2nd April 2006
Second Beretta Shipment Revealed
Dominic Kennedy of the Times has revealed a new twist to the Beretta affair.
www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,13509-2113631,00.html
A second Beretta shipment was sent from the UK in early 2005. This cache of 5,666 semi-automatic pistols was paid for by the MoD. It’s not currently known if any of these have also ended up in the hands of the insurgency.
Meanwhile, Kim Howells, the Foreign Office Minister, has told me in a written parliamentary answer:
“We are not aware of any official reports of UK supplied equipment being diverted to insurgents. We, are, however, of media reports alleging that part of a consignment of used Italian police pistols, delivered to Iraq via a UK company, fell into the hands of insurgents”
The Italian prosecutor has been investigating since United States forces in Iraq uncovered large numbers of Berettas in the hands of the insurgents in February 2005. British Government policy states that “overseas posts have standing instructions to inform the UK of any suspected mis-use, or diversion of UK arms exports”.
We are forced to conclude that the Italians and the Americans – our allies in Iraq – neglected to tell us that our guns had gone missing.
Meanwhile, the British Government has admitted it didn’t tell the Italians – who have a much stricter export control system than us – that we were re-exporting the Berettas to Iraq. International rules – the Wassenaar Arrangement, for example, place a duty on signatory countries, to report re-exports to the country of origin to clamp down on convoluted attempts to circumvent national controls.
Broken rules. Allies who don’t talk to each other. The insurgents armed. Another every day tale of ineptitude in Iraq.
