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UNITED NATIONS, June 30: More than 8 million small arms fell into private hands in Iraq when the US-led invasion ousted Saddam Hussein, laying the groundwork for the later insurgency and creating a threat to regional stability for years to come, a new study said on Wednesday.
"What used to be a typically armed Middle East society has become one of the more heavily armed places in the world," said researchers at the Graduate Institute of International Studies in Geneva.
"This public stockpile, so suddenly reinforced, is a major element in Iraq's social and political problems," said the report, whose author blamed the scattering of weapons in part on a too-small US invasion force.
The massive shift of guns to individual Iraqis from Baghdad's security forces proved a boon for insurgents fighting US and British occupation troops, according to the institute, which defines small arms as ranging from pistols and rifles to machine guns, small mortars and portable anti-tank weapons.
Iraq's central location meant the weapons would probably soon haemorrhage into neighbouring countries as well, it added. "The consequences of the great Iraqi small arms abandonment may endanger stability in much of the Middle East for years to come," it said. "In place of an exceptionally well armed state, the world now must deal with a heavily armed society."
ARSENALS: A major factor in the flood of arms was Saddam, whose own strategy called for his military to disintegrate as the invasion advanced, said researcher Aaron Karp, author of the study's chapter on Iraq and an adjunct professor at Dominion University in Norfolk, Virginia.
"People threw down their guns and ran. But the biggest loss was from arsenals which were just left unguarded," Karp said in a telephone interview. While this situation could have been anticipated by US military planners, the size of the invading force was simply inadequate to do all it should have done, he said.
The size of the US invading force has been criticized widely from the beginning as too small to stabilize a post-war Iraq. Following the collapse of Saddam's regime last year, at least 7 million to 8 million small arms, and probably millions more, fell into private hands, according to the 2004 survey.
These bolstered a supply of at least 3 million to 4 million already in the possession of Iraqi civilians, it said. That was equivalent to about 30 firearms for every 100 Iraqi civilians.
While that is far fewer than the 82 guns in private hands for every 100 Americans, "where Iraq stands out most is not the magnitude of its public stockpile so much as the suddenness with which it fell upon a fragile society," the survey said.
War planners, intent on turning up weapons of mass destruction, "created a situation little considered in pre-war rhetoric." Criminals, militias, guerrillas and ordinary Iraqis suddenly determined the prospects for peace and stability, the researchers said.
The immediate result of the flood of guns was unprecedented social disorder as firearms-related murders and other serious crimes skyrocketed, they said. "The violence became a major barrier to the restoration of legitimate authority." Now, 15 months after the start of the US-led invasion, as an interim Iraqi government seeks a fresh start for post-Saddam Iraq, chaos still reigns in many parts of Iraq. -Reuters
