I mentioned it briefly last week; today it leads the Washington Post:

The Pentagon has lost track of about 190,000 AK-47 assault rifles and pistols given to Iraqi security forces in 2004 and 2005, according to a new government report, raising fears that some of those weapons have fallen into the hands of insurgents fighting U.S. forces in Iraq.

The author of the report from the Government Accountability Office says U.S. military officials do not know what happened to 30 percent of the weapons the United States distributed to Iraqi forces from 2004 through early this year as part of an effort to train and equip the troops. The highest previous estimate of unaccounted-for weapons was 14,000, in a report issued last year by the inspector general for Iraq reconstruction.

A couple of things to keep in mind:

(1)  190,000 (the number of "lost" Ak-47s and pistols) far exceed the number of troops we have in Iraq.

(2)  That number represents the years 2004 and 2005 only.  Presumably, more were lost since then (in 2006 and 2007).

This story is worth keeping this story in mind next time someone presents evidence of an Iranian-produced gun in the hands of an insurgent as evidence that Iran is intentionally arming the insurgency.   Perhaps Iran is, but I think we need to distinguish between Iran and Iran’s black market, just as we distinguish between the U.S. and our black market.