The U.S. military can't account for the whereabouts of 194,000 firearms they had given to their brothers-in-arms in the Iraqi security services, according to new report.
Are you having the same disquieting thought as me over who might have gotten their hands on those missing weapons?
The report comes from the Government Accountability Office (GAO) which is an independent US government agency that is essentially the watchdog and investigative arm for the US Congress.
The GAO says that, of some 185,000 assault rifles and 170,000 pistols that the Pentagon says it supplied to the Iraqi security forces, it can account for less than half: there is a discrepancy of 110,000 in the case of AK-47s, and 80,000 pistols.
The gaps in the figures for body armour and helmets are even bigger - only 80,000 out of a total of 215,000 sets of body armour accounted for, and only 25,000 out of 140,000 helmets.
The report does not say it knows what has happened to the weapons - only that there are gaping holes in the records.
Wrong hands?
The focus of the report is on perceived Pentagon failures but, by implication, it also raises questions about the capabilities and reliability of the Iraqi security forces. There is the fear, again long suspected, that many of the missing weapons have found their way into the hands of insurgents.
There remain question marks over the reliability of elements of the Iraqi security forces, especially the police.