The business of America is business - $1.6B in arms sales to Iraq (and $3.5B to Pakistan and $1B to Egypt and...)

it seems i post all too frequently on u.s. arms sales (here, here, here and here just since this past march)... with all the attention going to pakistan, egypt, saudi arabia and india, the 800-lb. gorillas of u.s. arms sales, i had completely neglected to consider the possibility that iraq was now an official member of that club... silly me... but OF COURSE they would be... we didn't invade just for their oil...

from salon...

The Pentagon confirmed that this fiscal year, the United States has finalized $1.6 billion in arms sales to Iraq, placing the country in an elite club of weapons buyers. For example, in recent one-year periods Saudi Arabia bought $800 million and Egypt bought $1 billion in arms from the U.S., while Pakistan spent $3.5 billion, including the purchase of jet fighters. "This would put [Iraq] right up there with the top handful of arms buyers," said William Hartung, a weapons proliferation expert at the New America Foundation.

In fact, the numbers Petraeus presented on Iraq were the tip of the iceberg. According to data obtained by Salon from the Defense Security Cooperation Agency at the Pentagon, which manages the arms sales, the military has alerted Congress to up to $4.3 billion in arms sales that have been under discussion since at least 2006 between the U.S. and Iraqi governments.

gotta keep that military-industrial complex cranking along at full capacity, dontcha know...

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