November 7, 2004: Some 4,000 Surface-to-Air Missiles Unaccounted for; Many in Hands of Insurgents

The Washington Post reports that several thousand shoulder-fired surface-to-air missiles (SAMs), once under the control of Saddam Hussein’s government, are now missing. Their disappearance prompts US military and intelligence analysts to dramatically increase their estimate of such weapons that are missing and may be in the hands of insurgents. US analysts report that as many as 4,000 SAMs are unaccounted for, raising the total of such missiles unaccounted for to around 6,000. Exact figures are uncertain. “We don’t have a good estimate,” says a senior defense official. “Some have put forward some figures, but there is none that the Defense Intelligence Agency has confidence in.” When the US invaded Iraq, it did not secure many weapons depots, and hundreds of thousands of tons of munitions were looted. Since then, some have undoubtedly been sold to terrorist organizations. It would be a relatively simple matter to use SAMs to shoot down military or commercial aircraft, and in several instances, insurgents have used such missiles to shoot down American military helicopters. [Washington Post, 11/7/2004; Unger, 2007, pp. 325]