September 2003: US Purchases $20 Mil in Small Arms for Iraqi Police, Despite Available Weapons In Iraq’s Arsenals

US authorities in Iraq issue a $20 million contract to provide the new Iraqi police force with new revolvers and Kalashnikov rifles. The Iraqi Governing Council is highly critical of the contract and questions why the Iraqi police couldn’t be provisioned with the tens of thousands of weapons that the US military has been confiscating every month from Saddam Hussein’s abandoned arsenals. [New York Times, 10/4/2003]