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Explosives disappear...

Explosives Missing from Iraqi Ex-Military Site -UN
Mon Oct 25, 2004 03:44 PM ET


By Louis Charbonneau

VIENNA (Reuters) - Hundreds of tonnes of explosives are missing from a site near Baghdad that was part of Saddam Hussein's dismantled nuclear arms program but never secured by the U.S. military, the U.N. nuclear watchdog said on Monday.

The missing 377 tons (342 tonnes) of high explosives, monitored by inspectors from the Vienna-based International Atomic Energy Agency until the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in March 2003, could potentially be used to make a detonator for a nuclear bomb or in conventional weapons as well as in a variety of other military and civilian uses, arms experts said.

Iraq's Ministry of Science and Technology informed the IAEA two weeks ago that the explosives had been "lost after April 9, 2003, through the theft and looting of the governmental installations due to lack of security," the watchdog agency told the 15-nation U.N. Security Council.

The New York Times, which broke the story on Monday, said arms experts feared the most immediate use of the explosives would be to attack U.S. or Iraqi forces, which have come under increasing fire ahead of Iraq's elections due in January.

Diplomats at the IAEA warned that materials useful in making nuclear bombs could also easily be shipped out of Iraq and sold to countries like neighbor Iran or terrorist groups.

The IAEA has been barred from most of Iraq since the war and has watched from afar as the former nuclear sites it once monitored have been stripped by looters.

Vienna diplomats said the IAEA had cautioned the United States about the danger of the explosives before the war, and after the invasion it specifically told U.S. officials about the need to keep them secured.

U.S. presidential challenger John Kerry accused President Bush of committing a massive blunder in failing to safeguard the explosives.

KERRY SEES 'GREAT BLUNDER'

"This is one of the great blunders of Iraq, one of the greatest blunders of this administration, and the incredible incompetence of this president and this administration has put our troops at risk and this country at greater risk," Kerry told supporters in Dover, New Hampshire.

U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations John Danforth said the Bush administration was investigating the matter.

"Obviously this is a serious matter. We are looking into it," he said.
ElBaradei informed Washington of the seriousness of the matter on Oct. 15, IAEA spokeswoman Melissa Fleming said in Vienna. Bush was informed days later, White House spokesman Scott McClellan told reporters.

Prior to the war, 215 tons (195 tonnes) of HMX explosives had been sealed and tagged with the IAEA emblem while stored at Iraq's sprawling Al Qaqaa military facility. Some 156 tons (141 tonnes) of RDX and 6.4 tons (5.8 tonnes) of PETN were also stored at the Al Qaqaa site and monitored by the IAEA.

The U.N. agency last verified the presence and amounts of the three types of explosive at Al Qaqaa in January 2003, ElBaradei told the Security Council.

Iraq was allowed to keep some explosives for civilian use after the IAEA completed its dismantling of Saddam's covert nuclear weapons program after the 1991 Gulf war.

A Western diplomat close to the IAEA, who declined to be identified, said it was hard to understand why the U.S. military had failed to secure the facility.

"This was a very well known site. If you could have picked a few sites that you would have to secure then ... Al Qaqaa would certainly be one of the main ones," the diplomat said.

At the Pentagon, a U.S. defense official said Al Qaqaa was "well known as a storage depot for conventional explosives" but doubted U.S. forces in Iraq made it "a high-priority location" for providing security.

The missing explosives were not weapons of mass destruction, The official said, adding that U.S. forces gave higher priority to suspected WMD sites after the invasion. No WMD were found, however.

"You just can't leave a guard force at all these places you find. If you leave a squad at all 10,000 places that are known so far, then there's 50,000 (troops) out of action," said the official, speaking on condition of anonymity. (Additional reporting by Javier E. David in New York, Patricia Wilson in Dover, N.H., Will Dunham at the Pentagon in Washington and Irwin Arieff at the United Nations in New York)

� Reuters 2004. All Rights Reserved.


>>>source

Almost 380 tons of explosives. Anybody seen them?

http://www.cnn.com/2004/WORLD/meast...ives/index.html

maybe the haters were too hasty to play the blame card?...again.

this just out an hour ago.

NBC embedds. so they can't support a right-wing cover-up. plus they probably have reporting notes and footage.

If the weapons were gone when the US troops got there, and the site was really that important, then why didn't the Bush administration know? Why did the information, that the explosives were already missing, have to come from a news crew?

as the units rolled up to secure it, the weapons were gone. the embedds took note of it, to them it wasn't a big deal, and data dumped it.

now, one week from the election, for one reason or another, someone realizes that, "yeah...uh...remember all those explosives and missles we have been guarding prior to the invasion?...uhh...they're gone!" "slipped through the cracks" when we knew they were gone from the outset. and it takes time (at least a day) to confirm stuff like this.

i don't know. i'm tired. goin to bed.

"This is one of the great blunders of Iraq, one of the greatest blunders of this administration, and the incredible incompetence of this president and this administration has put our troops at risk and this country at greater risk," Kerry told supporters in Dover, New Hampshire.



Another example of Kerry sticking his foot in his mouth again. Now he's gonna have to hope that the media somehow hides it or under publicizes it. This was an idiotic attack on Bush that misfired badly.

quote:

Originally posted by tecnolover Another example of Kerry sticking his foot in his mouth again. Now he's gonna have to hope that the media somehow hides it or under publicizes it. This was an idiotic attack on Bush that misfired badly.

For once I tend to agree with you. It was careless of Kerry to jump onto so fresh news. However, some questions still remain to be answered (including those in my previous post), before Bush can be declared an innocent victim of a ruthless attack.

quote:

Originally posted by trancaholic For once I tend to agree with you. It was careless of Kerry to jump onto so fresh news. However, some questions still remain to be answered (including those in my previous post), before Bush can be declared an innocent victim of a ruthless attack.

Actually, it's not new at all. It's old news that happened before our troops were even on the site back in 2003. Kerry in his haste to jump on any little thing to attack the pres. with didn't even research it first and made himself look like an idiot more than he already has. With his remarks, given the circumstances, the question for Kerry would be "then Mr. Kerry are you suggesting US troops should have invaded Iraq sooner than they did? thereby even circumventing UN authorization even sooner?! Thanks Kerry for unknowingly suggesting to everyone in the world that we the US should have invaded even sooner since then we might have secured those explosives before Saddam or whoever moved them. And with this I agree we should have attacked sooner and not even wasted our time with trying to get UN authorization.

quote:

Originally posted by trancaholic If the weapons were gone when the US troops got there, and the site was really that important, then why didn't the Bush administration know? Why did the information, that the explosives were already missing, have to come from a news crew?

This is a hard question to answer. It's possible US didn't have intel on that site in question or if there was good intel US was still too busy trying to get UN support (weapons inspections ect ect.) to invade and the delay gave the enemy too much time to hide them or move them. Again, reason we should have moved in sooner.

Lamest October Surprise ever...NBC just owned NYTIMES story like a two dollar whore.

quote:

Jim Miklaszewski of NBC News pretty much dismantled the New York Times attack on behalf of Kerry today.

quote:

NBC News: Miklaszewski: �April 10, 2003, only three weeks into the war, NBC News was embedded with troops from the Army's 101st Airborne as they temporarily take over the Al Qakaa weapons installation south of Baghdad. But these troops never found the nearly 380 tons of some of the most powerful conventional explosives, called HMX and RDX, which is now missing. The U.S. troops did find large stockpiles of more conventional weapons, but no HMX or RDX, so powerful less than a pound brought down Pan Am 103 in 1988, and can be used to trigger a nuclear weapon. In a letter this month, the Iraqi interim government told the International Atomic Energy Agency the high explosives were lost to theft and looting due to lack of security. Critics claim there were simply not enough U.S. troops to guard hundreds of weapons stockpiles, weapons now being used by insurgents and terrorists to wage a guerrilla war in Iraq.� (NBC�s �Nightly News,� 10/25/04)

Last night a report on NBC news stated that the explosives were already missing when U.S. troops arrived at the storage location on April 10, 2003.

The last time the IAEA saw the explosives was about three months earlier in January of 2003. There is no way to know when the explosives were removed.
Sometime after the IAEA saw them in January and before American troops got there in April. Obviously this isn't a case of Bush failing to "guard" the explosives. By the time our troops arrived there they weren't there to guard.
In other words, nobody failed to guard anything and there was nothing we could have done about it. They were gone when we got there.

quote:

Also the Pentagon officials said yesterday that Iraq had already admitted to breaking the IAEA seals and moving tons of the explosives from the Al Qaqaa facility, south of Baghdad, before U.N. inspectors re-entered the country in 2002. Officials said the rest of the explosives stockpiles may have been removed and hidden before the arrival of American troops.

But maybe just maybe according to sKerry there was something we could have done. There is something we could have done about it. We could have invaded earlier at the wrong country at the wrong time for the wrong war! GO into the wrong war at the wrong time and wrong place and look for the explosives in the right place and leave the wrong war at the wrong place and wrong time? Is that what the Kerry supporters are saying we should have done?

Link

quote:

Originally posted by speedracer_mec Lamest October Surprise ever...NBC just owned NYTIMES story like a two dollar whore.

That just about sums it up. And that's what you get for trusting the New York Times on a story!

I didn't see the story posted here yesterday, so I wasn't even going to bother posting it along with the NBC info. I figured, by some grace of God, that the TA's had actually read and checked the facts and decided against posting it. But hey, now that it's here, go ahead and slam Kerry, the NYT, and whoever else had a hand in this totally pathetic attempt at an attack!

The most thurough debunking of this NBC stuff you righties are trying to pull (From Josh Marshall):



Let's note a few more problems with what I guess we should call the Di Rita/Drudge/NBC 'It was gone when we got there' hypothesis.

To refresh our memories, this is the claim that the explosives at the al Qaqaa facility were removed by the former Iraqi regime before the first US troops ever arrived on the scene. That wouldn't make the loss of the material any less dangerous. And it would raise serious questions about why the material was allowed to be dispersed. But it might go some way to mitigating the charge of incompetence since this would mean that the material was already gone before US ground troops were able to start guarding it.

On Monday, the Pentagon gave mixed signals about what the first troops on the scene found. Or rather, an official whom the AP describes as closely involved in the Iraq survey work says the explosives were there, while Pentagon spokesman Larry Di Rita says they weren't.

Di Rita's claim that the explosives were already gone was picked up this evening by NBC news which reported that one of its news crews embedded with the 101st Airborne visited the facility on April 10th and found no weapons. This was in turn trumpeted by a number of conservative news outlets like Drudge and the Washington Times.

So, let's review some of the problems.
First, military and non-proliferation analysts say that a detachment of soldiers not specifically trained in weapons inspections work and certainly an NBC news crew simply wouldn't be in a position to make such a determination. We're not talking about a storage unit with a few boxes in it, but a massive weapons complex made up of almost a hundred buildings and bunkers.

Former weapons inspector David Albright was asked about this on CNN Monday evening and he said, "I would want to check it out. I mean it's a big site. These bunkers are big and it could get lost in that complex and it may be that they just didn't go to the right places and didn't see it."

In any case, that visit wasn't the first time US troops went to the facility. That happened a week earlier, on April 4th, as was reported at the time. According to an AP account from the following day, the troops made spot visits to some of the buildings and found chemical warfare antidotes but no WMD.

The same report says they also found "thousands of five-centimetre by 12-centimetre boxes, each containing three vials of white powder" which were initially believed to be chemical agents but were later determined to be "explosives."

Like the visit on the 10th, this visit seems to have been far from exhaustive and thus far from conclusive about what was there. Neither visit seems to provide clear evidence that the explosives were gone -- and the first may point in the opposite direction. (Further details about this first visit to al Qaqaa are contained in this April 5th article by the Post's Barton Gellman.)

Next comes the question of whether this really could have been pulled off at all under the circumstances.

As we noted earlier, there's a relatively brief window of time we're talking about when this stuff could have been carted away -- specifically, from March 8th (when the IAEA last checked it) until April 4th when the first US troops appear to have arrived on the scene.

Certainly there would have been time enough to move the stuff. That's almost a month. But this would be a massive and quite visible undertaking. As the Times noted yesterday, moving this material would have taken a fleet of about forty big trucks each moving about ten tons of explosives. And this was at a time -- the week before and then during the war -- when Iraq's skies were positively crawling with American aerial and satellite reconnaissance.

Considering that al Qaqaa was a major munitions installation where the US also suspected there might be WMD, it's difficult to believe that we wouldn't have noticed a convoy of forty huge trucks carting stuff away.

As the LA Times notes in Tuesday's paper, it's just not particularly credible ...

Given the size of the missing cache, it would have been difficult to relocate undetected before the invasion, when U.S. spy satellites were monitoring activity at sites suspected of concealing nuclear and biological weapons.

"You don't just move this stuff in the middle of the night," said a former U.S. intelligence official who worked in Baghdad.

If we had seen something like that happening, it's hard to figure we wouldn't have bombed the convoy, since the US had complete air superiority through the entire campaign. And if the thought that WMD might be on those trucks had prevented such an attack, certainly there would have been running surveillance of where the stuff was going and where it ended up.

My point here is not to say that this could not have occurred. What I am trying to show is that Pentagon appointees like Di Rita don't seem to have any clear idea what happened to this stuff. And in an attempt to push back the story, they're cooking up various theories, most with very short half-lives, that just don't seem credible to a lot of folks who follow these issues.

If you look at the multiple contradictions in the different stories administration officials told reporters over the course of Monday, it's hard not to get the sense that they're caught without a good explanation and they're just making this stuff up as they go along.

The folks who really understand this stuff don't seem to put much stock in what guys like Di Rita and Scott McClellan are saying. The LA Times piece, notes that one of them is former chief weapons inspector David Kay, that notorious bush-basher and left-winger. Kay thinks the stuff was carted off after the old regime was history. Kay told the Times he visited the site in May 2003 "and it was heavily looted at that time. Sometime between April and May, most of the stuff was carried off. The site was in total disarray, just like a lot of the Iraqi sites."

Kerry made an ass out of himself.. AGAIN.

Guys, with all due respect to NBC, their coverage of the story was severely lacking in both judgement and logic. I'm sorry, but for them to essentially soak in the words of this administration who told us about WMDs existing, Iraqi connections to 9/11, and much to do about nothing with Abu Gharib, they just gulped the fucking hook, line, sinker, reel, and fucking boat for that matter.

Let's examine the details, and I'm going to be borrowing some stuff from Josh Marshall's analysis (since he's all over this ridiculous spin by the WH):

First, did NBC really contradict NYTimes very much? Well, no, not really. First NBC:

quote:

April 10, 2003, only three weeks into the war, NBC News was embedded with troops from the Army's 101st Airborne as they temporarily take over the Al Qaqaa weapons installation south of Baghdad. But these troops never found the nearly 380 tons of some of the most powerful conventional explosives, called HMX and RDX, which is now missing. The U.S. troops did find large stockpiles of more conventional weapons, but no HMX or RDX, so powerful less than a pound brought down Pan Am 103 in 1988, and can be used to trigger a nuclear weapon. But was Miklaszewski arguing the Times got it wrong? No. He continued: In a letter this month, the Iraqi interim government told the International Atomic Energy Agency the high explosives were lost to theft and looting due to lack of security. Critics claim there were simply not enough U.S. troops to guard hundreds of weapons stockpiles, weapons now being used by insurgents and terrorists to wage a guerrilla war in Iraq.

Sound familiar? It should - it compliments what the NYTimes said quite nicely:

quote:

A European diplomat reported that Jacques Baute, head of the arms agency's Iraq nuclear inspection team, warned officials at the United States mission in Vienna about the danger of the nuclear sites and materials once under I.A.E.A. supervision, including Al Qaqaa. But apparently, little was done. A senior Bush administration official said that during the initial race to Baghdad, American forces "went through the bunkers, but saw no materials bearing the I.A.E.A. seal." It is unclear whether troops ever returned. By late 2003, diplomats said, arms agency experts had obtained commercial satellite photos of Al Qaqaa showing that two of roughly 10 bunkers that contained HMX appeared to have been leveled by titanic blasts, apparently during the war. They presumed some of the HMX had exploded, but that is unclear. Other HMX bunkers were untouched. Some were damaged but not devastated. I.A.E.A. experts say they assume that just before the invasion the Iraqis followed their standard practice of moving crucial explosives out of buildings, so they would not be tempting targets. If so, the experts say, the Iraqi must have broken seals from the arms agency on bunker doors and moved most of the HMX to nearby fields, where it would have been lightly camouflaged - and ripe for looting. http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/25/i...ner=rssuserland

Here the Times are contending that the Coalition forces did not do a thorough job examining Al Qa qaa, NOT that they never went in there. This is indisputable. And NBC did not say anything about how thorough a job the 101st Airborne did when they "temporarily" took over the site, nor did NBC say the explosives were gone before the troops arrived.


But what gets me is all the lovely excuses the WH made on this whole fiasco - and let's keep in mind that this kind of play simply does not bode well for Bush - their spin was a clear sign of panic. Instead of trying to handwave this away and change the subject (which would have probably been in their best interests this close to the election), they came up with a myriad of excuses. Their final excuse, however, just doesn't sit well. So here it is:

First the Iraqi interim gov't said the explosives were taken some time AFTER April 9th (when we entered Bagdhad):
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/25/i...d=all&position=

But Pentagon spokesman Larry Di Rita suggested that the explosions MAY have been taken in the final days of the old regime, i.e. BEFORE April 9th:
http://www.turkishpress.com/news.asp?id=31787

The IAEA inspected the munitions in January 2003, and then returned and saw the seals were in place in March just a week before the war started:
http://www.nola.com/newsflash/iraq/...&storylist=iraq

So far so good, right? That gives a little "window" of time for insurgents to grab all that material, throw it out into the field behind the buildings where it would be "lightly" camuflaged. Essentially, this is what Drudge and NBC reported on - the Di Rita hypothesis. Good so far?

Not quite. A Pentagon "official who monitors developments in Iraq" told the Associated Press today that "US-led coalition troops had searched Al-Qaqaa in the immediate aftermath of the March 2003 invasion and confirmed that the explosives, which had been under IAEA seal since 1991, were intact."

http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satell...d=1098677410357

That of course would mean that the explosives were not removed from the facility until some point after the war. And that would be in line with what the Iraqis two weeks ago told the IAEA.

But more problems with the Di Rita hypothesis exist. First, military and non-proliferation analysts say that a detachment of soldiers not specifically trained in weapons inspections work and certainly an NBC news crew simply wouldn't be in a position to make such a determination. We're not talking about a storage unit with a few boxes in it, but a massive weapons complex made up of almost a hundred buildings and bunkers.

Former weapons inspector David Albright was asked about this on CNN Monday evening and he said, "I would want to check it out. I mean it's a big site. These bunkers are big and it could get lost in that complex and it may be that they just didn't go to the right places and didn't see it."

http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRI.../25/asb.01.html

In any case, that visit wasn't the first time US troops went to the facility. That happened a week earlier, on April 4th, as was reported at the time. According to an AP account from the following day, the troops made spot visits to some of the buildings and found chemical warfare antidotes but no WMD.

http://www.globalsecurity.org/org/n...readiness01.htm

The same report says they also found "thousands of five-centimetre by 12-centimetre boxes, each containing three vials of white powder" which were initially believed to be chemical agents but were later determined to be "explosives."

Like the visit on the 10th, this visit seems to have been far from exhaustive and thus far from conclusive about what was there. Neither visit seems to provide clear evidence that the explosives were gone -- and the first may point in the opposite direction. (Further details about this first visit to al Qaqaa are contained in this April 5th article by the Post's Barton Gellman.)

http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/w...4¬Found=true

Next comes the question of whether this really could have been pulled off at all under the circumstances.

As we noted earlier, there's a relatively brief window of time we're talking about when this stuff could have been carted away -- specifically, from March 8th (when the IAEA last checked it) until April 4th when the first US troops appear to have arrived on the scene.

Certainly there would have been time enough to move the stuff. That's almost a month. But this would be a massive and quite visible undertaking. As the Times noted yesterday, moving this material would have taken a fleet of about forty big trucks each moving about ten tons of explosives. And this was at a time -- the week before and then during the war -- when Iraq's skies were positively crawling with American aerial and satellite reconnaissance.

Considering that al Qaqaa was a major munitions installation where the US also suspected there might be WMD, it's difficult to believe that we wouldn't have noticed a convoy of forty huge trucks carting stuff away.

As the LA Times notes in Tuesday's paper, it's just not particularly credible:

quote:

Given the size of the missing cache, it would have been difficult to relocate undetected before the invasion, when U.S. spy satellites were monitoring activity at sites suspected of concealing nuclear and biological weapons. "You don't just move this stuff in the middle of the night," said a former U.S. intelligence official who worked in Baghdad. http://www.latimes.com/news/nationw...-home-headlines

If we had seen something like that happening, it's hard to figure we wouldn't have bombed the convoy, since the US had complete air superiority through the entire campaign. And if the thought that WMD might be on those trucks had prevented such an attack, certainly there would have been running surveillance of where the stuff was going and where it ended up.

My point here is not to say that this could not have occurred. What I am trying to show is that Pentagon appointees like Di Rita don't seem to have any clear idea what happened to this stuff. And in an attempt to push back the story, they're cooking up various theories, most with very short half-lives, that just don't seem credible to a lot of folks who follow these issues.


To top it all off, let's examine some of the statements made by WH spokesman Scott McClellan and crew:

RDX and HMX -- the explosives looted from the al Qa Qaa facility are hardly a big deal at all. Yeah, no big deal. Let's look at how little of a deal they are:

1. 380 tons of explosives stolen in Iraq.
2. One US ton = 2,000 pounds
3. So, 380 tons of explosives x 2,000 pounds = 760,000 pounds
4. One pound of this explosive brought down the Pan Am jet over Lockerbie, Scotland, killing 270 people.
5. If one pound is enough for one Lockerbie, then 760,000 pounds is enough to blow 760,000 US commerical jets out of the sky.
6. 760,000 Lockerbies times 270 dead per Lockerbie = 205,200,000 dead
7. 205 million dead is 2/3 of the population of the United States.


And let's also keep in mind that these explosives are currently being used by the insurgents to blow the limbs and guts out of our brave soldiers and blow the heads off of innocent Iraqi children:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/mi...ast/3950493.stm

McClellan also further states that in any case, they're the responsibility of the Iraqis. But the big kicker with McClellan is he states that the WH knew nothing about this whole ordeal until October 15th:

http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/rele...20041025-1.html

That directly contradicts the Times story which is that Iraqis claim they told Jerry Bremer about this last May. It contradicts what the Iraqis have told the IAEA, which is that the US pressured them not to report the disappearance to the IAEA.

And speaking of Bremer, where the fuck is he? He could sure help clear the air a bit. He ditched on the Times, and he's no where in sight now.

Why?

It also stands in what I guess you'd have to call simple defiance of the fact that the US had formal charge of these facilities for more than a year ending in late June of this year.

To say that we knew nothing about the theft of these materials during that entire time is simply not credible. And if it's really true, it's considerably worse than if it's a lie.

But it's not just a mere contradiction to the NYTimes, it contradicts the Di Rita hypothesis, the SAME FUCKING STORY THAT NBC AND DRUDGE HAVE BEEN RUNNING? How, you ask? It's the timeline, once again:

If the Di Rita hypothesis rests on the claim that the first US troops that visited al Qa Qaa found that the explosives had already been stolen or looted or otherwise secreted away, that would mean that the US government has known the explosives were missing for some eighteen months.

The problem is that the White House has spent the entire day claiming that they knew nothing about this until ten days ago, October 15th. Scott McClellan said this repeatedly during his gaggle with reporters this morning. Indeed, he went on to say the following:

quote:

"Now [i.e., after the notification on October 15th], the Pentagon, upon learning of this, directed the multinational forces and the Iraqi survey group to look into this matter, and that's what they are currently doing." http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/rele...20041025-1.html

So which is it, Conservatives? What story are you willing to jump on? Di Rita or McClellan? Make your choice, but please, please, PLEASE don't "waffle". Whatever you do, don't "flip-flop", 'kay?

Other juicy info:

The Times article also mentions that Condi Rice was informed within the past month that the explosives were missing. How many days after she was informed did she begin her campaigning for Bush? Shouldn't her ass be working on this development a little more?

A story which broke in the Chicago Tribune, Sept. 30, 2004 reads as follows:

quote:

The insurgents probably are using weapons and ammunition looted from the nearby Qa-Qaa complex, a 3-mile by 3-mile weapons-storage site about 25 miles southwest of Baghdad, said Maj. Brian Neil, operations officer for the 2nd Battalion, 2nd Marine Regiment, which initially patrolled the area. The site was bombed during last year's invasion and then left unguarded, Neil said. "There's definitely no shortage of weapons around here," he said

Seems that soldier has known about it for awhile - long before October 10th, ain't it?

And finally, I'm sure all of you remember the story about Zarqawi, and how our Administration botched/directly avoided killing him out right several times before the war:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/4431601/

The WSJournal also finally picked this one up too:

http://online.wsj.com/article_email...IaKmGm4,00.html

So let's just put 2 and 2 together here - we had the opportunity to nail Zarqawi but failed to do so. We had the opportunity to secure hundreds of tons of explosives but failed to do so. Now we see both the explosives AND Zarqawi all too closely as they are combined to murder our troops and innocent Iraqi civilians we are supposed to protect.

Need I say anything further about this Administration and Iraq?


Edit: Damnit! superfb beat me to the punch. Nice job.

Actually bother to read the long posts people, you might learn something from them.

They're only weapons of medium destruction so who cares? Worst case scenario insurgents will have enough ammo to continue killing american troops for a few more years. I suppose we could criticize such incompetance and fire somebody for this, but what kind of message does that send to the troops? Yes in conclusion, it's better for the troops if we ignore gross incompetance that leads to the killing of more troops than to take action and thereby send them mixed messages. They're better off dead than confused I always say.

Does anyone else get the feeling that life can't possibly get more satirically asinine and yet it does the very next day? It's like I'm living in the world of the onion ... do I laugh? Cry? Or some rediculous combination of the two? Craugh?

Hey--is Kerry sure the explosives were ever there in the first place? I mean where are the WMDs???

quote:

Originally posted by MisterOpus1 My point here is not to say that this could not have occurred. What I am trying to show is that Pentagon appointees like Di Rita don't seem to have any clear idea what happened to this stuff. And in an attempt to push back the story, they're cooking up various theories, most with very short half-lives, that just don't seem credible to a lot of folks who follow these issues.

Of course its a mystery...Tuesday a day after yesterday we have the entire Media rolling back on huffing and puffing on the main door of Bush's Adminstration. Too bad Kerry was talking about it yesterday like it happened last week. According to the NBC REPORT it was actually stated plain and simple as this:

quote:

An NBC News crew that accompanied U.S. soldiers who seized the Al-Qaqaa base three weeks into the war in Iraq reported that troops discovered significant stockpiles of bombs, but no sign of the missing HMX and RDX explosives.

Eh?
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6323933/

quote:

And let's also keep in mind that these explosives are currently being used by the insurgents to blow the limbs and guts out of our brave soldiers and blow the heads off of innocent Iraqi children: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/mi...ast/3950493.stm McClellan also further states that in any case, they're the responsibility of the Iraqis. But the big kicker with McClellan is he states that the WH knew nothing about this whole ordeal until October 15th: http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/rele...20041025-1.html That directly contradicts the Times story which is that Iraqis claim they told Jerry Bremer about this last May. It contradicts what the Iraqis have told the IAEA, which is that the US pressured them not to report the disappearance to the IAEA. And speaking of Bremer, where the fuck is he? He could sure help clear the air a bit. He ditched on the Times, and he's no where in sight now. Why? It also stands in what I guess you'd have to call simple defiance of the fact that the US had formal charge of these facilities for more than a year ending in late June of this year. To say that we knew nothing about the theft of these materials during that entire time is simply not credible. And if it's really true, it's considerably worse than if it's a lie.

If this story boils down to being true then we should expect CBS to run with its 60 minutes program. CBS planned to run with the story on election eve which in my opinion their offices should be tore down for sedition. Now onto your weapon descriptions.
The IAEA classification of the materials were WMDs - Class 6, I believe. That was documented when they were found, one of the infactions of UN sanctions against Saddam. Not only that, but he was ordered to destroy the materials, which he ignored.

Any of this remind you of a speech given a few years back?

Here is the article of CBS

quote:

http://www.drudgereport.com/nbcw6.htm 60 MINS PLANNED BUSH MISSING EXPLOSIVES STORY FOR ELECTION EVE News of missing explosives in Iraq -- first reported in April 2003 -- was being resurrected for a 60 MINUTES election eve broadcast designed to knock the Bush administration into a crises mode. Jeff Fager, executive producer of the Sunday edition of 60 MINUTES, said in a statement that "our plan was to run the story on October 31." Elizabeth Jensen at the LOS ANGELES TIMES details on Tuesday how CBS NEWS and 60 MINUTES lost the story [which repackaged previously reported information on a large cache of explosives missing in Iraq, first published and broadcast in 2003]. The story instead debuted in the NYT. The paper slugged the story about missing explosives from April 2003 as "exclusive." An NBCNEWS crew embedded with troops moved in to secure the Al-Qaqaa weapons facility on April 10, 2003, one day after the liberation of Iraq. According to NBCNEWS, the explosives were already missing when the American troops arrived. It is not clear who exactly shopped an election eve repackaging of the missing explosives story. The LA TIMES claims: The source on the story first went to 60 MINUTES but also expressed interest in working with the NY TIMES... "The tip was received last Wednesday." CBSNEWS' plan to unleash the story just 24 hours before election day had one senior Bush official outraged. "Darn, I wanted to see the forged documents to show how this was somehow covered up," the Bush source, who asked not to be named, mocked, recalling last months CBS airing of fraudulent Bush national guard letters.

quote:

But it's not just a mere contradiction to the NYTimes, it contradicts the Di Rita hypothesis, the SAME FUCKING STORY THAT NBC AND DRUDGE HAVE BEEN RUNNING? How, you ask? It's the timeline, once again: If the Di Rita hypothesis rests on the claim that the first US troops that visited al Qa Qaa found that the explosives had already been stolen or looted or otherwise secreted away, that would mean that the US government has known the explosives were missing for some eighteen months.

How about a consortium of events? Fake documents. 60 minutes planning to run the weapons non-story on Sunday before the election. NYT runs it, Kerry reads it and runs with it. It's added to their talking points. The partnership between the liberal media and the DNC is so transparent that anyone who refuses to acknowledge it is a fool.


[/quote]
The problem is that the White House has spent the entire day claiming that they knew nothing about this until ten days ago, October 15th. Scott McClellan said this repeatedly during his gaggle with reporters this morning. Indeed, he went on to say the following:



So which is it, Conservatives? What story are you willing to jump on? Di Rita or McClellan? Make your choice, but please, please, PLEASE don't "waffle". Whatever you do, don't "flip-flop", 'kay?

quote:

CBS has a BOLDFACE HEADLING on their website: US: No Explosives When GIs Arrived Why isnt the press running with this story? It remains a mystery I agree. However we shouldnt jump the gun like the entire MSM did yesterday and presume all this information and according to NBCNEWS, the explosives were already missing when the American troops arrived Quite honestly with NBC coming into the light and saying that of NYTIMES instead of joining hands with them like CBS. This essentially proves we were right to go in, that Saddam was funneling weapons, dare I say WMD's which HMX is considered by many, out of Iraq during inspections. I don't care what Bush or Kerry did 30 years ago. I do care that our President had the courage and thought to make a stand against terrorism now and take the war to them and that Kerry would not have ever done unless the poles and the UN said it was a good idea. [quote]Other juicy info: The Times article also mentions that Condi Rice was informed within the past month that the explosives were missing. How many days after she was informed did she begin her campaigning for Bush? Shouldn't her ass be working on this development a little more?

THESE EXPLOSIVES VANISHED RIGHT UNDER THE UN'S NOSE. WHO IS INCOMPETENT???

From MSNBC:

MSNBC, 10/26/04 (Transcript):

Amy Robach: And it's still unclear exactly when those explosives disappeared. Here to help shed some light on that question is Lai Ling. She was part of an NBC news crew that traveled to that facility with the 101st Airborne Division back in April of 2003. Lai Ling, can you set the stage for us? What was the situation like when you went into the area?

Lai Ling Jew: When we went into the area, we were actually leaving Karbala and we were initially heading to Baghdad with the 101st Airborne, Second Brigade. The situation in Baghdad, the Third Infantry Division had taken over Baghdad and so they were trying to carve up the area that the 101st Airborne Division would be in charge of. As a result, they had trouble figuring out who was going to take up what piece of Baghdad. They sent us over to this area in Iskanderia. We didn't know it as the Qaqaa facility at that point but when they did bring us over there we stayed there for quite a while. We stayed overnight, almost 24 hours. And we walked around, we saw the bunkers that had been bombed, and that exposed all of the ordinances that just lied dormant on the desert.

AR: Was there a search at all underway or did a search ensue for explosives once you got there during that 24-hour period?

LLJ: No. There wasn't a search. The mission that the brigade had was to get to Baghdad. That was more of a pit stop there for us. And, you know, the searching, I mean certainly some of the soldiers head off on their own, looked through the bunkers just to look at the vast amount of ordnance lying around. But as far as we could tell, there was no move to secure the weapons, nothing to keep looters away. But there was � at that point the roads were shut off. So it would have been very difficult, I believe, for the looters to get there.

AR: And there was no talk of securing the area after you left. There was no discussion of that?

LLJ: Not for the 101st Airborne, Second Brigade. They were -- once they were in Baghdad, it was all about Baghdad, you know, and then they ended up moving north to Mosul. Once we left the area, that was the last that the brigade had anything to do with the area.

AR: Well, Lai Ling Jew, thank you so much for shedding some light into that situation. We appreciate it.

LLJ: Thank you.

Ok guys settle down.

This one is really easy.

Forget the hype and try and think through this with common sense.

The Iraqis had a whole bunch of ammunition at this depo pre-War.
AND Everyone knew that Iraq had a whole bunch of ammunition at this depo pre-War. This is testament by the fact that the IAEA survieled the site.

Now lets pretend we are stupid military generals and think about the fate of such a depo if war were to break out:

The Americans would send there planes and put big bombs on the ammo depo to destory as much ammo at the depo as possible (which they did).

The Iraqis being oh so clever would think that the Americans would want to use there big bad planes and destory all there ammo from a depo everybody knew about, so they would move as much ammo as possible from the depo to an undisclosed location (which they did).

The Americans would think the Iraqis would probably move all the ammo from the depo, but said "better be safe then sorry" and since the Americans were in no sortage of their own ammo and the fact that Americans love fireworks they put big bombs on the ammo depo (which they did).

Now when the Americans came to Bagdahd knowing the ammo depo was big, and that they bombed it probably would want to go scout it out (of which some forunate NBC reportes decided to tag along) to make sure all the weapons were destroyed by the american planes, or secure any remaining ammo if there was any left (which they did).


So since this all happened, where is the failure here?
This is exactly how things should of happened.

If the claim is that the ammo disappeared, than by golly you are a smart ass genius. You know what? The ammo also disappears from my gun when I shoot you in the head with a gun. Stupid reporters.

You got it Yoepus--with the caveat that the media is much more eager to report anything that might cast a negative light on Dubya.


Here we are...still hearing about Abu Ghraib, yet nobody cares about Rathergate anymore. Nobody cares about the Clinton aide who walked out with secret documents stuffed in his panties. And they won't be eager to point out their own shortcomings either.

quote:

Originally posted by Yoepus Ok guys settle down. This one is really easy. Forget the hype and try and think through this with common sense. The Iraqis had a whole bunch of ammunition at this depo pre-War. AND Everyone knew that Iraq had a whole bunch of ammunition at this depo pre-War. This is testament by the fact that the IAEA survieled the site. Now lets pretend we are stupid military generals and think about the fate of such a depo if war were to break out: The Americans would send there planes and put big bombs on the ammo depo to destory as much ammo at the depo as possible (which they did). The Iraqis being oh so clever would think that the Americans would want to use there big bad planes and destory all there ammo from a depo everybody knew about, so they would move as much ammo as possible from the depo to an undisclosed location (which they did). The Americans would think the Iraqis would probably move all the ammo from the depo, but said "better be safe then sorry" and since the Americans were in no sortage of their own ammo and the fact that Americans love fireworks they put big bombs on the ammo depo (which they did). Now when the Americans came to Bagdahd knowing the ammo depo was big, and that they bombed it probably would want to go scout it out (of which some forunate NBC reportes decided to tag along) to make sure all the weapons were destroyed by the american planes, or secure any remaining ammo if there was any left (which they did). So since this all happened, where is the failure here? This is exactly how things should of happened. If the claim is that the ammo disappeared, than by golly you are a smart ass genius. You know what? The ammo also disappears from my gun when I shoot you in the head with a gun. Stupid reporters.

Beautiful theory. Except that if the explosives had been detonated I'm sure the Iraq Survey Group would have been able to make that determination through chemical tests. Furthermore it appears that Jew (hehe) observed ordinance lying all over the place, unexploded, post-bombardment. Lastly, if that was a plausible theory, the silence from the Pentagon pretty much eliminates it as one.

quote:

Originally posted by Shakka You got it Yoepus--with the caveat that the media is much more eager to report anything that might cast a negative light on Dubya. Here we are...still hearing about Abu Ghraib, yet nobody cares about Rathergate anymore. Nobody cares about the Clinton aide who walked out with secret documents stuffed in his panties. And they won't be eager to point out their own shortcomings either.

Sandy Burger was exhonerated, you didn't hear about it in the "liberal" media though. And the Rather documents weren't proven to be forgeries, it was determined that they could not be positive that they were real, in any case Bush did miss lots of guard duty.

quote:

Berger Cleared of Withholding Material from 9/11 Commission By Scot J. Paltrow The Wall Street Journal Friday 30 July 2004 Officials looking into the removal of classified documents from the National Archives by former Clinton National Security Adviser Samuel Berger say no original materials are missing and nothing Mr. Berger reviewed was withheld from the commission investigating the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks. Several prominent Republicans, including House Speaker Dennis Hastert and House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, have voiced suspicion that when Mr. Berger was preparing materials for the 9/11 Commission on the Clinton administration's antiterror actions, he may have removed documents that were potentially damaging to the former president's record. The conclusion by archives officials and others would seem to lay to rest the issue of whether any information was permanently destroyed or withheld from the commission. Archives spokeswoman Susan Cooper said officials there "are confident that there aren't any original documents missing in relation to this case." She said in most cases, Mr. Berger was given photocopies to review, and that in any event officials have accounted for all originals to which he had access. That included all drafts of a so-called after-action report prepared by the White House and federal agencies in 2000 after the investigation into a foiled bombing plot aimed at the Millennium celebrations. That report and earlier drafts are at the center of allegations that Mr. Berger might have permanently removed some records from the archives. Some of the allegations have related to the possibility that drafts with handwritten notes on them may have disappeared, but Ms. Cooper said archives staff are confident those documents aren't missing either. Daniel Marcus, general counsel of the 9/11 Commission, said the panel had been assured twice by the Justice Department that no originals were missing and that all of the material Mr. Berger had access to had been turned over to the commission. "We are told that the Justice Department is satisfied that we've seen everything that the archives saw," and "nothing was missing," he said. Mr. Berger's lawyer has said his client returned all of the photocopies after he was questioned about missing items by archives staff. But officials have said they are still looking into whether some of the photocopies may have been destroyed. It is illegal to remove classified material in any form from the archives. Late last year, archives personnel called in investigators when some classified materials were discovered missing after Mr. Berger reviewed them in response to a 9/11 Commission request for Clinton-era national-security records. Staff members became suspicious that Mr. Berger had removed items during a first visit, and on a second visit secretly numbered copies given to him and determined afterward that not all had been returned. By some accounts, Mr. Berger had been observed by the staff stuffing papers into his clothing, although Mr. Berger's lawyer, Lanny Breuer, has denied that. So far no charges have been filed. Mr. Breuer has said that on two occasions his client had inadvertently removed several photocopies of the Millennium after-action report, but later returned them.

quote:

Originally posted by tecnolover "This is one of the great blunders of Iraq, one of the greatest blunders of this administration, and the incredible incompetence of this president and this administration has put our troops at risk and this country at greater risk," Kerry told supporters in Dover, New Hampshire. Another example of Kerry sticking his foot in his mouth again. Now he's gonna have to hope that the media somehow hides it or under publicizes it. This was an idiotic attack on Bush that misfired badly.

That's a good point. But please learn to quote, it makes the post look prettier.

quote:

Originally posted by occrider Beautiful theory. Except that if the explosives had been detonated I'm sure the Iraq Survey Group would have been able to make that determination through chemical tests.

Reread point two. Although they are pretty stupid, the Iraqis aren't that stupid. They knew the US was going to bomb the ammo depot. My bet is they moved as much armnament from the depo as possible, starting with the most valuable stocks (i.e. WMD) first.

quote:

Furthermore it appears that Jew (hehe) observed ordinance lying all over the place, unexploded, post-bombardment.

I think what we should all learn from these recent events is one very fundametal lesson:

Never trust a reporter.

quote:

Lastly, if that was a plausible theory, the silence from the Pentagon pretty much eliminates it as one.

Silence is golden, Kerry would do well to learn this lesson.

quote:

Originally posted by Yoepus Reread point two. Although they are pretty stupid, the Iraqis aren't that stupid. They knew the US was going to bomb the ammo depot. My bet is they moved as much armnament from the depo as possible, starting with the most valuable stocks (i.e. WMD) first.

So wait, the Americans recognize the monumental value of bombing the dump yet fail to track, what must be a very visible undertaking, the movement of 300 tons of explosives?

quote:

I think what we should all learn from these recent events is one very fundametal lesson: Never trust a reporter.

Huh? We use the nbc reporter's accounts to dispute the facts of the case and when the reporter elaborates with greater detail we're not to trust them? I'm missing something here ...

quote:

Silence is golden, Kerry would do well to learn this lesson.

Perhaps Kerry should, however, in this case the silence is nothing but an indication that the Pentagon realised that they fu*ked up. If someone accuses you of something you didn't do the typical response is to defend yourself ...

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