380 tons stolen *BEFORE* troops arrived

[CaptnKirk]

Except you have no proof these explosives are in insurgent hands and being used against us.
You also have no proof the insurgents took them in the first place.
Again, nobody can seem to explain how a job that would require such a massive amount of manpower,
not to mention equipment, happened over a month's time with absolutely nobody noticing it.


Let's examine these points -

We have no 'proof' of any sort as to where they are at present.

but . . . before Iraq fell, they were in the control of the Iraqi Army, locked up and
sealed within the confines of a large and sprawling weapons manufacturing facility.

Now whoever has the 'alledged' material may be 'Abdul Iraqi' random guy on the street
offering to sell anything that he may have stolen - with no clue as to what it is,
or it could be their ex-military workers from the plant, a mix of armament experts who
know how to blend the raw components to make anything from propellants to mass
detonation IDE's that their military side counterparts know how to arm and trigger.

As to it going undetected, I doubt that. My impression is that it was ignored - since it was a
well established fact that the NBC threat was virtually non-existant, and what was known
to be on site were components of conventional weaponry, raw materials to make casings
for rocket motors that would go into missles, warheads and trigger devices for mortars,
RPG's, artillary rounds, and the like. The 'Rush to Baghdad' was the prime objective, we
had in fact bombed these facilities selectively - scattering thier contents within a debris field
that was the extent of flying parts of what was targeted, and not everything detonated.

We chose to return at our convenience and inspect hoping to infact find WMD evidence on site.

Keep in mind, that with few exceptions, the satellite photos shown have been from commercial
birds, and not from the military 'Spy' variety. There were a couple quickies released from
the Pentagon to show vehicles on the site in the region, but not anything that is near the
level of sophistication that our equipment is capable of. The 'Real-Time' tapes from the birds
are probably being reviewed frame by frame and evaluated as this plays out, but don't expect
them to say too much, as they don't want to detail to the world just how much we can do.

A satellite comes into that region every 5 minutes, and can image a 70 mile square area, right
down to objects the size of a soccer ball. It doesn't matter if it's day or night to the 'Bird' the
image is there, be it light visual, thermal, magnetic resonance, or chemical signature.
I know of no ground vehicles that can make a 35 mile run (say from the center of a frame)
and not be imaged by the next Bird on the subsequent pass 5 minutes later.
At 150 miles an hour a vehicle could travel only 30 miles in 5 minutes, and it would be hard
to run much faster than 45 MPH in a truck carrying any load of mass and consequence.

The most troubling aspect of the missing materials is that there are large amounts of known
high explosives unaccounted for - in an area know to be inhabited by unfriendly people.

 

[conjur]

Reporter saw insurgents loot Qaqaa arms depot
http://www.iht.com/bin/print_i...0/29/news/explode.html

A French journalist who visited the Qaqaa munitions depot south of Baghdad in November last year said she witnessed Islamic insurgents looting vast supplies of explosives more than six months after the demise of Saddam Hussein's regime.

The account of Sara Daniel, which will be published Wednesday in the French weekly Le Nouvel Observateur, lends further weight to allegations that American occupying forces in Iraq failed to protect hundreds of tons of munitions from extremists plotting attacks against their own troops.

Much of the controversy has centered around the disappearance of about 380 tons of the powerful HMX explosive. The material, which had been monitored by the International Atomic Energy Agency before the war and subsequently sealed in bunkers by its inspectors, was reported missing by Iraqi officials earlier this month.

Daniel, who spent nearly two hours at Qaqaa with a group that has since become known as the Islamic Army of Iraq, could not confirm seeing buildings that carried the agency's seal or explosives that were marked to be of the HMX variety. But her report is one of terrorists having easy access to a vast weapons inventory.

"I was utterly stupefied to see that a place like that was pretty much unguarded and that insurgents could help themselves for months on end," Daniel said on Friday. "We were there for a long time and no one disturbed the group while they were loading their truck."

A man who identified himself as Abu Abdallah and led the group Daniel was with, told her that his men and numerous other insurgent groups had rushed to Qaqaa after U.S.-led troops captured Baghdad on April 9 last year. The groups stole truck-loads of material from what used to be the biggest explosive factory in the Middle East in the expectation that coalition forces would move quickly to seal it off, Daniel was told.

Abu Abdullah and his men showed her the arsenal of rocket launchers, grenades and explosives hidden near their small farm houses, she said.

But much to the insurgents' surprise, Qaqaa was not sealed off by U.S. soldiers, leading many groups to stop hoarding and instead going for regular refills of explosive materials, according to Abu Abdullah.

Daniel said she saw how poorly guarded the munitions complex was. During the drive there last November, she recalled seeing few patrols and "far away" from the site. The truck was stopped only once, for about three minutes, Daniel said, by a U.S. soldier in a tank.

Daniel said those who went to Qaqaa to stock up on munitions appeared ready to use them to attack the occupying forces. On Nov. 22, a few days after her visit at Qaqaa, Abu Abdallah's group fired a surface-to-air missile at a DHL cargo-plane. The men gave her a video tape of themselves launching the attack in which she says she clearly recognized Abu Abdallah.

Daniel said she decided to write about her experience at Qaqaa after the disappearance of the HMX explosive became a key dispute in the U.S. presidential election campaign.

AND



UN inspectors say entry denied
Allegations made on Iraq arms sites
http://www.boston.com/news/wor...tors_say_entry_denied/

WASHINGTON -- United Nations weapons inspectors pressed for permission to return to Iraq to help monitor weapons sites on the heels of the US-led invasion but were denied entry by the US-led coalition, according to a former inspector, UN officials, and a letter from the International Atomic Energy Agency obtained by the Globe.

ADVERTISEMENT
The sites included Al Qaqaa, a sprawling facility about 30 miles south of Baghdad. At least 377 tons of powerful explosives, including the particularly dangerous substance known as HMX, have vanished from that location.

"They wanted to go. They were begging to go," said David Albright, a former weapons inspector who now heads the Institute for Science and International Security and who lobbied in vain for the UN agency in April 2003 to be allowed to resume work in Iraq. "They would have gone to Al Qaqaa and said, 'Here's the HMX. Burn it.' They would have been a driver of efforts to find these things. . . . They would have provided a tremendous service."

Yesterday, a US official said the inspectors' request to return to Iraq was denied because of "logistics and timing" and because the United States and Britain took on the inspections-related work.

"The US and the UK were taking the lead in searching for the arms, and there was really no reason" to allow the inspectors back, said Joe Merante, spokesman for the US mission to the UN.

Still, even now, the US military is unsure when the bunkers containing HMX at Al Qaqaa were searched after the war and how the munitions disappeared.

The missing explosives that had been monitored by the UN agency before the war have become a heated campaign issue in the final days before the election, as candidates trade accusations about under whose watch the munitions vanished.

Democratic challenger John F. Kerry has accused the Bush administration of allowing the explosives to fall into the hands of insurgents, while the White House and Pentagon suggest that the explosives may have been destroyed by US soldiers or taken by former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein shortly before the war.

The controversy of the Al Qaqaa munitions erupted months after another team of UN weapons inspectors reported evidence of widespread looting at other weapons sites. The UN Monitoring and Verification Commission, a group that monitors non-nuclear weapons activity in Iraq from its New York headquarters, found 20 missile engines in a scrap yard in Jordan this summer and 22 other missile engines in the Netherlands, the group reported in August.

Before the war, inspectors had asked for more time to search for banned weapons, while President Bush and other high-level US officials said UN inspectors and sanctions were not working and swift action had to be taken. The inspectors left Iraq in March 2003, on the eve of the invasion, and asked to return in April and May, as the war unfolded and news reports detailed massive looting of radioactive material at Al Tuwaitha. Continued...

 

[Bowfinger]

Originally posted by: TastesLikeChicken

Originally posted by: Bowfinger

Originally posted by: TastesLikeChicken

Originally posted by: Bowfinger
I see you (and others) continue to parrot the absurd fiction that these explosives are no different from and no more signigicant than the mortars and grenades and other garden variety munitions in that mythical "400,000 tons" we captured. That's a total crock, of course, but keep spinning if it soothes your denial pains.

I see you are others are clinging to the fiction that these explosives are in the hands of insurgents and are being used when mortars, RPGs, and old artillery shells are the real problem.

You don't know where they are. You have no clue, and neither does George. That's the point. How many innocent lives are you willing to sacrifice for your partisan denial?

That's it. Maintain the illusion that these explosives are being used to kill people.

Keep dodging and diverting. That's all you have. You don't know where the explosives are. You have no clue, and neither does George. That's the point. How many innocent lives are you willing to sacrifice for your partisan denial?

Besides that, I am not pro-Bush, so your comment about "partisan denial" is meaningless. If anything, it's your partisanship showing here, not mine.

Riiight. :roll:

 

[Ldir]

Originally posted by: TastesLikeChicken

Originally posted by: fjord
Well this is the point. No accountability.

Very simply the Bush admin is unable and incapable of accounting for the stuff in that bunker. And quite possibly other bunkers as well.

That is incompetence--criminal incompetence.

The UN isn't capable of properly accounting for what was i those bunkers, as the reports have shown. How many tons were actually in there before the US came to twon? Well...errr...apparently nobody even knows for sure.

This story is nothing more than a smear attempt using this smelly red herring to malign the admin. It's weakly executed with little in the way of actual facts. When the RBH'rs actually come up with anything else besides superficial and anecdotal evidence, it might have some value. As it stands right now, it comes off as little more than el Blowhardy trying to influence the election and save his ass at the UN.

The UN did a getter job than Dubya until he kicked them out. This administration maligns intself through its incompetence. This was one of the most dangerous sites in Iraq. They did not bother to secure it. Dub said we invaded Iraq to keep WMD's away from terrorists. He secured the oil. He did not secure sites that might hold WMD's. Dub lied.


--------------------
Bush Apologists of America (BAA): pulling the wool over America's eyes since 1980

 

[TastesLikeChicken]

Originally posted by: conjur
Reporter saw insurgents loot Qaqaa arms depot
http://www.iht.com/bin/print_i...0/29/news/explode.html

A French journalist who visited the Qaqaa munitions depot south of Baghdad in November last year said she witnessed Islamic insurgents looting vast supplies of explosives more than six months after the demise of Saddam Hussein's regime.

The account of Sara Daniel, which will be published Wednesday in the French weekly Le Nouvel Observateur, lends further weight to allegations that American occupying forces in Iraq failed to protect hundreds of tons of munitions from extremists plotting attacks against their own troops.

Much of the controversy has centered around the disappearance of about 380 tons of the powerful HMX explosive. The material, which had been monitored by the International Atomic Energy Agency before the war and subsequently sealed in bunkers by its inspectors, was reported missing by Iraqi officials earlier this month.

Daniel, who spent nearly two hours at Qaqaa with a group that has since become known as the Islamic Army of Iraq, could not confirm seeing buildings that carried the agency's seal or explosives that were marked to be of the HMX variety. But her report is one of terrorists having easy access to a vast weapons inventory.

"I was utterly stupefied to see that a place like that was pretty much unguarded and that insurgents could help themselves for months on end," Daniel said on Friday. "We were there for a long time and no one disturbed the group while they were loading their truck."

A man who identified himself as Abu Abdallah and led the group Daniel was with, told her that his men and numerous other insurgent groups had rushed to Qaqaa after U.S.-led troops captured Baghdad on April 9 last year. The groups stole truck-loads of material from what used to be the biggest explosive factory in the Middle East in the expectation that coalition forces would move quickly to seal it off, Daniel was told.

Abu Abdullah and his men showed her the arsenal of rocket launchers, grenades and explosives hidden near their small farm houses, she said.

But much to the insurgents' surprise, Qaqaa was not sealed off by U.S. soldiers, leading many groups to stop hoarding and instead going for regular refills of explosive materials, according to Abu Abdullah.

Daniel said she saw how poorly guarded the munitions complex was. During the drive there last November, she recalled seeing few patrols and "far away" from the site. The truck was stopped only once, for about three minutes, Daniel said, by a U.S. soldier in a tank.

Daniel said those who went to Qaqaa to stock up on munitions appeared ready to use them to attack the occupying forces. On Nov. 22, a few days after her visit at Qaqaa, Abu Abdallah's group fired a surface-to-air missile at a DHL cargo-plane. The men gave her a video tape of themselves launching the attack in which she says she clearly recognized Abu Abdallah.

Daniel said she decided to write about her experience at Qaqaa after the disappearance of the HMX explosive became a key dispute in the U.S. presidential election campaign.

Wait just a second here. How could Iraqis steal something that was supposedly gone in the previous May? Does something not seem odd to you about that?

It just goes to further demonstrate that nobody realy knows what's going on in this case and neither side can seem to get their story straight.

UN inspectors say entry denied
Allegations made on Iraq arms sites
http://www.boston.com/news/wor...tors_say_entry_denied/

WASHINGTON -- United Nations weapons inspectors pressed for permission to return to Iraq to help monitor weapons sites on the heels of the US-led invasion but were denied entry by the US-led coalition, according to a former inspector, UN officials, and a letter from the International Atomic Energy Agency obtained by the Globe.

ADVERTISEMENT
The sites included Al Qaqaa, a sprawling facility about 30 miles south of Baghdad. At least 377 tons of powerful explosives, including the particularly dangerous substance known as HMX, have vanished from that location.

"They wanted to go. They were begging to go," said David Albright, a former weapons inspector who now heads the Institute for Science and International Security and who lobbied in vain for the UN agency in April 2003 to be allowed to resume work in Iraq. "They would have gone to Al Qaqaa and said, 'Here's the HMX. Burn it.' They would have been a driver of efforts to find these things. . . . They would have provided a tremendous service."

Sounds very noble...now. They had it for years and never burned it, but now they would? And the UN inspectors were begging to go back in when, at the time, the UN refused to send anyone into Iraq due to the instability of the situation? I call BS on this claim. It's little more than puffery after the fact.

The fact also remains that nobody has proof the explosives are in insurgent hands. It has no more validity then claiming the Russians took it and it's just about as likely considering the logistics of moving that amount of material.

 

[cquark]

And the UN inspectors were begging to go back in when, at the time, the UN refused to send anyone into Iraq due to the instability of the situation? I call BS on this claim.

Why is it hard to believe? I find it easy to believe that the UN weapons inspectors wanted to go back because some UN inspectors did return to Iraq after the invasion to search for weapons. In fact, one of them, David Kay, lead the Iraq Survey Group's post-invasion weapons inspection for the coalition.

 

[TastesLikeChicken]

Originally posted by: cquark

And the UN inspectors were begging to go back in when, at the time, the UN refused to send anyone into Iraq due to the instability of the situation? I call BS on this claim.

Why is it hard to believe? I find it easy to believe that the UN weapons inspectors wanted to go back because some UN inspectors did return to Iraq after the invasion to search for weapons. In fact, one of them, David Kay, lead the Iraq Survey Group's post-invasion weapons inspection for the coalition.

The David Kay that used these comments as a reason to return?

http://www.msnbc.com/news/967844.asp?0cv=CB10

In a recent report, David Kay, head of the U.S.-led team which has been searching for evidence of Saddam?s weapons in postwar Iraq, said he had found no stocks of such arms. But he said there was ?evidence of Saddam?s continued ambition to acquire nuclear weapons? and other weapons of mass destruction.
?The testimony we have obtained from Iraqi scientists and senior government officials should clear up any doubts about whether Saddam still wanted to obtain nuclear weapons,? Kay said of the interim report his team supplied to the U.S. Congress.
?They (said) Saddam Hussein remained firmly committed to acquiring nuclear weapons,? Kay added.

Doesn't he now insist there was no WMD reason to invade Iraq in the first place, even though he made this statement months later?

 

[Bowfinger]

Originally posted by: TastesLikeChicken

Originally posted by: cquark

And the UN inspectors were begging to go back in when, at the time, the UN refused to send anyone into Iraq due to the instability of the situation? I call BS on this claim.

Why is it hard to believe? I find it easy to believe that the UN weapons inspectors wanted to go back because some UN inspectors did return to Iraq after the invasion to search for weapons. In fact, one of them, David Kay, lead the Iraq Survey Group's post-invasion weapons inspection for the coalition.

The David Kay that used these comments as a reason to return?

http://www.msnbc.com/news/967844.asp?0cv=CB10

In a recent report, David Kay, head of the U.S.-led team which has been searching for evidence of Saddam?s weapons in postwar Iraq, said he had found no stocks of such arms. But he said there was ?evidence of Saddam?s continued ambition to acquire nuclear weapons? and other weapons of mass destruction.
?The testimony we have obtained from Iraqi scientists and senior government officials should clear up any doubts about whether Saddam still wanted to obtain nuclear weapons,? Kay said of the interim report his team supplied to the U.S. Congress.
?They (said) Saddam Hussein remained firmly committed to acquiring nuclear weapons,? Kay added.

Doesn't he now insist there was no WMD reason to invade Iraq in the first place, even though he made this statement months later?

What part is confusing you? Kay clearly said Iraq didn't have WMDs, but Iraq still wanted WMDs. Give me a 'D'. Give me a 'U'. Give me an 'H'. What's that spell?

Duh!

 

[TastesLikeChicken]

Originally posted by: Bowfinger

Originally posted by: TastesLikeChicken

Originally posted by: cquark

And the UN inspectors were begging to go back in when, at the time, the UN refused to send anyone into Iraq due to the instability of the situation? I call BS on this claim.

Why is it hard to believe? I find it easy to believe that the UN weapons inspectors wanted to go back because some UN inspectors did return to Iraq after the invasion to search for weapons. In fact, one of them, David Kay, lead the Iraq Survey Group's post-invasion weapons inspection for the coalition.

The David Kay that used these comments as a reason to return?

http://www.msnbc.com/news/967844.asp?0cv=CB10

In a recent report, David Kay, head of the U.S.-led team which has been searching for evidence of Saddam?s weapons in postwar Iraq, said he had found no stocks of such arms. But he said there was ?evidence of Saddam?s continued ambition to acquire nuclear weapons? and other weapons of mass destruction.
?The testimony we have obtained from Iraqi scientists and senior government officials should clear up any doubts about whether Saddam still wanted to obtain nuclear weapons,? Kay said of the interim report his team supplied to the U.S. Congress.
?They (said) Saddam Hussein remained firmly committed to acquiring nuclear weapons,? Kay added.

Doesn't he now insist there was no WMD reason to invade Iraq in the first place, even though he made this statement months later?

What part is confusing you? Kay clearly said Iraq didn't have WMDs, but Iraq still wanted WMDs. Give me a 'D'. Give me a 'U'. Give me an 'H'. What's that spell?

Duh!

Been diggin' into the dictionary lately, bubba?

The only way Kay could make his case was if Saddam actually had programs in place or was making under-the-table deals for such weapons that were exposed. Either that or the "scientists" were lying to Kay, or Kay was BSing for political reasons. If it's the case he was being truthful (and giving DK the benefit of the doubt), I would direct you to the UN sanctions on Iraq that spelled out such actions as violations. Basically, Kay was confirming, months after the invasion, that Saddam had violated sanctions concerning WMDs by making his claim.

With statements such as his, even long after the invasion, how can people claim Bush was fudging intel on Iraq before the invasion?

 

[Bowfinger]

Originally posted by: TastesLikeChicken
Been diggin' into the dictionary lately, bubba?

The only way Kay could make his case was if Saddam actually had programs in place or was making under-the-table deals for such weapons that were exposed. Either that or the "scientists" were lying to Kay, or Kay was BSing for political reasons. If it's the case he was being truthful (and giving DK the benefit of the doubt), I would direct you to the UN sanctions on Iraq that spelled out such actions as violations. Basically, Kay was confirming, months after the invasion, that Saddam had violated sanctions concerning WMDs by making his claim.

With statements such as his, even long after the invasion, how can people claim Bush was fudging intel on Iraq before the invasion?

Sorry, "Bubba", but your wishing and spinning is only making you dizzy.

Kay walked a tightrope between saying what his boss wanted him to say and avoiding out-and-out lying for him. Once Kay was out from under George's yoke, he was free to speak more honestly. Stop the presses, Hussein still wanted WMDs someday. Doh! Wanting is NOT a crime.

Sorry. You were duped by the best liars in all of politics. Better luck next lie.

 

[TastesLikeChicken]

Originally posted by: Bowfinger

Originally posted by: TastesLikeChicken
Been diggin' into the dictionary lately, bubba?

The only way Kay could make his case was if Saddam actually had programs in place or was making under-the-table deals for such weapons that were exposed. Either that or the "scientists" were lying to Kay, or Kay was BSing for political reasons. If it's the case he was being truthful (and giving DK the benefit of the doubt), I would direct you to the UN sanctions on Iraq that spelled out such actions as violations. Basically, Kay was confirming, months after the invasion, that Saddam had violated sanctions concerning WMDs by making his claim.

With statements such as his, even long after the invasion, how can people claim Bush was fudging intel on Iraq before the invasion?

Sorry, "Bubba", but your wishing and spinning is only making you dizzy.

Kay walked a tightrope between saying what his boss wanted him to say and avoiding out-and-out lying for him. Once Kay was out from under George's yoke, he was free to speak more honestly. Stop the presses, Hussein still wanted WMDs someday. Doh! Wanting is NOT a crime.

Sorry. You were duped by the best liars in all of politics. Better luck next lie.

Yah know, I DO get the impression I'm being duped.

 

[EXman]

Originally posted by: Bowfinger

Originally posted by: TastesLikeChicken
Been diggin' into the dictionary lately, bubba?

The only way Kay could make his case was if Saddam actually had programs in place or was making under-the-table deals for such weapons that were exposed. Either that or the "scientists" were lying to Kay, or Kay was BSing for political reasons. If it's the case he was being truthful (and giving DK the benefit of the doubt), I would direct you to the UN sanctions on Iraq that spelled out such actions as violations. Basically, Kay was confirming, months after the invasion, that Saddam had violated sanctions concerning WMDs by making his claim.

With statements such as his, even long after the invasion, how can people claim Bush was fudging intel on Iraq before the invasion?

Sorry, "Bubba", but your wishing and spinning is only making you dizzy.

Kay walked a tightrope between saying what his boss wanted him to say and avoiding out-and-out lying for him. Once Kay was out from under George's yoke, he was free to speak more honestly. Stop the presses, Hussein still wanted WMDs someday. Doh! Wanting is NOT a crime.

Sorry. You were duped by the best liars in all of politics. Better luck next lie.

Actually he had them already bubba This is a crime on humanity Halabja 1988 Saddam kills 70,000 in anfar offensive in 24-40 attacks :disgust:

 

[conjur]

And those WMDs were destroyed as there is now no evidence whatsoever that Saddam had WMDs and Kay has stated it appears they were all gone by 1996 or 1998.

And, btw, Saddam had US assistance and all but outright permission to use WMDs in the late 80s.

 

[Bowfinger]

Originally posted by: EXman

Originally posted by: Bowfinger

Originally posted by: TastesLikeChicken
Been diggin' into the dictionary lately, bubba?

The only way Kay could make his case was if Saddam actually had programs in place or was making under-the-table deals for such weapons that were exposed. Either that or the "scientists" were lying to Kay, or Kay was BSing for political reasons. If it's the case he was being truthful (and giving DK the benefit of the doubt), I would direct you to the UN sanctions on Iraq that spelled out such actions as violations. Basically, Kay was confirming, months after the invasion, that Saddam had violated sanctions concerning WMDs by making his claim.

With statements such as his, even long after the invasion, how can people claim Bush was fudging intel on Iraq before the invasion?

Sorry, "Bubba", but your wishing and spinning is only making you dizzy.

Kay walked a tightrope between saying what his boss wanted him to say and avoiding out-and-out lying for him. Once Kay was out from under George's yoke, he was free to speak more honestly. Stop the presses, Hussein still wanted WMDs someday. Doh! Wanting is NOT a crime.

Sorry. You were duped by the best liars in all of politics. Better luck next lie.

Actually he had them already bubba This is a crime on humanity Halabja 1988 Saddam kills 70,000 in anfar offensive in 24-40 attacks :disgust:

Yes dear. We're talking 2002 and beyond. Nice diversion, however.

 

[Robor]

Originally posted by: TastesLikeChicken
...snipped... Besides that, I am not pro-Bush, so your comment about "partisan denial" is meaningless. If anything, it's your partisanship showing here, not mine.

You're kidding right? I didn't read the entire thread but you have been doing nothing but defend the Bush administration over the past few pages.

Maybe you're just confused and dizzy from all the spinning?

 

[conjur]

Originally posted by: EXman
Actually he had them already bubba This is a crime on humanity Halabja 1988 Saddam kills 70,000 in anfar offensive in 24-40 attacks :disgust:

Ah, back when Saddam was a good guy and he used intelligence provided by the US and chemicals provided by the US?

 

[BBond]

For anyone still deluding themselves that the UN or the head US weapons inspectors hadn't documented the arms stockpiles in Iraq, I've transcribed former Chief US Weapons Inspector David Kay's appearance on Aaron Brown's show on Thursday, October 28, 2004. Read Kay's answers and tell me if I should believe TLC or any of the other Bushies here who are trying to spin this all on the UN/US weapons inspectors and our troops. Or should I take the word of David Kay, Chief US Weapons Inspector in Iraq?

Bush and his war profiteering pals KNEW this stuff was in Iraq, where, and in what quantities. But they're too busy making money off their invasion to worry about securing arms that are being used against our troops or, as seen on 60 Minutes tonight, to provide them proper armored vehicles, protective gear, equipment, and even bullets.

After all, these nuisances come right off the bottom line, and we know how important the bottom line is.


Aaron Brown: OK, back to the explosives, the who, and when, and the how of it all. But on the question of when, as we saw at the top of the program, there is new information to factor in. Pretty conclusive to our eye. So we'll sort through this now, take the politics out of it and try and deal with facts with former head UN weapons inspector, US weapons inspector, David Kay. David, it's nice to see you.

David Kay: It's good to be with you, Aaron.

Aaron Brown: I wanna', I don't know how better to do this than to show you some pictures, have you explain to me what they are or are not. OK? Um, first what I'd...I'll just call the seal. Um, tell me if this is an IAEA seal on that bunker, uh, at that munitions dump.

David Kay: Aaron, as about as certain as I can be looking at a picture not physically holding it, which obviously I would have preferred to have been there, that's an IAEA seal. I've never seen anything else in Iraq in about 15 years of being in Iraq and around Iraq that was other than a IAEA seal of that shape.

Aaron Brown: And was there anything else at the facility that would have been under IAEA seal?

David Kay: Absolutely nothing, it was the HMX, RDX, the two high explosives.

Aaron Brown: OK, now, I wanna' take a look at the barrels here for a second, - - tell me what they tell you. They obviously, to us, just show a bunch of barrels, you'll see it somewhat differently.

David Kay: Well it's interesting, there were three foreign suppliers to Iraq of this explosive in the 1980's, one of them used barrels like this, uh, and inside the barrel's a bag, uh, HMX is in powdered form because you actually use it to shape a spherical lens that is used to create the triggering device for nuclear weapons, um, and particularly on the video tape, which is actually better than the still photos, as the soldier dips in to it (still shot of open crate containing cylinderrical shaped items in plastic bags), that's either HMX or RDX, uh, I don't know of anything else in Al Qaqaa that was, was in that form.

Aaron Brown: Ah, let me ask you then, David, the question I asked Jamie, in regard to the dispute about whether that stuff was there when the Americans arrived, is it game, set, match? Is that part of the argument now over?

David Kay: Well, at least with regard to this one bunker, uh, and the film shows one seal, one bunker, one group of soldiers going through, and there were others there that were sealed, with this one, I think it is game, set, and match. There was HMX and RDX in there, the seal was broken, and quite frankly, to me, the most frightening thing is, not only was the seal broken, lock broken, but the soldiers left after opening it up. I mean, to rephrase the so called 'Pottery Barn' rule, if you open an arms bunker, you own it. You have to provide security.

Aaron Brown: I'm, I'm, (unintelligible) I, I'm...that raises a number of questions, let me throw out one, it suggests that maybe they just didn't know what they had?

David Kay: I think it quite likely they didn't know they had HMX, which speaks to the lack of intelligence given troops moving through that area, but they certainly knew they had explosives. And to put this in context, I think it's important, this loss of 360 tons. But Iraq is awash with tens of thousands of tons of explosives, right now in the hands of insurgents, because we did not provide the security when we took over the country.

Aaron Brown: Could you, I-I want, I'm trying to say out of the realm of politics, I-I-I'm not sure you can neces...

David Kay: So am I.

Aaron Brown: ...sarily, I know. It's a little tricky here, but, um, is there any, is there any reason not to have anticipated the fact that there would be bunkers like this, explosives like this, and a need to secure them.

David Kay: Absolutely not. For example, Al Qaqaa was the site of Gerald Bull's super-gun project, uh, it was a team of mine that discovered the HMX originally in 1991, uh, that was one of the most well documented explosive sites in all of Iraq. The other 80 or so other major ammunition storage points were also well documented. Iraq had, and it's a frightening number, two thou...two thirds of the total conventional explosives that the U.S. has in its entire inventory. The country was an armed camp.

Aaron Brown: David, as quickly as you can, cause this just came up in the last hour, as dangerous as this stuff is, this would not be described as a WMD, correct?

David Kay: Oh, absolutely not.

Aaron Brown: Thank you.

David Kay: And in fact this - the loss of it is not a proliferation issue.

Aaron Brown: OK. It's just dangerous, and it's out there, and by your thinking it should have been secured.

David Kay: Well, look, it was used to bring the Pan Am flight down, it's a very dangerous explosive, particularly in the hands of terrorists.

Aaron Brown: David, thank you for walking me through this, I appreciate it. David Kay, the former head U.S. weapons inspector in Iraq.

 

[EXman]

Originally posted by: Bowfinger

Originally posted by: EXman

Originally posted by: Bowfinger

Originally posted by: TastesLikeChicken
Been diggin' into the dictionary lately, bubba?

The only way Kay could make his case was if Saddam actually had programs in place or was making under-the-table deals for such weapons that were exposed. Either that or the "scientists" were lying to Kay, or Kay was BSing for political reasons. If it's the case he was being truthful (and giving DK the benefit of the doubt), I would direct you to the UN sanctions on Iraq that spelled out such actions as violations. Basically, Kay was confirming, months after the invasion, that Saddam had violated sanctions concerning WMDs by making his claim.

With statements such as his, even long after the invasion, how can people claim Bush was fudging intel on Iraq before the invasion?

Sorry, "Bubba", but your wishing and spinning is only making you dizzy.

Kay walked a tightrope between saying what his boss wanted him to say and avoiding out-and-out lying for him. Once Kay was out from under George's yoke, he was free to speak more honestly. Stop the presses, Hussein still wanted WMDs someday. Doh! Wanting is NOT a crime.

Sorry. You were duped by the best liars in all of politics. Better luck next lie.

Actually he had them already bubba This is a crime on humanity Halabja 1988 Saddam kills 70,000 in anfar offensive in 24-40 attacks :disgust:

Yes dear. We're talking 2002 and beyond. Nice diversion, however.

Mr. sensitive aren't we? :roll:

 

[conjur]

Originally posted by: EXman

Originally posted by: Bowfinger
Yes dear. We're talking 2002 and beyond. Nice diversion, however.

Mr. sensitive aren't we? :roll:

Is that your code for "I got my ass handed to me?"

 

[EXman]

Originally posted by: conjur
And those WMDs were destroyed as there is now no evidence whatsoever that Saddam had WMDs and Kay has stated it appears they were all gone by 1996 or 1998.

And, btw, Saddam had US assistance and all but outright permission to use WMDs in the late 80s.

Bullstuff prove that opinion. You cannot prove that the US approved gassing women and children because that is not true and you know it. finally gotcha I owed you one anyhow you got me once too.

 

[BBond]

Just for the record:

Soldiers Describe Looting of Explosives

Iraqis piled high-grade material from a key site into trucks in the weeks after Baghdad fell, four U.S. reservists and guardsmen say.

By Mark Mazzetti, Times Staff Writer

WASHINGTON ? In the weeks after the fall of Baghdad, Iraqi looters loaded powerful explosives into pickup trucks and drove the material away from the Al Qaqaa ammunition site, according to a group of U.S. Army reservists and National Guardsmen who said they witnessed the looting.

The soldiers said about a dozen U.S. troops guarding the sprawling facility could not prevent the theft because they were outnumbered by looters. Soldiers with one unit ? the 317th Support Center based in Wiesbaden, Germany ? said they sent a message to commanders in Baghdad requesting help to secure the site but received no reply.

The witnesses' accounts of the looting, the first provided by U.S. soldiers, support claims that the American military failed to safeguard the munitions. Last month, the International Atomic Energy Agency ? the U.N. nuclear watchdog ? and the interim Iraqi government reported that about 380 tons of high-grade explosives had been taken from the Al Qaqaa facility after the fall of Baghdad on April 9, 2003. The explosives are powerful enough to detonate a nuclear weapon.

During the last week, when revelations of the missing explosives became an issue in the presidential campaign, the Bush administration suggested that the munitions could have been carted off by Saddam Hussein's forces before the war began. Pentagon officials later said that U.S. troops systematically destroyed hundreds of tons of explosives at Al Qaqaa after Baghdad fell.

Asked about the soldiers' accounts, Pentagon spokeswoman Rose-Ann Lynch said Wednesday, "We take the report of missing munitions very seriously. And we are looking into the facts and circumstances of this incident."

The soldiers, who belong to two different units, described how Iraqis plundered explosives from unsecured bunkers before driving off in Toyota trucks.

The U.S. troops said there was little they could do to prevent looting of the ammunition site, 30 miles south of Baghdad.

"We were running from one side of the compound to the other side, trying to kick people out," said one senior noncommissioned officer who was at the site in late April 2003.

"On our last day there, there were at least 100 vehicles waiting at the site for us to leave" so looters could come in and take munitions.

"It was complete chaos. It was looting like L.A. during the Rodney King riots," another officer said.

He and other soldiers who spoke to The Times asked not to be named, saying they feared retaliation from the Pentagon.

A Minnesota television station last week broadcast a video of U.S. troops with the 101st Airborne Division using tools to cut through wire seals left by the International Atomic Energy Agency, or IAEA, at Al Qaqaa, evidence that the high-grade explosives remained inside at least one bunker weeks after the war began.

The video was taped April 18, 2003, while soldiers from the 101st Airborne searched Al Qaqaa for chemical and biological weapons. The IAEA had placed seals on nine of the bunkers at the complex, where inspectors had found high-grade explosives. Other bunkers contained more conventional munitions.

After opening bunkers, including one containing the high-grade explosives, U.S. troops left the bunkers unsecured, the Minnesota station reported.

According to the four soldiers ? members of the 317th Support Center and the 258th Rear Area Operations Center, an Arizona-based Army National Guard unit ? the looting of Al Qaqaa occurred over several weeks in late April and early May.

The two units were stationed near Al Qaqaa at a base known as Logistics Support Area (LSA) Dogwood. Soldiers with the units said they went to the ammunition facility soon after the departure of combat troops from the 101st Airborne Division.

The soldiers interviewed by The Times could not confirm that powerful explosives known as HMX and RDX were among the munitions looted.

One soldier said U.S. forces watched the looters' trucks loaded with bags marked "hexamine" ? a key ingredient for HMX ? being driven away from the facility. Unsure what hexamine was, the troops later did an Internet search and learned of its explosive power.

"We found out this was stuff you don't smoke around," the soldier said.

According to a list of "talking points" circulated by the Pentagon last week, when U.S. military weapons hunters visited Al Qaqaa on May 8, 2003, they found that the facility "had been looted and stripped and vandalized." No IAEA-monitored material was found, the "talking points" stated.

A senior U.S. military intelligence official corroborated some aspects of the four soldiers' accounts. The official who tracked facilities believed to store chemical and biological weapons ? none was ever found in Iraq ? said that Al Qaqaa was "one of the top 200" suspect sites at the outset of the war.

Despite the stockpiles at the site, no U.S. forces were specifically assigned to guard Al Qaqaa ? known to U.S. forces in Iraq as Objective Elm ? after the 101st Airborne left the facility.

Members of the 258th Rear Area Operations Center, responsible for base security at nearby LSA Dogwood, came across the looting at Al Qaqaa during patrols through the area. The unit, which comprised 27 soldiers, enlisted the help of troops of the 317th Support in securing the site, the soldiers said.

The senior intelligence official said there was no order for any unit to secure Al Qaqaa. "No way," the officer said, adding that doing so would have diverted combat resources from the push toward Baghdad.

"It's all about combat power," the officer said, "and we were short combat power.

"If we had 150,000 soldiers, I'm not sure we could have secured" such sites, the officer said. "Securing connotes 24-hour presence," and only a few sites in Baghdad were thought to warrant such security.

Troops of the two units went to Al Qaqaa over a week in late April but received no orders to maintain a presence at the facility, the soldiers said. They also said they received no response to a request for help in guarding the facility.

"We couldn't have been given the assignment to defend a facility unless we were given the troops to do it, and we weren't," said one National Guard officer. "[Objective] Elm being protected or not protected was not really part of the equation. It wasn't an area of immediate concern."

Some confusion came in late April 2003 when U.S. commanders in Baghdad reassigned military responsibility for the area surrounding Al Qaqaa from Army units to the 1st Marine Division, which had participated in the assault on Baghdad and eventually took control over much of southern Iraq.

According to Marine sources, when the 1st Marine Division took over, the combat unit didn't have enough troops to secure ammunition depots scattered across central and southern Iraq. The Al Qaqaa facility, they said, was of particular concern.

"That site was just abandoned by the 101st Airborne, and there was never a physical handoff by the 101st to the Marines. They just left," said a senior officer who worked in the top Marine command post in Iraq at the time. "We knew these sites were being looted, but there was nothing we could do about it."

During the same period, Marines came across another massive ammunition depot near the southern Iraqi town of Diwaniya, the senior officer said. They sent a message to the U.S. headquarters in Baghdad seeking guidance on how to keep the site from being plundered.

Commanders in Baghdad responded that the Marines should attempt to blow up the depot. The Marine officers responded that the site was too large to demolish.

Commanders in Baghdad "didn't have a good response to that," the officer said. "There was no plan to prevent these weapons from being used against us a year later."

For those who don't want to register at the LA Times, this article was reprinted at the Seattle Times:

Explosives in Iraq were looted, soldiers say

 

[conjur]

Originally posted by: EXman

Originally posted by: conjur
And those WMDs were destroyed as there is now no evidence whatsoever that Saddam had WMDs and Kay has stated it appears they were all gone by 1996 or 1998.

And, btw, Saddam had US assistance and all but outright permission to use WMDs in the late 80s.

Bullstuff prove that opinion. You cannot prove that the US approved gassing women and children because that is not true and you know it. finally gotcha I owed you one anyhow you got me once too.

Uh, go read the news and the past threads up here about it.

 

[imported_Aelius]

I recall having read a hefty article, not sure which paper wrote it Times maybe, that detailed some of the reasoning behind Saddam's claims of having and wanting WMDs and the actual fact of him not having any.

According to Saddam and many advisors it came to two things that were his downfall.

1. His inability to understand and succeed in reaching out to the US. In a few cases his senior staff had to make national decisions toward the UN/US because they couldn't even reach Saddam. Apparently Saddam spent a lot of time incognito. Even his senior staff had no idea where he was let alone be able to contact him. To his credit Saddam did try many times to reach out to the US but this brings us to point 2.

2. Saddam could never outright tell the world he had no WMDs or that he didn't want any because of Iran. Iran is a primary reason why he may have appeared to be flip-floping on his promises since that's exactly what he had to do. It was a balancing act trying to appease the US and the UN yet still appear a major threat to Iran in case it tried to invade. Without the threat of WMDs Saddam knew he could likely be unseated if Iran attacked and he wasn't willing to take the chance of another war.

 

[burnedout]

Follow-up:

Saddam 'raided U.N. arms sites for suicide attacks'

[Hat tip: Charles Johnson]

Saddam 'raided UN arms sites for suicide attacks'
By Patrick Cockburn in Baghdad

01 December 2004

As American forces closed in on Baghdad last year, senior members of Saddam Hussein's government devised a plan to send suicide bombers in vehicles packed with devastating high-energy explosives that were under UN safeguards.

The disappearance of the explosive, known as HMX (high melting explosives), in mysterious circumstances at the end of the war caused a few nasty moments for President George Bush's presidential election campaign last month.

A letter to Saddam from Dr Naji Sabri, the Iraqi Foreign Minister, five days before the fall of Baghdad, suggests taking the HMX from underground bunkers, where it had been kept under seal by the International Atomic Energy Agency, and giving it to suicide bombers.

He wrote: "It is possible to increase the explosive power of the suicide-driven cars by using the highly explosive material [HMX] which is sealed by the International Atomic Energy Agency [IAEA] and stored in the warehouses of the Military Industry Departments."

The Iraqi regime took credit for several suicide bombs towards the end of the war. After the fall of Saddam, one of the worst attacks - which killed 22 UN workers and the special envoy, Sergio Vieira de Mello, in August 2003 - had an explosive force that could only have come from military grade explosives.

The disappearance of 350 tons of explosives, including 191 tons of HMX, at the time of the war in April last year became a crucial issue in the last weeks of the US presidential election campaign. John Kerry portrayed the failure to secure the explosives, which could have been used to kill US soldiers, as a symbol of Mr Bush's incompetence in Iraq.

It now appears that senior officials in the Iraqi government were discussing the removal of the HMX before the fall of Saddam. The letter from Dr Sabri, obtained by The Independent, was sent on 4 April 2003 as US tanks were advancing on Baghdad. It said that the world was getting the impression that Iraqi civilians were co-operating with American soldiers.

 

[GoPackGo]

Originally posted by: burnedout
Follow-up:

Saddam 'raided U.N. arms sites for suicide attacks'

[Hat tip: Charles Johnson]

Saddam 'raided UN arms sites for suicide attacks'
By Patrick Cockburn in Baghdad

01 December 2004

As American forces closed in on Baghdad last year, senior members of Saddam Hussein's government devised a plan to send suicide bombers in vehicles packed with devastating high-energy explosives that were under UN safeguards.

The disappearance of the explosive, known as HMX (high melting explosives), in mysterious circumstances at the end of the war caused a few nasty moments for President George Bush's presidential election campaign last month.

A letter to Saddam from Dr Naji Sabri, the Iraqi Foreign Minister, five days before the fall of Baghdad, suggests taking the HMX from underground bunkers, where it had been kept under seal by the International Atomic Energy Agency, and giving it to suicide bombers.

He wrote: "It is possible to increase the explosive power of the suicide-driven cars by using the highly explosive material [HMX] which is sealed by the International Atomic Energy Agency [IAEA] and stored in the warehouses of the Military Industry Departments."

The Iraqi regime took credit for several suicide bombs towards the end of the war. After the fall of Saddam, one of the worst attacks - which killed 22 UN workers and the special envoy, Sergio Vieira de Mello, in August 2003 - had an explosive force that could only have come from military grade explosives.

The disappearance of 350 tons of explosives, including 191 tons of HMX, at the time of the war in April last year became a crucial issue in the last weeks of the US presidential election campaign. John Kerry portrayed the failure to secure the explosives, which could have been used to kill US soldiers, as a symbol of Mr Bush's incompetence in Iraq.

It now appears that senior officials in the Iraqi government were discussing the removal of the HMX before the fall of Saddam. The letter from Dr Sabri, obtained by The Independent, was sent on 4 April 2003 as US tanks were advancing on Baghdad. It said that the world was getting the impression that Iraqi civilians were co-operating with American soldiers.

We should have invaded sooner...I know