Friendly fire

First the Americans went to war with Iraq on the grounds that Saddam had been stockpiling weapons of mass destruction, which subsequently no-one could find; now they've apparently lost track of 190,000 assault rifles and pistols in a country they helped turn into a lawless and bloody wasteland.

What's more, despite the insistence of the Iraqi interior ministry to the contrary, "correspondents say it is now feared many of the weapons are being used against US forces on the ground in Iraq". The fact that the Americans trained and armed Osama Bin Laden and Al-Qaeda during the Cold War is well documented, but, if true, this takes shooting yourself in the foot - and much worse - to incredible new levels.