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DON LEMON: April may be the cruelest month, but this
October is turning out to be one of the deadliest for
U.S. troops since the war in Iraq began. One hundred
killed so far this month. Now a new report invites a
disturbing question: how many may have been killed by
weapons the U.S. itself provided?
CNN's Michael Ware has the story from Baghdad. And,
Michael, what's being done to track down weapons
reported missing in Iraq?
MICHAEL WARE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, that's very
hard to answer. I mean, this report has only just
been released. Yet, the fact that weapons go missing
is no surprise and no great revelation and, to be
honest, it's near impossible to find them once they
disappear.
It's rather common these days, I'm afraid to say, to
find insurgents carrying American issue weapons.
M-16s, M-4s, grenades and even night scopes and
infrared scopes.
So, some of that is the result of them reclaiming
these things in the wake of attacks, but some of them
are the result of them being leaked from within the
American-supplied security forces -- Don.
LEMON: All right. Now, Michael, I've got to ask you
something. U.S. national security adviser, Stephen
Hadley, he's in Baghdad on an unannounced visit. What
is he hoping to accomplish there?
WARE: Well, I think they're looking to-- National
Security Advisor Hadley is looking to jump start what
seems to be a stalled security process. We saw that
the plan for the Battle of Baghdad -- Operation
Together Forward, a massive offensive to reclaim the
capital from insurgents, militias, and death squads
-- really hasn't worked, by the military's own
admission.
And that's just in the capital. There's still Anbar
province to the west, which is largely dominated by
al Qaeda, and the Shia militias backed by Iran still
control the south.
So there's many, many issues to be addressed here,
Don. And I'm sure that Mr. Hadley has come here to
try and inject or infuse a sense of urgency within
the Iraqi government.
The primary mission is to establish this commission
that President Bush and Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri
al-Maliki thrashed out in a 30-minute video
conference on Saturday. This is a joint panel with
U.S. officials and Iraqi officials to try, once and
for all, despite all the failures to come up with
some kind of effective strategy -- Don.
LEMON: All right. Michael Ware reporting from
Baghdad. Thank you, sir, for that report.