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Explosives disappear... (pg. 8)
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| Yoepus |
Guys guys guys:
SEMMER DOWN NOW
Go to your fabled Eyewintess Five News website: http://kstp.com/article/stories/S3723.html?cat=1
watch the video.
And make up your own mind.
All I can say is that I can't understand why it is a big suprise to some of you that ammo was found at an ammo depot:eyes:
:rolleyes: |
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| occrider |
| quote: | Originally posted by Yoepus
Guys guys guys:
SEMMER DOWN NOW
Go to your fabled Eyewintess Five News website: http://kstp.com/article/stories/S3723.html?cat=1
watch the video.
And make up your own mind.
All I can say is that I can't understand why it is a big suprise to some of you that ammo was found at an ammo depot:eyes:
:rolleyes: |
The big surprise isn't about the fact that there is ammo at an ammo dump ... the big surprise is the fact that the US was warned about the ammo dumps and despite this warning the ammo dumps were left unsecured. It's a pattern of incompetance such as this which provides a rational explanation for why the troops encounter 50+ attacks a day, the majority being road side bombs.
Is retarded behavour such as this in some way acceptable to you?
| quote: |
320 tons only a fraction of missing weapons
U.S. official says "ample evidence" exists that looted arms are being used to attack troops.
By Jonathan S. Landay
Knight Ridder
Washington — The more than 320 tons of missing Iraqi high explosives at center stage in the U.S. presidential election are only a fraction of the weapons-related material that's disappeared in Iraq since the U.S.-led invasion last year.
Huge amounts of arms and ammunition were stolen from military sites, and there's "ample evidence" that Iraqi insurgents are firing looted weapons at U.S. troops and using some of them in car bombs and improvised explosive devices, said a senior U.S. intelligence official, speaking on condition of anonymity.
U.N. officials also are concerned about the disappearance of sensitive equipment and controlled materials that could be used to develop nuclear, biological or chemical weapons.
"If this equipment is finding itself on the open market, then anybody with money can buy it," said Dimitri Perricos, acting head of the U.N. Monitoring and Verification Commission, the U.N. weapons inspection agency.
The CIA has convened a "mini task force" of experts to assess precisely what equipment is gone and what threat it could pose if it fell into the wrong hands, said two U.S. officials.
In a new disclosure, the senior U.S. military officer and another U.S. official, who also spoke on condition he not be identified because of the sensitivity of the matter, said that an Iraqi working for U.S. intelligence alerted U.S. troops stationed near the al Qaqaa weapons facility that the installation was being looted shortly after the fall of Baghdad on April 9, 2003.
But, they said, the troops took no action to halt the pillaging.
"That was one of numerous times when Iraqis warned us that ammo dumps and other places were being looted and we weren't able to respond because we didn't have anyone to send," said a senior U.S. military officer who served in Iraq.
An ABC television station in Minnesota reported that one of its camera crews embedded with the 101st Airborne Division might have filmed some of the high explosives after arriving on al Qaqaa's perimeter on April 18. Experts at the International Atomic Energy Agency, the U.N. agency that was monitoring al Qaqaa because the missing explosives could have been used to trigger a nuclear weapon, are examining the videotape.
The disclosure contradicted the Bush administration's suggestion that Saddam's regime may have removed the high explosives between the last U.N. inspection of al Qaqaa on March 15 and the arrival of 3rd Infantry Division troops on April 3. The U.S.-backed interim Iraqi government contends that the high explosives disappeared sometime after the fall of Baghdad on April 9.
The Defense Department on Thursday released a satellite photograph taken on March 17 that shows two trucks parked at the al Qaqaa complex, and Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld said U.S. reconnaissance would have detected any effort to loot the complex.
Many U.S. officials and experts blame the massive disappearance of Iraqi weapons materials on the Pentagon's failure to anticipate the waves of lawlessness after Saddam's ouster.
http://www.news-leader.com/today/1029-320tonsonl-214035.html
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| speedracer_mec |
pentagon news conference in progress now explaining the photo
will the local ABC news network/Kerry Campaign hold a news conference of their own to explain the video? |
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| Spacey Orange |
| quote: | Originally posted by speedracer_mec
pentagon news conference in progress now explaining the photo |
...and they are doing a terrible job. The first person to speack was rambling, nervous, and unfocused. The second speaker, Major Austin Pearson, is a poor public speaker, even theough he might have been credible because looks like hey may have been there. Their message so far seems convoluted.
The adminstration is totally off their game sending these two amateurs.
Like i wrote before, the admin is just keeping this issue alive by responding like this. They can only offer speculation and not real answers, and are unlikely to quite any criticism or media attention. If Bush loses by the slimest of margins, i think this may a be a factor. This is totally inept spin management and i'm totally surprised. Karen Hughes must be fuming. |
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| MisterOpus1 |
| quote: | Originally posted by Spacey Orange
...and they are doing a terrible job. The first person to speack was rambling, nervous, and unfocused. The second speaker, Major Austin Pearson, is a poor public speaker, even theough he might have been credible because looks like hey may have been there. Their message so far seems convoluted.
The adminstration is totally off their game sending these two amateurs.
Like i wrote before, the admin is just keeping this issue alive by responding like this. They can only offer speculation and not real answers, and are unlikely to quite any criticism or media attention. If Bush loses by the slimest of margins, i think this may a be a factor. This is totally inept spin management and i'm totally surprised. Karen Hughes must be fuming. |
It's in lock-step with Rove's interview last night. Rove, a normally cool and collective guy under nearly all circumstances, was stumbling on his words and decided to focus not on the damning ABC newspiece, but on the NYTimes article posted on Wednesday, saying they were being presumptuous. I guess that's about as much of an admission of guilt by default as you're gonna get from Rove. Clearly not in his element.
To be honest I've never seen this Administration so caught off-guard and flat-footed in the last 4 years. And as you stated, their spin is only prolonging it out - 5 days now and counting, and I doubt it will die down much over the weekend. Even if it does, it's impact will have already taken place.
What a beautiful week this has been.:toothless |
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| Spacey Orange |
what does eveyone think the poltical impact will be of this whole story and the handling by the administration, and the use by the kerry campaign. in my view that's what really matters here, politically, in these waning days of the campaign
EDIT
the pentagon press core is having a field day with these amateurs. why did the admin send these guys? what were they thinking? the presidency is hanging in the balance and they send in these two chumps? this is insane |
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| occrider |
| Heh Bush is getting hammered from all sides. Looks like we have not so good econ data this week. Lower than forecasted GDP, high claims for unemployment, and low consumer confidence. I'll have to update the econ thread when I get home tonight ... |
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| MisterOpus1 |
| quote: | Originally posted by Spacey Orange
what does eveyone think the poltical impact will be of this whole story and the handling by the administration, and the use by the kerry campaign. in my view that's what really matters here, politically, in these waning days of the campaign |
Honestly I really don't think this will garner too many votes towards Kerry, but it may garner just enough, however. Most folks have made up their minds long ago, even a good portion of those so-called "undecideds". As a handful of pundits have explained, this really isn't a tipping point/surprise solitary event occurring, but rather just a part of a series of events clearly demonstrating the ineptitude and shortsightedness of this Administration rushing off to war without a real plan involved.
But again, it may have just enough of an impact to tip a few voters towards Kerry, but I think it could be argued that Kerry had plenty of momentum going into the final week without this story anyway. |
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| Spacey Orange |
| i agree. i'm sure this is not the last impression the adminstration wanted to leave on the minds of the very few undecided voters. the weekend is here, attentions will drift away from the campaign. the weekend news coverage will still cover this as evidence of adminstration ineptitude in the iraq campaign. |
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| Yoepus |
| quote: | Originally posted by Spacey Orange
i agree. i'm sure this is not the last impression the adminstration wanted to leave on the minds of the very few undecided voters. the weekend is here, attentions will drift away from the campaign. the weekend news coverage will still cover this as evidence of adminstration ineptitude in the iraq campaign. |
I think it was a good point - that all the facts are unknown and it is yet to be known the picture.
They made it misty - and showed that the liberals are jumping to conclusions (something they accuse the Republicans of doing with Iraq).
Good approach. I don't want a politican that ignores the facts or is impatient to wait for them and acts without knowing the truth. I thought thats why you guys didn't like Bush..
I guess now its so much for the alternative as well ;) :p |
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| occrider |
Hehe ok so what I gather from the press conference is:
The weapons that were stolen, that we said were stolen before we got there, that the Russians helped ship to Syria, that were shown on tape as being there after our soldiers were there, that were really only 3 tons not 300, were really 200 tons that we destroyed, but seemed to have forgotten doing so until now.
Riiiiigghhht. This reminds me of the apprentice where everyone is trying to come up with excuses for how they're not retarded. |
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| Yoepus |
| quote: | Originally posted by occrider
Well lookey lookey ... what do we have here?
I love it when I hit jackpot. |
what's wrong Occrider?
Not so confident anymore.
From the press conference:
"We've destoryed 400,000 TONS of ammunition in Iraq"
"We've destroyed approximately 250 tons at the ammo depot" - this was done on April 13th.
"Its taking us a little time to gather all the details to find out exactly what happened to less than 1/1000 of the ammunition we have destoryed in Iraq"
"There have been other taskforces that were given orders to secure the ammo depot after the 3rd ID was ordered to destroy all easily accessable ammo at the site"
No seals were found at site by the 3rd ID when they destoryed the 250 tons of ammo.
I'm sorry, but I can't see where the ball exactly was dropped here?
At what time exactly should the military have done what they had not done? |
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