Weapons disappeared in a 'chaotic' Iraq

BAGHDAD, Aug. 29 (UPI) -- A top U.S. Army general said conditions were "chaotic" when tens of thousands of U.S.-supplied weapons disappeared in Iraq.

Lt. Gen. James Dubik, who runs the Multinational Security Command-Iraq from the Green Zone in Baghdad, talked to reporters Wednesday. He said there is no Army investigation -- yet -- into the disappearance because there has been no discovery of a criminal act.

Dubik said he couldn't even confirm whether there were 20,000 missing weapons, as reports have suggested. He said the figure could be less or it could be more.

Most of the reports of missing weapons focused on 2004 and 2005.

"If you remember, that period of time was a pretty chaotic period, much more so than now," Dubik said. "The Iraqi security forces were literally just standing up and some crumbling, others wanting to form, and during that period, the command that I had was issuing weapons very quickly in a very haphazard way because of necessity."

In 2004 and 2005, "we can give you a rough number of what we handed out, but to track any individual weapon, that's a different case. I mean, in some cases, for example, commanders landed in helicopters during a fire fight and handed out weapons to Iraqi citizens who were willing to fight on behalf of the government."

Dubik later corrected himself to say the weapons were given out to Iraqi security forces, not Iraqi citizens.

"Those conditions, luckily, don't exist anymore."

Dubik took over the command in June.