Report finds U.S. Army lost track of $1 billion in weapons, ammo in Middle East [View all]

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In an Inspector General memorandum dated Sept. 2016, the IG says the Army did not implement effective controls to maintain visibility and accountability of Iraq Train and Equip Fund Equipment (ITEF).

Amnesty International, who obtained the report via Freedom of Information Act requests, reports the IG’s audit discovered the Army’s sloppy accountability procedures and record-keeping within the Iraqi chain of command resulted in arms manufactured in the U.S. and other countries winding up in the hands of armed groups known to be committing war crimes and other atrocities, such as the Islamic State militant group (ISIS).

“This audit provides a worrying insight into the U.S. Army’s flawed — and potentially dangerous — system for controlling millions of dollars’ worth of arms transfers to a hugely volatile region,” Patrick Wilcken, Amnesty International’s Arms Control and Human Rights Researcher, said in a statement published by Raw Story.

The report contends the Army’s use of separate, locally generated spreadsheets were vulnerable to “human input errors” and that because spreadsheets were not geographically located within the same chain of custody, the Army is unsure regarding the location of large quantities of rolling stock and ammunition intend for transfer to the Government of Iraq (GoI) as ITEF.

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http://popularmilitary.com/report-finds-u-s-army-lost-track-1-billion-weapons-ammo-middle-east/