Baghdad, Iraq: April 13, 2008 – There is an all over corruption found in the Iraqi arms deal of around $833 million. It was secretly negotiated with Serbia., 22 high-ranking Iraqi officials, clicked the deal without the knowledge of American commanders or many senior Iraqi leaders.

The deal was struck in September without competitive bidding and it sidestepped anticorruption safeguards, including the approval of senior uniformed Iraqi Army officers and an Iraqi contract approval committee.  

The deal drew enough criticism that Iraqi officials later limited the purchase to $236 million. And much of that equipment, American commanders said, turned out to be either shoddy or inappropriate for the military’s mission.

An anatomy of the purchase highlights how the Iraqi Army’s administrative abilities — already hampered by sectarian rifts and corruption — are woefully underdeveloped, hindering it in procuring weapons and other essentials in a systematic way.

It also shows how an American procurement process set up to help foreign countries navigate the complexity of buying weapons was too slow and unwieldy for wartime needs like Iraq’s, prompting the Iraqis to strike out on their own.

Such weaknesses mean that five years after the American invasion, the 170,000-strong Iraqi military remains under-equipped, spottily supplied and largely reliant on the United States for such basics as communications equipment, weapons and ammunition, raising fresh questions about the Iraqi military’s ability to stand on its own.

Iraq’s defense minister, Abdul Qadir, defended the arms deal, saying he had followed proper contracting protocols and had informed Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki every step of the way.

Nonetheless, American commanders and some Iraqi officials criticized the Serbian arms purchase.

Closer monitoring of weapons deals has been a delicate subject since a series of tainted arms purchases totaling $1.3 billion in Iraqi government funds in 2004 and 2005.

Lacking electronic banking systems at the time, Iraqi officials paid for second-rate or nonexistent weapons and equipment in cash, using middlemen to ferry duffle bags stuffed with bricks of $100 bills.

That episode brought down the previous defense minister, Hazam Shalan, now a fugitive, and tarnished the reputation of the interim prime minister, Lyad Allawj. American and Iraqi officials said that the loss of so much money and time caused critical delays in the development of the Iraqi Army.

Those with knowledge of the Serbian arms deal said they knew of no specific crimes, but warned that with so little transparency and such poor oversight, problems were likely to emerge, as they did with the 2004 deal.

The Serbian deal called for the purchase of a large number of helicopters, planes, armored personnel carriers, mortar systems, machine guns, body armor, military uniforms and other equipment.

It was largely negotiated by Mr. Qadir and the planning minister, Ali Glahil Baban. In response to the criticism, Mr. Qadir said he “froze” purchases of the personnel carriers and some aircraft, reducing the final contract price to $236 million. The deal was signed in March, American military officials said.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/13/world/middleeast/13arms.html?th&Baghdad, Iraq: April 13, 2008 – There is an all over corruption found in the Iraqi arms deal of around $833 million. It was secretly negotiated with Serbia., 22 high-ranking Iraqi officials, clicked the deal without the knowledge of American commanders or many senior Iraqi leaders.

The deal was struck in September without competitive bidding and it sidestepped anticorruption safeguards, including the approval of senior uniformed Iraqi Army officers and an Iraqi contract approval committee.  

The deal drew enough criticism that Iraqi officials later limited the purchase to $236 million. And much of that equipment, American commanders said, turned out to be either shoddy or inappropriate for the military’s mission.

An anatomy of the purchase highlights how the Iraqi Army’s administrative abilities — already hampered by sectarian rifts and corruption — are woefully underdeveloped, hindering it in procuring weapons and other essentials in a systematic way.

It also shows how an American procurement process set up to help foreign countries navigate the complexity of buying weapons was too slow and unwieldy for wartime needs like Iraq’s, prompting the Iraqis to strike out on their own.

Such weaknesses mean that five years after the American invasion, the 170,000-strong Iraqi military remains under-equipped, spottily supplied and largely reliant on the United States for such basics as communications equipment, weapons and ammunition, raising fresh questions about the Iraqi military’s ability to stand on its own.

Iraq’s defense minister, Abdul Qadir, defended the arms deal, saying he had followed proper contracting prBaghdad, Iraq: April 13, 2008 – There is an all over corruption found in the Iraqi arms deal of around $833 million. It was secretly negotiated with Serbia., 22 high-ranking Iraqi officials, clicked the deal without the knowledge of American commanders or many senior Iraqi leaders.
The deal was struck in September without competitive bidding and it sidestepped anticorruption safeguards, including the approval of senior uniformed Iraqi Army officers and an Iraqi contract approval committee. 
The deal drew enough criticism that Iraqi officials later limited the purchase to $236 million. And much of that equipment, American commanders said, turned out to be either shoddy or inappropriate for the military’s mission.
An anatomy of the purchase highlights how the Iraqi Army’s administrative abilities — already hampered by sectarian rifts and corruption — are woefully underdeveloped, hindering it in procuring weapons and other essentials in a systematic way.
It also shows how an American procurement process set up to help foreign countries navigate the complexity of buying weapons was too slow and unwieldy for wartime needs like Iraq’s, prompting the Iraqis to strike out on their own.
Such weaknesses mean that five years after the American invasion, the 170,000-strong Iraqi military remains under-equipped, spottily supplied and largely reliant on the United States for such basics as communications equipment, weapons and ammunition, raising fresh questions about the Iraqi military’s ability to stand on its own.
Iraq’s defense minister, Abdul Qadir, defended the arms deal, saying he had followed proper contracting protocols and had informed Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki every step of the way.
Nonetheless, American commanders and some Iraqi officials criticized the Serbian arms purchase.
Closer monitoring of weapons deals has been a delicate subject since a series of tainted arms purchases totaling $1.3 billion in Iraqi government funds in 2004 and 2005.
Lacking electronic banking systems at the time, Iraqi officials paid for second-rate or nonexistent weapons and equipment in cash, using middlemen to ferry duffle bags stuffed with bricks of $100 bills.
That episode brought down the previous defense minister, Hazam Shalan, now a fugitive, and tarnished the reputation of the interim prime minister, Lyad Allawj. American and Iraqi officials said that the loss of so much money and time caused critical delays in the development of the Iraqi Army.
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