A billion here, a billion there, eventually you're talking real money

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**sebster**

chaos0xomega wrote:
This is hardly new, as others have pointed out this is basically SOP for a whole host of logical (and sometimes illogical) reasons. Typically we try to divest of whatever assets we can to our partners or to the civilian market if possible, sometimes that isn't an option and we destroy the goods(see also: F-14). For stuff in a combat zone, we usually sell off what equipment is 'safe' to sell off, and destroy the rest, I think the Abrams tanks we sent to Iraq for example were sold to Saudi Arabia after the drawdown. I've also heard stories about what happens to a lot of the equipment we dump... The father of a friend told me a story about what happened as his unit was leaving 'nam, they were ordered to basically drive the entire motor pool of trucks, jeeps, armored vehicles and several larger artillery pieces into a field, as well as spare ammunition and fuel (which they liberally dumped over EVERYTHING) and lit it off with a zippo... not to destroy it, but to mark it for a flight of aircraft to dump some ordnance on.

My mother-in-law tells a story that her father and his brother worked a deal to get their hands on a load of US guns and ammo left in Italy after the German surrender, which they promptly sold to the mafia.

**Jihadin**

Actually Iraq has M1's that was "sterile" sold to them. Contract to maintain them at Depot level has to happen in Kuwait

When the screw up of the SOFA Agreement happen. We're talking a dump truck load towed generators were left behind being the "power grid" of the area was not wired in to local power.