Polish AK in Iraq soon ?

[Vis]

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/2001436503_iraqnotes08.html

[popski]

More info here:
http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/nationworld/search/sfl-aarms08aug08.story

U.S. plans to acquire more guns for Iraq

By Mark Fineman
Los Angeles Times
Posted August 8 2003

WASHINGTON · In Iraq, a nation awash with hundreds of thousands of AK-47 assault rifles, the U.S.-led occupation authority is planning to buy and import 34,000 more of the ubiquitous weapons to equip a new Iraqi army.

The plan has baffled some observers, not only because U.S. forces in Iraq already have seized and stockpiled thousands of the rifles since April, but because defense analysts have recommended that the new Iraqi army be equipped with more modern, U.S.-made weapons systems.

The AK-47, designed by Russians shortly after World War II, is manufactured almost exclusively in former Soviet bloc countries and China. Among the possible beneficiaries of such a U.S. order: Poland, where the assault rifles are made and support for the war in Iraq has been strong.

With a bidding deadline of today, the Coalition Provisional Authority now running Iraq is seeking the best deal on the arsenal from U.S.-licensed arms dealers, asking that they deliver the assault weapons to the Taji military base north of Baghdad by Sept. 3.

The plans were spelled out on its official Web site this week.

A spokesman for the Coalition Joint Task Force, which commands the military occupation in Iraq, was unaware of the request for bids and questioned it.

"That's surprising," said Army Capt. Jeff Fitzgibbons, a task force spokesman in Baghdad. "It would seem to me odd that we're out there looking to buy more weapons for a place where we've already captured and set aside so many of them. It would raise a red flag for me, that's for sure."

But an official with the occupation authority in Baghdad, who asked not to be identified, confirmed the plans and said the AK-47s would be used to equip a new Iraqi army being formed to replace the 400,000-strong military that was formally disbanded in May.

The U.S. Army and private U.S. defense contractors, led by Los Angeles-based Northrop Grumman, have begun to train the first Iraqi army recruits in Kirkuk under a $48 million Pentagon contract and the Taji base is the supply point for that northern Iraqi city.

In its Internet solicitation for the 34,000 weapons and accessories, technically called a request for proposals, the occupation authority specified that it wanted to buy "brand-new, never-fired, fixed-stock AK-47 assault rifles with certified manufacture dates not earlier than 1987."

Although it was not known what the per-rifle cost would be under such a large purchase, the total order would presumably exceed $1 million.

Yet U.S. forces who seized control of Iraq in April have discovered vast stockpiles of new, never-fired AK-47s, which U.S. military officials have said were being deliberately stored for a future Iraqi army.

At one compound of eight concrete warehouses that a company of the 10th Engineer Battalion found in central Baghdad in mid-April, Los Angeles Times reporters watched soldiers form a human chain to fill a truck bed with AK-47s so new the soldiers' hands turned orange from the packing grease.

The following day, U.S. Marines who were securing the city of Tikrit north of Baghdad announced that they had found 100,000 AK-47s, 80,000 of them in a hospital.

In the months that have followed, there have been almost daily reports of U.S. military units seizing quantities of AK-47s large and small, new and used.


Copyright © 2003, South Florida Sun-Sentinel


http://kalashnikov.guns.ru/images/232-1.jpg

[popski]

It looks like the Seattle Times shifted the article at that URL. This the one you had posted?

(08-08) 11:43 PDT WASHINGTON (AP) --

The American occupation authority in Iraq will equip the country's new army and police forces with Russian-design AK-47 assault rifles, officials said Friday.

Bidding closed Friday for a contract to buy 34,000 of the rifles.

The purchased weapons will supplement thousands of AK-47s seized in raids and other operations since the war started in Iraq in March.

Officials in Washington said many were seized, but that they did not have the number. They said, however it was not enough to equip all security forces planned in Iraq.

The new army being recruited and trained is expected to number 12,000 at the end of this year and 40,000 in three years, officials have said. There also are some 30,000 Iraqi police, and that force is growing as well.

Officials said a reason they are not buying American weapons is because the seized AK-47s already are available and they didn't want to introduce another weapon.

While the American M-16 is more accurate and has other benefits, it also is more temperamental than the AK-47, particularly in the harsh Iraqi environment. For instance, the Army has said failure to properly clean dust from the American weapons may have contributed to problems with the rifles jamming in the war.

Members of former POW Jessica Lynch's maintenance unit said their rifles jammed and didn't fire during the ambush that resulted in the death and capture of their comrades.

[MIR]

This has got to be one of the most Fucked up things our country has ever done. its like me going out to a gun store, buying a gun, and then hading it to a criminal and then telling them to shoot me with it.
If Americans keep dying in Iraq, then we get exactly what we deserve........Now its come to where we are arming our own enemies.....doesnt that kind of defeat the purpose of having an army to begin with........

Gosh us Americans are so dumb........

[hwidiot]

The lower baath party can be bought with a job. What good will it do taking the rpgs, and ak-47s away from families? Are the terrorists going to hand in their guns? If they keep all their weapons maybe if they ever go back to a dictator ship they will have the guns to fight it off or the next one will be to scared to even think about becoming a dictator. I don't think so. They are already armed, why do they need brand new aks? I'm sure there is stock piles of them that the army blew up or still have secure already. The "bidding" that never opened is closed.