Pentagon-supplied arms to Iraq

The report from Amnesty International contains a detailed case on Iraq highlighting the lack of a clear accountable audit trail for some 360,000 small arms supplied to the Iraqi security forces by the Pentagon. The scale of the accountability problem being created by the US Department of Defense is massive and not only confined to US military aid to Iraq. Amnesty researchers found that between 2000 and 2007 the Pentagon granted $11.7 billion for around 14,000 contracts (including weapons and ammunition) to an entity listed as "miscellaneous foreign contractors", located in office '911' of the General Service Administration, whereby a sizeable portion of the contracts granted do not even the name the real contractor, with many of the goods and services listed as simply "miscellaneous". The Inspector General of the US Department of Defense also found a lack of proper accounting by this Department for $7.7 billion spent on commercial contracts and miscellaneous payments for arms and security in Iraq, as well as Afghanistan and Egypt.

Showing further disregard for rigorous accountability, the Pentagon continued to allow a Chinese arms company called Poly Technologies to subcontract for the supply small arms to Iraq despite the fact that Poly had previously been prosecuted from arms smuggling into the USA. Poly is owned by high ranking Chinese Communist Party officials and the US government has an arms embargo on China. A ship containing arms from China for Iraq also entered the UK despite the EU arms embargo on China. Poly Technologies attempted to supply arms for the Mugabe armed forces in Zimbabwe in April 2008, but its shipment was reportedly stopped following a high-profile IANSA-led campaign in South Africa, Mozambique, Namibia and Angola.

Other key findings

• China and Russia remain the largest suppliers of conventional arms to Sudan; the weapons are used for serious, ongoing human rights violations by the Sudanese armed forces in Darfur. Russia supplied military helicopters and bomber aircraft, while China sold Sudan most of its arms and ammunition. Iran and Egypt also supply arms to Sudan, and the Darfur opposition groups get weapons via Chad.
• China, Russia, Ukraine and Serbia have been providing huge quantities of arms to Burma despite human rights violations said by the UN to be widespread and systematic.
• In Guatemala, where 5,781 people were killed in 2007, 5,885 in 2006, 5,338 in 2005 and 4,346 in 2004, 80 per cent of men and 69 per cent of women were killed with firearms. There are an estimated 1.8 million firearms in Guatemala, 90 per cent unregistered. Imports are from the Czech Republic, South Korea, Argentina, Slovakia, and Germany.

The report sets out a methodology of how an Arms Trade Treaty could address the failure of governments to respect international human rights and humanitarian law when making decisions about arms transfers. It makes recommendations to address the lack of accountability, transparency and problems posed by today's complex arms supply chains, which often cross several geographic boundaries and national export control jurisdictions.