Gun buyback in Iraq
Rhyme not intentional. News.com reports that the US spent $1.3M to buy back guns and ammo from Iraqis:
THE US military has paid out $US1.3 million ($1.87m) to residents of Baghdad’s Shiite Muslim district of Sadr City for turning in thousands of weapons and ammunition rounds.
Brigadier General Mark Kimmitt today said nearly 4000 Kalashnikov assault rifles and machineguns and about 9000 mortars and rockets had been turned in during the arms amnesty.
Grenades, rocket-propelled grenade launchers and artillery rounds were also collected.
May 25th, 2004 at 11:19 am
Oooh, wouldn’t it be nice if the military decided to recoup some of that money by dumping the Kalashnikovs and the ammo on the market here?
May 25th, 2004 at 3:18 pm
So that’s what… like a couple percent of the total arms cache in an area where every man gets an AK-47 as a rite of passage? And do you really think Al-Sadr and his followers would be turning in their weapons?
I do agree with Thib – it is a shame that all these weapons will be destroyed. I was watching Foxnews and they had a presentation piece AK-47 that they were about to destroy. This things was sweet, a definite collectors piece. It was highly polished (chromed?) and had what looked like an ivory fore stock. Did anyone else see it and want it too?
May 25th, 2004 at 4:19 pm
Well, maybe those AK-47’s and such were the “Saddam Special” bling-bling gold-plated ones.
You never know.