Assertion Partly supported AI assessment confidence: 85% certainty 4/5 debate potential 2/5

Pruden: Iraqi tanks defending Mosul lacked fuel due to black market

Alex Pruden · Blockchain in War Zones · Dec 23, 2019 · at 5:51

Alex Pruden, a former US Army Special Forces officer, describes how corrupt fuel diversions crippled Iraqi military equipment when ISIS invaded Mosul in 2014.

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“Only when we got there and started talking to some of the survivors, we learned that actually none of those tanks had fuel when ISIS arrived. Because most of the fuel had been sold on the black market.”

quote is from the automated transcript, cleaned for reading: filler sounds and stutters are removed, nothing is rephrased. names can be misheard (the analysis reads context, assessments check outside sources). how →

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