Huge backdoor Arms Deal uncovered

[Lambo]

From the following:

http://apnews.myway.com/article/20070812/D8QVLVCG0.html

~snip
Quote:
PERUGIA, Italy (AP) - In a hidden corner of Rome's busy Fiumicino Airport, police dug quietly through a traveler's checked baggage, looking for smuggled drugs. What they found instead was a catalog of weapons, a clue to something bigger.

Their discovery led anti-Mafia investigators down a monthslong trail of telephone and e-mail intercepts, into the midst of a huge black-market transaction, as Iraqi and Italian partners haggled over shipping more than 100,000 Russian-made automatic weapons into the bloodbath of Iraq.

As the secretive, $40 million deal neared completion, Italian authorities moved in, making arrests and breaking it up. But key questions remain unanswered.

For one thing, The Associated Press has learned that Iraqi government officials were involved in the deal, apparently without the knowledge of the U.S. Baghdad command - a departure from the usual pattern of U.S.-overseen arms purchases.
~snip

[MarcS]

Why would Iraqi insurgents they need to buy a hunderd thousand AK47's from the italian mafia when the united states can accidentally misplace twice as many to them for free?

[Willtallica]

Don't they got them in dirty piles for about 15$ in some places?