China to supply Iraqi police with arms

The Iraqi government has ordered 100 million USD (70 million euros) worth of light military equipment from China for its police force since the United States is unable to meet Baghdad's requirements, the Washington Post reported.

Iraqi President Jalal Talabani, who is visiting the US, told the paper that Washington is "too slow" to deliver arms shipment. Currently, only 1 in every 5 Iraqi police officers is armed, the Washington Post report said.

The paper also quoted Talabani as saying that the capacity of factories in the US is "not enough" to provide Iraqi police with what it needed. He said that one of Baghdad's demands is to accelerate arms delivery to the Iraqi army.

Military analysts are concerned, though, that the arms would end up in the hands of insurgents. Rachel Stohl of the Center for Defense Information told the Washington Post that the Iraqi government does not have yet "a clear plan for making sure that weapons are distributed, that they are properly monitored and repeatedly checked."

More than 190,000 weapons that have been supplied by the United States to Iraqi security forces have been unaccounted for and are believed to be in the hands of forces seeking to destabilize Iraq.

The deal with China had not been made public until now.