bodyguard for an Iraqi vice president is a 27-year-old former Army paratrooper from Montana who now lives in Seattle. The former employee, Andrew J. Moonen, is identified in numerous government and company documents and is known to scores of Blackwater and government officials, but Congress, the State Department and the company have been keeping his identity confidential, the Times reported. The private military contractor, under scrutiny for killing civilians in an episode last month, provides security to State Department officials in Baghdad. In Baghdad on Wednesday, Poland's ambassador to Iraq was wounded and two people were killed - an Iraqi civilian and a member of the ambassador's security detail - in what appeared to be a coordinated roadside bomb attack, Polish and Iraqi officials said. The ambassador, Gen. Edward Pietrzyk, survived with burns to his head and hand, according to Polish officials and witnesses. The attack occurred about 10 a.m. 100 yards from the Polish Embassy compound in the upscale Karada section of eastern Baghdad, outside the fortified green zone. After the bomb attack, Iraqi and U.S. officials said, the ambassador and others were evacuated to a combat hospital in the green zone by helicopters operated by Blackwater. Accounts from several witnesses suggest that two or three roadside bombs detonated within fractions of a second of each other as three white sport-utility vehicles, one carrying the Polish ambassador, emerged from the embassy compound. About 900 Polish soldiers are working in Iraq, mostly to train Iraqi security forces. The Polish government extended the military mission until the end of this year and has not announced a definite withdrawal date.
