Afghan Arms Are at Risk, Report Says

Meagan Flood
Blog # 4
10:05pm

I saw this article and it is not exactly a crime but it might turn into one. It has been brought to attention that the American military hasn’t tracked weapons the Pentagon bought and shipped to Afghan security forces. American officials have failed to keep records of 87,000 rifles, pistols, mortars and other weapons. American officials also failed to track 135,000 weapons donated by 21 other countries. The report is being taken to the House Oversight and Government Reform subcommittee. It has been reported that a small amount of weapons have already been stolen, sold, or pilfered by deserters. Auditors found that the American trainers have not been following their own rules for tracking weapons. American officials are not suppose to release weapons to Afghan forces until they have safeguards in place to track and secure the arms.

This article caught my eye for the simple fact that it seems like American officials are just shipping of weapons and not giving much attention to where they are going or just exactly how many are suppose to be shipped to a certain place. We are suppose to be trying to ship weapons over to Afghanistan to help but after reading this it seems like we could only be causing a bigger problem. These weapons end up in the wrong hands and we are allowing more terrorism to take place. How could American officials be so careless with weapons?

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/12/world/asia/12arms.html?_r=1&ref=world