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Iraq Places $100 Million Military Order With China

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By ROBIN WRIGHT and ANN SCOTT TYSON, The Washington Post

Published: October 4, 2007

WASHINGTON - Iraq has ordered $100 million worth of light military equipment from China for its police force, contending that the United States was unable to provide the materiel and is too slow to deliver arms shipments, Iraqi President Jalal Talabani said Wednesday.

The China deal, not previously made public, has alarmed military analysts who note that Iraq's security forces already are unable to account for more than 190,000 weapons supplied by the United States, many of which are believed to be in the hands of Shiite and Sunni militias, insurgents and other forces seeking to destabilize Iraq and target U.S. troops.

'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.'

News of Iraq's arms deal came as Lt. Gen. Raymond Odierno, the top U.S. commander for day-to-day operations in Iraq said that he expects a U.S. troop presence will be required in the country for a minimum of 'at least three to five more years' and will involve 25,000 to 50,000 troops, depending on security conditions.

The U.S. military is in detailed planning to scale back to an advisory and training role, Odierno said.

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