Pentagon unaware of scale of missing US weapons in Syria, Iraq bases
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According to documents, "Sensitive weapons and equipment" were stolen, and the Pentagon may be unaware of how many weapons were taken.
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US soldiers walk while on patrol by the Suwaydiyah oil fields in Syria's northeastern Hasakah province in 2021. (AFP)
According to exclusive documents retrieved by Nick Turse of The Intercept, US occupation outposts in Iraq and Syria are commonly targeted for their equipment.
Military investigations conducted earlier this year revealed the theft of "multiple sensitive weapons and equipment" in Iraq, including guided missile launch systems and drones. This comes after The Intercept released an investigative report detailing how terror organizations, including ISIS, managed to rob weapons from US occupation forces and allegedly use the arms to attack US troops stationed in Iraq and Syria.
According to the report, also written by Turse, the systematic looting of US arms is the "latest evidence" of a "persistent problem that has allowed enemy forces from ISIS in Iraq to the Taliban in Afghanistan to arm themselves" and even kill US occupation forces and their proxies at the expense of US taxpayers.
In 2020, an audit conducted by the Pentagon's inspector general found that Special Operations Joint Task Force–Operation Inherent Resolve, the main US occupation unit that operates in Syria and Iraq under the pretext of combatting ISIS, did not account accurately for $715.8 million of equipment purchased for local proxies.
US occupation bases have recently been targeted by Iraqi Resistance forces due to the US backing of "Israel's" bombardment of Gaza.
The report suggests that contrary to what Secretary of Defense Loyd Austin declared regarding the priority of protecting US troops in the region, the US "cannot even secure its equipment, much less protect its troops."
Stephanie Savell, co-director of Brown University’s Costs of War Project, told The Intercept that “the so-called war on terror isn’t over — it’s just morphed. And we can understand these weapons thefts as just one of the many political costs of that ongoing campaign.”
Military investigators were told in February that 13 commercial drones worth around $162,500 were taken from a US facility in Erbil, Iraq, sometime last year, with no suspects or leads mentioned in the file.
A separate inquiry showed that "multiple sensitive weapons and equipment" were stolen at or on the way to Forward Operating Base Union III in Baghdad, Iraq, including targeting sight and launcher units for Javelin missiles, anticipated to be about $480,000.
The number of thefts is unknown – maybe even to the Pentagon. Both the Combined Joint Task Force -Operation Inherent Resolve, which supervises America's fight in Iraq and Syria, and its parent agency, US Central Command, have failed to answer queries by The Intercept.
Capt. Kevin T. Livingston, then CJTF-OIR’s director of public affairs, told The Intercept when asked that, “[W]e do not have the requested information."
The thefts and losses uncovered by The Intercept are just the latest weapons accountability woes to afflict the US military in Iraq and Syria.
A Pentagon inspector general review in 2017 discovered that $20 million in weaponry in Kuwait and Iraq were "vulnerable to loss or theft," and a 2020 audit indicated that a 715.8 million loss was unaccounted for by the major force that works with the US occupation forces in Syria.
It is worth noting that Amnesty International recently revealed that a major part of ISIS weapons was US-made or US-purchased.
