Amnesty International has said that the US Army has lost over $1bn worth of arms and other military equipment in a transfer to Kuwait and Iraq, citing a report of the 2016 government audit.
The document of the lost arms was obtained in the now-declassified documents by the US Department of Defence (DoD) audit, after citing the Freedom of Information requests.The documents reveal that the DOD "did not have accurate, up-to-date records on the quantity and location" of arms equipment on hand in Kuwait and Iraq.
Patrick Wilcken, Amnesty International's Arms Control and Human Rights researcher said;
This audit provides a worrying insight into the US army's flawed - and potentially dangerous - system for controlling millions of dollars' worth of arms transfers to a hugely volatile region.
Some of the records were incomplete with duplicate spreadsheets and hand-written receipts and a lack of a central database might increase the risk of human-error.
In response to the audit by the human rights group, the US army pledged to correct the errors, so as to avoid future problems as this.
In a response via email to Al-Jazeera, Tallha Abdulrazaq, a security researcher at the University of Exeter wrote;
This occurred during the Obama administration as well, and groups such as Amnesty International repeatedly called on irresponsible arms transfers to be tackled, as the weapons were not only falling into the hands of groups like ISIL but also pro-Tehran Shia jihadists fighting for the Iraqi government.
While ISIL certainly needs to be fought, if this is achieved by hurling arms at groups that are just as extreme as the militant group, how does that resolve the situation?
Amnesty International has called on the US government to comply with the laws and treaties to stop arms transfers. Wilcken said;
This should be an urgent wake-up call for the US, and all countries supplying arms to urgently shore up checks and controls.
