Armchair Generalist has an interesting post about tighter procedures around foreign military sales to Iraq. No, these new measures are not 100% corruption-proof. An Iraqi soldier can still claim that he lost his gun. Munitions, once under the control of an Iraqi quartermaster, might go a lot of different places. Nevertheless, you gotta do something.
I'm sure Lt. Col. Muschalek has a few interesting stories about what it took to put these procedures into effect:
“FMS has had its challenges, and one of the biggest problems is (Iraqi officials) understanding the FMS system and program,” Muschalek said. “What makes it hard in Iraq is the translation. It is very important that the Iraqi officials and the Ministry of Defense understand the FMS program.”
By "understand the FMS program," Muschalek might mean, "agree to turning down the corruption spigot." Sloppy oversight on the American side, made worse by the deepening political and security crisis after the invasion, created a lucrative business for Iraqis who wanted to make personal profit from American military aid.
Corruption around military aid is nothing new. American officials have struggled with it during other wars in which the US acted as the patron of a government. The unusual part, as with other problems in the Iraq war, is how long it took to address it.
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