Yeah, I have gotten attacked by *ahem* friends. Iraqi culture is hard for us to understand. It is immediate family, extended family, clan, and then friends/ allies. We rate just above friendly strangers to them and they have no cultural problem with lying to those not of their clan. :barf: That said, there are SOME very loyal Iraqis, including two I call friends. One is a policeman, another is an electrician. Why I trust them... long stories each that come from months of working together and backing each other up. But that's enough of that, back to the OP.
Why would they convert to the M16? Probably logistic support. We currently are doing the logistic support for the Iraqi army, and we don't use 7.62 X 39. Giving them the M16, believe it or not, costs us less money in the long run, as we do not have to buy the ammo, repair tools, train up the teachers to become Iraqi armorers, etc, etc, ad nausem. Everything they will need is off the shelf U.S. gear and easy for us to help them use.
Personally, though, I think it is a miserable choice. I perfer the AK to the M16 (though the G3 beats them both... by a mile) from my own experiences with them. The AKM (almost no Iraqi has an original AK-47, and it is a pet peeve of mine when people confuse the two.
) is perfect for their needs.