Yesterday I thought the scandal was that some of the massive ammunition dumps remained unguarded. That was bad. This is worse:
In our report, we concluded that a fundamental gap existed between the OIF war plan assumptions and the experiences of U.S. and coalition forces in Iraq, contributing to insufficient troops being on the ground to prevent widespread looting of conventional munitions storage sites and resulting in looted munitions being a continuing asymmetric threat to U.S. and coalition forces. The human, strategic, and financial costs of this failure to provide sufficient troops have been high, with IEDs made with looted munitions causing about half of all U.S. combat fatalities and casualties in Iraq and killing hundreds of Iraqis and contributing to increasing instability, challenging U.S. strategic goals in Iraq.
Half of all US casualties have come because this administration failed to plan properly for this war. If that isn't criminal, I don't know what is.
(Hat Tip: K-Drum)
UPDATE: Boston Globe is running with the story. Once again, it is even worse than it seemed before:
A newly declassified government report says that half of American troop deaths in Iraq have been caused by explosives left over from Saddam Hussein's regime and that even four years after the war began the US military has failed to conduct an adequate inventory of Hussein's weapons depots.
The assessment by the Government Accountability Office, the investigative arm of Congress, found that Iraq remains awash in unsecured mortar rounds, shells, and grenades left over from the former regime and that "the looted munitions will likely continue to support terrorist attacks throughout the region."In one case, insurgents repeatedly stole explosives from a well-known depot while the Iraqi government was supposed to be disposing of the arms, according to the report, which was written in December and based on field reports and secret intelligence.
The report, released yesterday by the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, also said the original US war plan designated the defeated Iraqi Army to secure the weapons depots. But that strategy fell apart when the Bush administration unexpectedly decided to disband the Iraqi military, leaving an undermanned US military force to take on the task.
We invade to prevent terrorists from getting weapons. Now, thanks to us, they have weapons. And they are using them to kill our servicemen and women on a daily basis.
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