Shady deals in Iraq's arms bazaar

By Pratap Chatterjee

SAN FRANCISCO - Clandestine gun suppliers, funded by the United States and Iraqi governments, have flooded Iraq with millions of weapons since 2003, charges a new Amnesty International investigation.

Because of faulty or non-existent government tracking systems, many of those guns have gone missing, and some have turned up in the hands of insurgents.

Contracts with one of these companies, Taos Industries, account for almost half of the US$217 million Baghdad and Washington have officially spent to arm the Iraqi army, police and security forces employed by various Iraqi ministries.