GAO’s Pogo Report on Unsecured Munitions In Iraq

GAO, meet POGO.
Yesterday, the US Government Accounting Organization released an unclassified 35 page version of a study submitted to the Pentagon in December, with a long-winded title: “Operation Iraqi Freedom: DOD Should Apply Lessons Learned Concerning the Need for Security over Conventional Munitions Storage Sites to Future Operations Planning.”
A better title, in Pogo’s immortal “Swamp Speak,” might be, “In Iraqi IED’s, We have Met the Enemy and He is Us.”
The gist of the report is that “hundreds of thousands of tons” of Iraqi munitions were left unsecured after Iraq was “liberated” in April of 2003. Such munitions and components are being used by insurgents in making the roadside mines (IED’s), the devises deemed responsible for half of American casualties.
As Secretary of Defense Gates admitted yesterday, unsecured weapons caches have been a “huge, huge problem.” Characterizing Iraq now as “one huge ammo dump,” the munitions on the loose literally provide the raw materials for much of the carnage in Iraq today.
So how did this happen dear Pogo?
Elementary. We did it to ourselves.
First, “Operation Iraqi Freedom” (OIF) assumed that after Saddam’s regime was overthrown,

“the regular Iraqi army units would ‘capitulate and provide internal security.’ Knowledgeable senior-level DOD officials stated that these Iraqi army units would have been used to secure conventional munitions storage sites….” (over 400 of them… p.8)

“As stated in the OIF war plan, the U.S. Commander, CENTCOM, intended to preserve, as much as possible, the Iraqi military to maintain internal security and protect Iraq’s borders during and after major combat operations.”

The US military planners also assumed that,

“Iraqi resistance was unlikely…. the plan did not consider the possibility of protracted, organized Iraqi resistance to U.S. and coalition forces after the conclusion of major combat operations. As a result, DOD officials stated that the regime’s conventional munitions storage sites were not considered a significant risk.”

Why should they have feared such resistance? After all, then Assistant Defense Secretary Wolfowitz was channeling the koolaid being mixed by Chalabi, Lewis, Ajami and their neocon pals. Remember the welcome to Iraq predictions?
In short, and as incredible as this may now sound, OIF planners assumed that, “Postwar Iraq would not be a U.S. military responsibility.”
As a result, “U.S. forces did not have sufficient troop levels to provide adequate security for conventional munitions storage sites in Iraq because of OIF planning priorities and certain assumptions that proved to be invalid.”
“Heck of a Job there Tommy.”
Worst of all (and to be more candid than the GAO report), the OIF military’s planners did not anticipate the actions of their own government:

“On May 23, 2003, the Coalition Provisional Authority dissolved the Iraqi Army, which the CENTCOM commander assumed would provide internal security.”

As a direct consequence, Iraq’s weapons caches and manufacturing facilities went essentially unguarded for months. The US Military did not have a coordinated effort to manage and monitor Iraq’s munitions depots until after August of 2003. Even now, the GAO contends that monitoring and control of such “vulnerable” Iraqi munitions sites remains poor.
The consequences of leaving Iraqi munitions so vulnerable to theft have been… grave:

“As reported by DOD and key government agencies, the human, strategic, and financial costs of not securing conventional munitions storage sites have been high. Estimates indicate that the weapons and explosives looted from unsecured conventional munitions storage sites will likely continue to support terrorist attacks throughout the region. Government agencies also assessed that looted munitions are being used in the construction of IEDs.”

In turn, ongoing high levels of violence impede reconstruction and stabilization efforts.
Remember this report next time you learn of a breathless claim that Iranian origin components are somehow the root of the road mines that are “killing Americans.” The neocons wanted to use such claims to buttress their “regime change” and bomb Iran campaigns. One wonders how the neocons will respond to the more plausible explanation that such American casualties are the fruit of American incompetence at the highest levels.
Pogo would frown at blame-somebody-else tactics.