380 tons stolen *BEFORE* troops arrived

[Engineer]

Originally posted by: christoph83

Originally posted by: Engineer

Originally posted by: christoph83


Even so this costs money. Rolling back the tax cuts on the rich won't help. The rich account for less than 20%. While doing this he proposes cutting small business taxes. So how is he going to pay for this? It doesn't say on his website.

And Bush is paying for his fvcked up mess how? Borrowing 1,800,000,000 per day!

Well considering the defecit this year was below the forcasted estimates early this year 422b, and the forcasted defecit next year is even lower, hes paying it off!

The figures were similar to the budget office's last report as the added costs for the newly passed Medicare expansion were offset by higher revenue generated by the improving economy. In August, lawmakers' nonpartisan fiscal analyst envisioned shortfalls of $480 billion for this year and $341 billion for 2005.

Paying it off? He added 422,000,000,000 to the OVERALL deficit this year...and he will be adding over 300,000,000,000 to the OVERALL deficit next year.

This is paying it off?

 

[christoph83]

Originally posted by: Engineer

Originally posted by: christoph83

Originally posted by: Engineer

Originally posted by: christoph83


Even so this costs money. Rolling back the tax cuts on the rich won't help. The rich account for less than 20%. While doing this he proposes cutting small business taxes. So how is he going to pay for this? It doesn't say on his website.

And Bush is paying for his fvcked up mess how? Borrowing 1,800,000,000 per day!

Well considering the defecit this year was below the forcasted estimates early this year 422b, and the forcasted defecit next year is even lower, hes paying it off!

The figures were similar to the budget office's last report as the added costs for the newly passed Medicare expansion were offset by higher revenue generated by the improving economy. In August, lawmakers' nonpartisan fiscal analyst envisioned shortfalls of $480 billion for this year and $341 billion for 2005.

Paying it off? He added 422,000,000,000 to the OVERALL deficit this year...and he will be adding over 300,000,000,000 to the OVERALL deficit next year.

This is paying it off?

Well in theory, if the deficit is getting lower and lower, then spending is less and revenue is more. Simple Math. If this were to continue the deficit would be payed off over time. Paying it off now was a poor choice of words on my part. But the defecit getting lower is a sign things are working. Kerry's website shows no answer how hes going to reduce the deficit. If you notice most of his suggestions are to spend more money. Whats even more interesting is how Bush is doing this without raising taxes. Kerry's proposal is to raise taxes on the rich which equates to 20% of the total income. And at the same time give tax cuts to small businesses. Tackle this with all the other things on his website he wants to do, which most require spending money. I don't know how hes going to reduce the defecit. Atleast with Bush you see signs of the defecity being reduced already.

One thing if I were democrat is not exactly push Kerry, but push for a democratic controlled house and senate. Because even if Kerry gets voted in, hes going to have a hell of time getting stuff passed, especially requesting tax raising or spending.

 

[conjur]

Originally posted by: christoph83

I'm not going to hold your hand.

Yes but your holding everyone elses hand through Bush bashing. Your really coming off as a nice guy.
/sarcasm off

I see...playing off your laziness by attacking me.

Gotcha.

 

[conjur]

The Russians took 'em!!

:laugh:

Wow...can they get any more desperate???

in a further development, John Shaw, a deputy under-secretary of defence, suggested that ?Russian units? had transported the explosives out of the country.

 

[conjur]

Originally posted by: conjur
The Russians took 'em!!

:laugh:

Wow...can they get any more desperate???

in a further development, John Shaw, a deputy under-secretary of defence, suggested that ?Russian units? had transported the explosives out of the country.

OMG! It gets better!!


Bill Gertz "breaks" this news in the Moonie Times:
http://www.washingtontimes.com...41027-101153-4822r.htm



LMAO!

 

[TastesLikeChicken]

An interesting insight to a seldom discussed subject:

http://www.mountvernonnews.com/local/092804/iraq.html

The Iraq War:
Another view Published: Tuesday, September 28, 2004 08:03 AM

The international and national media keep everyone informed with up-to-the-minute news of all the attacks, bombings, kidnappings, beheadings, and other horrors of combat in Iraq and in Afghanistan.

However, there are other facets of the current efforts to help the people of Iraq and Afghanistan which do not get the coverage they deserve. That is the purpose of this periodic column, in which information from other sources will be presented.

Today?s column is based on a July 28 U.S. Marines Corps 1st Force Service Support Group story by Lance Cpl. Samuel Bard Valliere, based at Camp Taqaddum, Iraq.

While most other missions to make Iraq a safer place have fallen into the lap of the country?s new interim government, one mission vital to returning stability to the country will remain a U.S. military mission for some time.

Military and civilian explosive experts, with the assistance of some Iraqi soldiers and workers, are destroying many of Saddam Hussein?s munitions stockpiles in an effort to make deployed troops and the country?s people safer from insurgent attacks.

The ammunition is strewn all over Iraq, and provides insurgents with easily accessible free material to make bombs ? bombs which are used to kill and injure service members and Iraqis in anattempt to damage the credibility of Iraq?s new government and weaken those forces here that support it.

The 1st Force Service Support Group, aided largely by the Army?s 120th Engineer Battalion and civilian contractors, is leading the mission for the I Marine Expeditionary Force in western Iraq.

?Approximately 100,000 of the estimated 600,000 tons of explosives in the country are located in the Al Anbar Province, I MEF?s area of responsibility,? said Army Capt. Elmer Bruner Jr., the officer in charge of the operation for the battalion.

The military has categorized the explosives into two categories: Captured Enemy Ammunition, which refers to weapons amassed by Saddam Hussein?s regime that have since been seized by coalition troops; and Unexploded Ordnance (UXO), which includes ordnance that was scattered randomly across the countryside after bombings, artillery misfires, and failed demolition attempts.

?Of the 103 known sites in Al Anbar thought to contain both CEA and UXO, military assessment teams have visited 64 and declared 35 clear of both classifications of ammo,? said Maj. David C. Morris, 1st FSSG?s engineering officer. ?The remaining 29 have UXO, six of those also contain CEA. The 1st FSSG has been working to assess the known sites to get some total numbers on what we are dealing with, before coming up with a plan for each individual site.?

Much of the CEA is decades old, with many of the bullets and bombs so far out-of-date that the weapons that fired them became obsolete years ago.

?For example, Hussein squandered money on a multitude of missiles from countries as varied as South Africa, Russia, and the U.S. ? but he never had the necessary weapons to launch them,? said Army Lt. Col. David Bornblaser, who is in charge of all captured enemy ammunition projects in Iraq.

?More than 12,000 tons of CEA have been destroyed since the I MEF took the reigns of the province from the Army?s 82nd Airborne Division in March,? said Morris. ?Through constant efforts to detonate approximately 100 tons every day, three sites have been deemed clear. What remains is expected to be destroyed by the end of September.?

However, clearing the unexploded ordnance is not so cut-and-dry, according to Bruner. It is randomly spread all over the country and there is no way to tell where it all can be found or exactly how much there is.

?UXO is still out there,? said Morris. ?It?s going to be a problem for a long time.?

?When the explosives are found, they are either blown-up in place or moved to a secure ammunition depot where they are detonated,? said Lt. Col. Bill Bartheld, commander, 120th Engineer Battalion, an Army National Guard unit from Okmulgee, Okla. ?The guarded facility is necessary to keep scalawags at bay.?

Contracted civilians and military explosive engineers destroy the munitions. The larger sites are worked for months, with the workers slowly chipping away at the tonnage every day.

On several sites, though, Iraqis are employed to move and stack the explosives. One even has the Iraqi Civil Defense Corps guarding the cache and prepping the detonations.

On several occasions, troops have caught Iraqis trying to loot some of the caches. Most often the scavengers are merely hunting for brass to sell, but insurgents also salvage explosives in order to craft bombs to kill other Iraqis and Americans.

Roadside bombs, aka Improvised Explosive Devices or IEDs, have claimed the lives of numerous service members and Iraqis, and continue to be one of the insurgents? most widely used weapons.

The huge amount of munitions expected to be found and destroyed is a little daunting to those working the project. Nevertheless, while each detonation may be small when looking at total numbers, they make an impact when it comes to taking away numerous car bombs and booby traps.

Despite its magnitude, the mission is worth the effort. Every artillery shell, every mine, every mortar round, and every grenade eliminated symbolizes one life saved.

?Although bombs are also killing Iraqis, the interim government doesn?t have the assets to meet the crisis head-on like the U.S. troops do,? said Morris. ?Besides, the new Iraqi leaders simply have too many other security concerns to deal with before they can address this problem, and American troops are getting injured on the road often.?

?We?ve got a legitimate interest in cleaning this up,? said Morris. ?It needs to be done.?

You may also want to google "captured enemy ammunition project iraq" or "cea project iraq" for more information.

 

[christoph83]

Originally posted by: conjur

Originally posted by: christoph83

I'm not going to hold your hand.

Yes but your holding everyone elses hand through Bush bashing. Your really coming off as a nice guy.
/sarcasm off

I see...playing off your laziness by attacking me.

Gotcha.

Your the ony being lazy, first you attack me by telling me to get a clue and tell me I'm wrong, then tell me to go search to back up your claim. And you won't even tell me why my posting was wrong to give me any kind of hint what I'm looking for.

You know these aren't even attacks. Were talking about topics here, and your coming off as being a very rude person. This is a place to discuss politics. Every post you create is a negative towards bush, I rarely even hear you talk about Kerry. You attack Bush constantly yet get flustered when someone says your not acting like a nice person. I'm trying to find out why you disagree with the post but you dangle me by a string and sarcastically insult me as you go. Thank you for being so civil.

From reading on your yagt boards you seemed like a nice guy. Really nice infact. But here you try and do anything to make yourself look better than someone and draw as much attention to yourself so you can spew more Bush hatred. Your opinion is just as valid as anybody elses, but your little exaggerations everywhere and rudeness shows your unhealthy emotional investment in all of this. I won't be suprised when Kerry wins and he makes mistakes like any president you will find ways to blame it on Bush.

 

[conjur]

4 Iraqis Tell of Looting at Munitions Site in '03
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10...f=login&oref=login

BAGHDAD, Iraq, Oct. 27 - Looters stormed the weapons site at Al Qaqaa in the days after American troops swept through the area in early April 2003 on their way to Baghdad, gutting office buildings, carrying off munitions and even dismantling heavy machinery, three Iraqi witnesses and a regional security chief said Wednesday.

The Iraqis described an orgy of theft so extensive that enterprising residents rented their trucks to looters. But some looting was clearly indiscriminate, with people grabbing anything they could find and later heaving unwanted items off the trucks.

Two witnesses were employees of Al Qaqaa - one a chemical engineer and the other a mechanic - and the third was a former employee, a chemist, who had come back to retrieve his records, determined to keep them out of American hands. The mechanic, Ahmed Saleh Mezher, said employees asked the Americans to protect the site but were told this was not the soldiers' responsibility.

The accounts do not directly address the question of when 380 tons of powerful conventional explosives vanished from the site sometime after early March, the last time international inspectors checked the seals on the bunkers where the material was stored. It is possible that Iraqi forces removed some explosives before the invasion.

But the accounts make clear that what set off much if not all of the looting was the arrival and swift departure of American troops, who did not secure the site after inducing the Iraqi forces to abandon it.

"The looting started after the collapse of the regime," said Wathiq al-Dulaimi, a regional security chief, who was based nearby in Latifiya. But once it had begun, he said, the booty streamed toward Baghdad.

Earlier this month, on Oct. 10, the directorate of national monitoring at the Ministry of Science and Technology notified the International Atomic Energy Agency that the explosives, which are used in demolition and missiles and are the raw material for plastic explosives, were missing. The agency has monitored the explosives because they can also be used as the initiator of an atomic bomb.

Agency officials examined the explosives in January 2003 and noted in early March that their seals were still in place. On April 3, the Third Infantry Division arrived with the first American troops.

Chris Anderson, a photographer for U.S. News and World Report who was with the division's Second Brigade, recalled that the area was jammed with American armor on April 3 and 4, which he believed made the removal of the explosives unlikely. "It would be quite improbable for this amount of weapons to be looted at that time because of the traffic jam of armor," he said.

The brigade blew up numerous caches of arms throughout the area, he said. Mr. Anderson said he did not enter the munitions compound.

The Second Brigade of the 101st Airborne Division arrived outside the site on April 10, under the command of Col. Joseph Anderson. The brigade had been ordered to move quickly to Baghdad because of civil disorder there after Mr. Hussein's government fell on April 9.

They gathered at Al Qaqaa, about 30 miles south, simply as a matter of convenience, Colonel Anderson said in an interview this week. He said that when he arrived at the site - unaware of its significance - he saw no signs of looting, but was not paying close attention.

Because he thought the brigade would be moving on to Baghdad within hours, Al Qaqaa was of no importance to his mission, he said, and he was unaware of the explosives that international inspectors said were hidden inside.

Pentagon officials said Wednesday that analysts were examining surveillance photographs of the munitions site. But they expressed doubts that the photographs, which showed vehicles at the location on several occasions early in the conflict, before American troops moved through the area, would be able to indicate conclusively when the explosives were removed.

Col. David Perkins, who commanded the Second Brigade of the Third Infantry Division, called it "very highly improbable" that 380 tons of explosives could have been trucked out of Al Qaqaa in the weeks after American troops arrived.

Moving that much material, said Colonel Perkins, who spoke Wednesday to news agencies and cable television, "would have required dozens of heavy trucks and equipment moving along the same roadways as U.S. combat divisions occupied continually for weeks."

He conceded that some looting of the site had taken place. But a chemical engineer who worked at Al Qaqaa and identified himself only as Khalid said that once troops left the base itself, people streamed in to steal computers and anything else of value from the offices. They also took munitions like artillery shells, he said.

Mr. Mezher, the mechanic, said it took the looters about two weeks to disassemble heavy machinery at the site and carry that off after the smaller items were gone.


James Glanz reported from Baghdad for this article and Jim Dwyer from New York. Ali Adeeb contributed reporting from Baghdad, and Khalid W. Hussein and Zainab Obeid fromAl Qaqaa.

 

[ScoobMaster]

OK Conjur,

but your report states that the IAEA engineers "checked the seals".

The accounts do not directly address the question of when 380 tons of powerful conventional explosives vanished from the site sometime after early March, the last time international inspectors checked the seals on the bunkers where the material was stored. It is possible that Iraqi forces removed some explosives before the invasion.

Did they just check those seals or actually peek in the building????

If only the latter, those bunkers may well have been already emptied because by an admission in one of their own documents, the IAEA seals could have easily been bypassed!

See my thread here

 

[BBond]

Originally posted by: christoph83

Originally posted by: conjur

Originally posted by: christoph83

I'm not going to hold your hand.

Yes but your holding everyone elses hand through Bush bashing. Your really coming off as a nice guy.
/sarcasm off

I see...playing off your laziness by attacking me.

Gotcha.

Your the ony being lazy, first you attack me by telling me to get a clue and tell me I'm wrong, then tell me to go search to back up your claim. And you won't even tell me why my posting was wrong to give me any kind of hint what I'm looking for.

You know these aren't even attacks. Were talking about topics here, and your coming off as being a very rude person. This is a place to discuss politics. Every post you create is a negative towards bush, I rarely even hear you talk about Kerry. You attack Bush constantly yet get flustered when someone says your not acting like a nice person. I'm trying to find out why you disagree with the post but you dangle me by a string and sarcastically insult me as you go. Thank you for being so civil.

From reading on your yagt boards you seemed like a nice guy. Really nice infact. But here you try and do anything to make yourself look better than someone and draw as much attention to yourself so you can spew more Bush hatred. Your opinion is just as valid as anybody elses, but your little exaggerations everywhere and rudeness shows your unhealthy emotional investment in all of this. I won't be suprised when Kerry wins and he makes mistakes like any president you will find ways to blame it on Bush.

Listen to this guy. If you tell the truth about Bush you're "negative towards Bush" or you "spew more Bush hatred".

IF THE FACTS CONDEMN BUSH THEN LET HIM BE CONDEMNED. WE AREN'T THE REPUBLICAN OWNED AND OPERATED NEWS MEDIA. WE AREN'T RESTRICTED TO BUSHWORLD HAPPY TALK.

 

[Abraxas]

"BAGHDAD, Iraq, Oct. 27 - Looters stormed the weapons site at Al Qaqaa in the days after American troops swept through the area in early April 2003 on their way to Baghdad, gutting office buildings, carrying off munitions and even dismantling heavy machinery, three Iraqi witnesses and a regional security chief said Wednesday."

I think that clears up when they were probably taken.

 

[cwjerome]

Conjur please... that is hearsay, and it's from the NYT for god's sake.

I really think you people are making a huge mistake. You simply DO NOT know if those advanced explosives were there when the 3rd ID came through. If you really want to disregard all contrary evidence, and focus on all anti-Bush speculation, then it's extremely obvious to anyone that you are just using this for political gain. Pathetic. Look at the way you blame Bush, and it's you people always acting on incomplete info and making guesses. Give it a rest.

Besides, you should spend more of your speculative energies into looking at how the IAEA hates us (and we hate them), how the head of that org has behaved in the past -especially regarding letters to the Security Council- and how a biased UN-affiliated official with an agenda is using the press to manipulate the US election. Now that's a lot more disturning than the POSSIBILITY that a drop of explosives in a sea of armaments got lost during a freakin war.

If you can't even acknowledge this could be a hit job, it's a clear indication that you only see what you want to see.

 

[christoph83]

Originally posted by: BBond

Originally posted by: christoph83

Originally posted by: conjur

Originally posted by: christoph83

I'm not going to hold your hand.

Yes but your holding everyone elses hand through Bush bashing. Your really coming off as a nice guy.
/sarcasm off

I see...playing off your laziness by attacking me.

Gotcha.

Your the ony being lazy, first you attack me by telling me to get a clue and tell me I'm wrong, then tell me to go search to back up your claim. And you won't even tell me why my posting was wrong to give me any kind of hint what I'm looking for.

You know these aren't even attacks. Were talking about topics here, and your coming off as being a very rude person. This is a place to discuss politics. Every post you create is a negative towards bush, I rarely even hear you talk about Kerry. You attack Bush constantly yet get flustered when someone says your not acting like a nice person. I'm trying to find out why you disagree with the post but you dangle me by a string and sarcastically insult me as you go. Thank you for being so civil.

From reading on your yagt boards you seemed like a nice guy. Really nice infact. But here you try and do anything to make yourself look better than someone and draw as much attention to yourself so you can spew more Bush hatred. Your opinion is just as valid as anybody elses, but your little exaggerations everywhere and rudeness shows your unhealthy emotional investment in all of this. I won't be suprised when Kerry wins and he makes mistakes like any president you will find ways to blame it on Bush.

Listen to this guy. If you tell the truth about Bush you're "negative towards Bush" or you "spew more Bush hatred".

IF THE FACTS CONDEMN BUSH THEN LET HIM BE CONDEMNED. WE AREN'T THE REPUBLICAN OWNED AND OPERATED NEWS MEDIA. WE AREN'T RESTRICTED TO BUSHWORLD HAPPY TALK.

This was not directed at you, don't get so defensive, and I never said anywhere that you couldn't bash Bush.

 

[conjur]

Right, the NY Times. I suppose if it was from the Moonie Times or FAUX News you'd be committing suicide because then it must surely be true!

 

[christoph83]

Originally posted by: cwjerome
Conjur please... that is hearsay, and it's from the NYT for god's sake.

I really think you people are making a huge mistake. You simply DO NOT know if those advanced explosives were there when the 3rd ID came through. If you really want to disregard all contrary evidence, and focus on all anti-Bush speculation, then it's extremely obvious to anyone that you are just using this for political gain. Pathetic. Look at the way you blame Bush, and it's you people always acting on incomplete info and making guesses. Give it a rest.

Besides, you should spend more of your speculative energies into looking at how the IAEA hates us (and we hate them), how the head of that org has behaved in the past -especially regarding letters to the Security Council- and how a biased UN-affiliated official with an agenda is using the press to manipulate the US election. Now that's a lot more disturning than the POSSIBILITY that a drop of explosives in a sea of armaments got lost during a freakin war.

If you can't even acknowledge this could be a hit job, it's a clear indication that you only see what you want to see.

:thumbsup: Not only that, this was bound to happen. There were so many compounds over Iraq that had possible weapons, while baghdad was still not under control. Not having enough troops is a valid opinion. But I think these guys jobs were to first take over baghdad together and regain controll of Iraq.

The troops made a limited search before moving on, finding bombs and other munitions but no chemical weapons, Wellman said. link

Splitting up troops all over Iraq to check all of these compounds could have left them up for ambush. Even with more troops it's not as safe, especially when they want as many people to take over bahgdad. Not to mention even with the possibility these were lost they still have destroyed many weapons.

Ereli said coalition forces have cleared 10,033 weapons caches and destroyed 243,000 tons of munitions. Another 162,898 tons of munitions are at secure locations and awaiting destruction, he said. link

So declaring a total failure weapon wise in Iraq is absurd. Did they make some mistakes, maybe. Even then troops stopped by on April 4th made note and went for baghdad. Then after taking controll, which was 5 days later they immediatly went back to the compound to find out what was going on. So they obviously knew it was important, but gaining control of Iraq was the biggest part. Bringing in people to transfer the weapons and disarm them while they don't even have complete control of the country is just stupid.

This last article is interesting as it basically debunks this whole missing weapons story, or confuses it atleast =P .

UN weapons inspectors went repeatedly to the vast al Qa Qaa complex, most recently on March 8. But they found nothing during spot visits to some of the 1,100 buildings at the site 40 kilometres south of Baghdad.
Article is dated April 05 2003. And this coming from the LA Times. So according to U.N...there were no weapons there to begin with.

Not to mention ...

Yesterday, troops at a training facility in the western Iraqi desert came across a bottle labelled "tabun," a nerve gas and chemical weapon Iraq is banned from possessing.

Closer to Baghdad, troops at Iraq's largest military industrial complex found nerve agent antidotes, documents describing chemical warfare and a white powder that appeared to be used for explosives.

 

[cwjerome]

Something that sticks in my mind....

Those advanced explosives that supposedly went missing were banned. Saddam was not supposed to have them, yet weapons inspectors let him keep them around for years. Why?

Speculation: More "you scratch my back, I'll scratch yours" / oil-for-food corruption?

 

[CADsortaGUY]

Originally posted by: cwjerome
Something that sticks in my mind....

Those advanced explosives that supposedly went missing were banned. Saddam was not supposed to have them, yet weapons inspectors let him keep them around for years. Why?

Speculation: More "you scratch my back, I'll scratch yours" / oil-for-food corruption?

I believe that I read somewhere that Duelfer had told Hans Blix to remove them from the country back in '95 - but obviously Blix didn't agree.

Yep - here is the link-Linky for the link hounds

CsG

 

[ScoobMaster]

To answer my own question posed to conjur about whether the March IAEA inspection actualy made a visual confirmation of the material or not (because the seals were able to be easily bypassed) I found this:
According to a Timeline in
This MNSBC article

2003
January
IAEA inspectors view the explosives at Al-Qaqaa for the last time. The inspectors take an inventory and again place storage bunkers at Al-Qaqaa under agency seal.

February
IAEA chief Mohamed ElBaradei tells the United Nations that Iraq has declared that ?HMX previously under IAEA seal had been transferred for use in the production of industrial explosives.? This apparently didn?t include the HMX that remained under seal at Al-Qaqaa.

March 9-15
Nuclear agency inspectors visit Al-Qaqaa for the last time but apparently don?t examine the explosives because the seals aren?t broken. The inspectors then pull out of the country

The last time the explosives were VISIBLY accounted for was in January 2003. When the IAEA inspectors went in in March, they ONLY CHECKED IF THE SEALS WERE NOT BROKEN. It is possible that the material was removed anytime after the January inspection.

 

[conjur]

A nice summary of the news articles:

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/

 

[cquark]

All the desperate grabbing at possible excuses by White House defenders reminds me of those desperate days when Dan Rather was seeking any support, however unbelievable, of his story after the fact. It now looks like they've given up on misreading the April 10th NBC visit as evidence that nothing was there and have moved on to the April 3rd visit from the 3rd ID, arguing that nothing was there since the 3rd ID didn't find anything.

Of course, they omit the fact that it was a huge facility and the 3rd ID wasn't there to search the entire facility, though of course, the 3rd ID did find thousands of vials of white powder that US officials said the same day were believed to be explosives.

And now Drudge is saying that the Russians did it. They're clearly desperate and grasping at straws.

 

[conjur]

EXCLUSIVE:
5 EYEWITNESS NEWS video may be linked to missing explosives in Iraq
http://www.kstp.com/article/stories/S3723.html?cat=1

5 EYEWITNESS NEWS crew in Iraq shortly after the fall of Saddam Hussein was in the area where tons of explosives disappeared, and may have videotaped some of those weapons.

The missing explosives are now an issue in the presidential debate. Democratic candidate John Kerry is accusing President Bush of not securing the site they allegedly disappeared from. President Bush says no one knows if the ammunition was taken before or after the fall of Baghdad on April 9, 2003 when coalition troops moved in to the area.

Using GPS technology and talking with members of the 101st Airborne Division, 5 EYEWITNESS NEWS has determined the crew embedded with the troops may have been on the southern edge of the Al Qaqaa installation, where the ammunition disappeared. The news crew was based just south of Al Qaqaa, and drove two or three miles north of there with soldiers on April 18, 2003.

During that trip, members of the 101st Airborne Division showed the 5 EYEWITNESS NEWS news crew bunker after bunker of material labelled "explosives." Usually it took just the snap of a bolt cutter to get into the bunkers and see the material identified by the 101st as detonation cords.

"We can stick it in those and make some good bombs." a soldier told our crew.

There were what appeared to be fuses for bombs. They also found bags of material men from the 101st couldn't identify, but box after box was clearly marked "explosive."

In one bunker, there were boxes marked with the name "Al Qaqaa", the munitions plant where tons of explosives allegedly went missing.

Once the doors to the bunkers were opened, they weren't secured. They were left open when the 5 EYEWITNESS NEWS crew and the military went back to their base.

"We weren't quite sure what were looking at, but we saw so much of it and it didn't appear that this was being secured in any way," said photojournalist Joe Caffrey. "It was several miles away from where military people were staying in their tents".

Officers with the 101st Airborne told 5 EYEWITNESS NEWS that the bunkers were within the U.S. military perimeter and protected. But Caffrey and former 5 EYEWITNESS NEWS Reporter Dean Staley, who spent three months together in Iraq, said Iraqis were coming and going freely.

"At one point there was a group of Iraqis driving around in a pick-up truck,"Staley said. "Three or four guys we kept an eye on, worried they might come near us."


On Wednesday, 5 EYEWITNESS NEWS e-mailed still images of the footage taken at the site to experts in Washington to see if the items captured on tape are the same kind of high explosives that went missing in Al Qaqaa. Those experts could not make that determination.

The footage is now in the hands of security experts to see if it is indeed the explosives in question.

Video
http://kstp.dayport.com/viewer...page.php?Art_ID=159660

 

[EXman]

Originally posted by: conjur
EXCLUSIVE:
5 EYEWITNESS NEWS video may be linked to missing explosives in Iraq
http://www.kstp.com/article/stories/S3723.html?cat=1

5 EYEWITNESS NEWS crew in Iraq shortly after the fall of Saddam Hussein was in the area where tons of explosives disappeared, and may have videotaped some of those weapons.

The missing explosives are now an issue in the presidential debate. Democratic candidate John Kerry is accusing President Bush of not securing the site they allegedly disappeared from. President Bush says no one knows if the ammunition was taken before or after the fall of Baghdad on April 9, 2003 when coalition troops moved in to the area.

Using GPS technology and talking with members of the 101st Airborne Division, 5 EYEWITNESS NEWS has determined the crew embedded with the troops may have been on the southern edge of the Al Qaqaa installation, where the ammunition disappeared. The news crew was based just south of Al Qaqaa, and drove two or three miles north of there with soldiers on April 18, 2003.

During that trip, members of the 101st Airborne Division showed the 5 EYEWITNESS NEWS news crew bunker after bunker of material labelled "explosives." Usually it took just the snap of a bolt cutter to get into the bunkers and see the material identified by the 101st as detonation cords.

"We can stick it in those and make some good bombs." a soldier told our crew.

There were what appeared to be fuses for bombs. They also found bags of material men from the 101st couldn't identify, but box after box was clearly marked "explosive."

In one bunker, there were boxes marked with the name "Al Qaqaa", the munitions plant where tons of explosives allegedly went missing.

Once the doors to the bunkers were opened, they weren't secured. They were left open when the 5 EYEWITNESS NEWS crew and the military went back to their base.

"We weren't quite sure what were looking at, but we saw so much of it and it didn't appear that this was being secured in any way," said photojournalist Joe Caffrey. "It was several miles away from where military people were staying in their tents".

Officers with the 101st Airborne told 5 EYEWITNESS NEWS that the bunkers were within the U.S. military perimeter and protected. But Caffrey and former 5 EYEWITNESS NEWS Reporter Dean Staley, who spent three months together in Iraq, said Iraqis were coming and going freely.

"At one point there was a group of Iraqis driving around in a pick-up truck,"Staley said. "Three or four guys we kept an eye on, worried they might come near us."


On Wednesday, 5 EYEWITNESS NEWS e-mailed still images of the footage taken at the site to experts in Washington to see if the items captured on tape are the same kind of high explosives that went missing in Al Qaqaa. Those experts could not make that determination.

The footage is now in the hands of security experts to see if it is indeed the explosives in question.

Video
http://kstp.dayport.com/viewer...page.php?Art_ID=159660

In conclusion the Anchor said "this MAY OR MAY NOT be the explosives in question."

 

[GrGr]

Iraq denies explosives disappeared before war
A top Iraqi science official says it is impossible that 350 tonnes of high explosives could have been smuggled out of a military site south of Baghdad before the regime fell last year.

The UN nuclear watchdog this week said the explosives went missing from a weapons dump some time after Saddam Hussein's regime was toppled in April 2003.

But as the issue of the missing explosives took centre stage in the US presidential campaign, some US officials have suggested they had gone before the US-led forces moved on Baghdad.

"It is impossible that these materials could have been taken from this site before the regime's fall," Mohammed al-Sharaa, who heads the Science Ministry's site monitoring department, said.

"The officials that were inside this facility (Al-Qaqaa) beforehand confirm that not even a shred of paper left it before the fall.

"I spoke to them about it and they even issued certified statements to this effect which the US-led coalition was aware of."

Mr Sharaa also warns that other nearby sites with similar materials could have also been plundered.

-- AFP

ABC Australia

 

[conjur]

More proof that U.S. troops were there in early April and explosives were still there. (Obviously, all chemical weapons claims are now moot but the other explosives were there.)

http://usembassy.state.gov/islamabad/wwwh03040505.html
U.S. FORCES FIND IRAQI CHEMICAL WARFARE TRAINING CENTER

(Central Command Report, April 4: Iraq Operational Update)

April 05, 2003


"Washington -- U.S. forces have discovered a complex that may have been used by the Iraqi regime of Saddam Hussein to develop and construct chemical weapons, and another complex that is believed to be a nuclear, biological and chemical warfare training school, a U.S. Central Command briefing officer says."

"U.S. Army Special Forces found a site in western Iraq near Mudaysis that probably was used as a nuclear, biological, and chemical (NBC) warfare training center for the Iraqi Army, Brigadier General Vincent Brooks said April 4 at the daily CENTCOM briefing at Camp As Sayliyah in Qatar. During the briefing Brooks showed an image of an array of brown-tinted bottles with yellow labels that are similar to the containers in which chemicals are customarily stored, and one was clearly marked "Tabun," a known chemical warfare agent."

"Some of these were taken away and testing is ongoing. But we think that there may have been an explanation for this as an NBC training school, not an operational facility," Brooks said. "We believe that was the only sample. That's why we believe it was a training site."

"U.S. troops also found thousands of boxes of an unspecified white powder substance, small vials of unidentified liquids, atropine nerve agent antidote autoinjectors, and an array of Arabic documents detailing how to engage in chemical warfare at the Latifiyah industrial complex 25 miles (40 kilometers) southwest of the Iraqi capital and east of the Euphrates River, he said. This site, part of a larger complex known as the Latifiyah Explosives and Ammunition Plant, was already identified by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) as a suspected NBC weapons site, and had been inspected a number of times."

 

[conjur]

Originally posted by: EXman
In conclusion the Anchor said "this MAY OR MAY NOT be the explosives in question."

Yeah...there were just so many explosives at that facility. But, Bush couldn't be bothered with protecting any of it. The mission was to get to Baghdad and secure the Oil Ministry and to keep looking for phantom WMDs.


BTW, notice that 1.1D designation on the containers? That means secondary explosives such as HMX and RDX.