U.S. troops in Iraq suspected of gun running

According to the Government Accountability Office somewhere in the neighborhood of 30% of all the weapons the U.S. sends to Iraq that are intended for the Newly trained Iraqi security forces have gone missing. The Pentagon is investigating the possibility that up to 190,000 AK-47 assault rifles and pistols have been intercepted by U.S. soldiers when they were on their way to Iraqi Security forces and instead diverted for sale on the black market by U.S troops and American contractors. The G.A.O. report sited that among other things there is insufficient staffing in Iraq to monitor the weapons coupled with a general failure to follow established procedures that is exaserbating the problem. It has cost U.S. taxpayers in excess of 19 billion dollars since 2003 just to train and equip the Iraqi Security forces. During the time the weapons went missing the General in charge of training those forces was David Petraeus who is currently the commanding general of all U.S. forces there. He is not suspected of and has not been implicated in any kind of wrongdoing. Commanders in Iraq believe that the failure to follow established procedures in Iraq has been a problem for a while. Other such incidents have involved leaving weapons depots unguarded. Such behavior helps put weapons in the hands of anti U.S. insurgents in Iraq and probably leads to an increase in the number of combat deaths the U.S. suffers in theater. Claude Kicklighter, the pentagon's Inspector General is believed to be quietly looking into the matter but the Pentagon has declined any official comment so far.