380 TONS of Explosives (HMX, RDX) in Iraq Left Unsecured, Now Looted!

[Japher]

Show me in that document where they say that Saddam did not have any kind of program for WMD. It says there was no "formal program", but does say there was one and that the directions came straight from Saddam's mouth.

Also, I find the whole Finance and Procurement section to be one long list on how Saddam ran, finance, and supplied these programs/protocols, including "some WMD-related programs".

Regime Finance and Procurement - page 1, last paragraph

[The Emperor Fabulous]

I don't know what to say, so I'll just post:

NBCNEWS: HUGE CACHE OF EXPLOSIVES VANISHED FROM SITE IN IRAQ -- AT LEAST 18 MONTHS AGO -- BEFORE TROOPS ARRIVED

The NYTIMES urgently reported on Monday in an apprent October Surprise: The Iraqi interim government has warned the United States and international nuclear inspectors that nearly 380 tons of powerful conventional explosives are now missing from one of Iraq's most sensitive former military installations.

Jumping on the TIMES exclusive, Dem presidential candidate John Kerry blasted the Bush administration for its failure to "guard those stockpiles."

"This is one of the great blunders of Iraq, one of the great blunders of this administration," Kerry said.

In an election week rush:

**ABCNEWS Mentioned The Iraq Explosives Depot At Least 4 Times
**CBSNEWS Mentioned The Iraq Explosives Depot At Least 7 Times
**MSNBC Mentioned The Iraq Explosives Depot At Least 37 Times
**CNN Mentioned The Iraq Explosives Depot At Least 50 Times

But tonight, NBCNEWS reported: The 380 tons of powerful conventional explosives were already missing back in April 10, 2003 -- when U.S. troops arrived at the installation south of Baghdad!

An NBCNEWS crew embedded with troops moved in to secure the Al-Qaqaa weapons facility on April 10, 2003, one day after the liberation of Iraq.

According to NBCNEWS, the HMX and RDX explosives were already missing when the American troops arrived.

It is not clear why the NYTIMES failed to inform readers how the cache had been missing for 18 months -- and was reportedly missing when troops first arrived.

The TIMES left the impression the weapons site had been looted since Iraq has been under US control.

[In a fresh Page One story set for Tuesday on the matter, the TIMES once again omits any reference to troops not finding any explosives at the site when they arrived in April of 2003. Attempts to reach managing editor Jill Abramson late Monday were unsuccessful.]

"The U.S. Army was at the site one day after the liberation and the weapons were already gone," a top Republican blasted from Washington late Monday.

The International Atomic Energy Agency inspectors last saw the explosives in January 2003 when they took an inventory and placed fresh seals on the bunkers.

Dem vp hopeful John Edwards blasted Bush for not securing the explosives: "It is reckless and irresponsible to fail to protect and safeguard one of the largest weapons sites in the country. And by either ignoring these mistakes or being clueless about them, George Bush has failed. He has failed as our commander in chief; he has failed as president."

A senior Bush official e-mailed DRUDGE late Monday: "Let me get this straight, are Mr. Kerry and Mr. Edwards now saying we did not go into Iraq soon enough? We should have invaded and liberated Iraq sooner?"

Top Kerry adviser Joe Lockhart fired back Monday night: "In a shameless attempt to cover up its failure to secure 380 tons of highly explosive material in Iraq, the White House is desperately flailing in an effort to escape blame. Instead of distorting John Kerry’s words, the Bush campaign is now falsely and deliberately twisting the reports of journalists. It is the latest pathetic excuse from an administration that never admits a mistake, no matter how disastrous."

Taken from...sigh...Drudge...

[Lonestar]

Originally posted by chegitz guevara
Can this Administration ever not **** up?!?!?!

Well, in the interests of modernizing the military, and reforming it, Rummie did manage to shut down alot of armorerd units and replace them with Strykers in the interests of "future urban combat" only for it to turn out by far the safest urban combat vehicles, and most effective, were Cold War era tanks and Bradly fighting vehicles...

okay, bad example...How about, in order to make the military lighter and more versitile, they cut a division from the regular army...


....hmmm....another bad example...

well, what about when they said "we don't need all these carriers" and then it turned out no one wanted to us to base planes in their country and we used 9 of our 11 active carriers crammed into the persian gulf....


Okay, howabout when Rummie was "thinking outside the box" and told the Army Chief of Staff he was wrong on the number of troops needed to reasonably secure Iraq in a reasonable time, and gave him a third of that to invade?



nope....I'm drawing a blank on the military front.

[GePap]

If those explosives went missing 18 months ago, why was the IAEA not informed? Oh, I forgot, the administration refused to let them back in. And if that was true 18 months ago, we learnt about it a few days ago because, what exactly?

[GePap]

I wonder why NBC News felt that 380 tons of missing high grade explosives previously under IAEA seal gone missing did not amount to worthy news if they really did find such a thing out when they got there?

And one should wonder again why the admin. did not report it- after all, it seems like significant news, no?

[Dis]

I don't see what the big deal is. It's not like explosives are hard to get. You'd think there were no bombings before this happened.

[Ramo]

The White House contradicts the NBC story:

Q: Scott, did we just have enough troops in Iraq to guard and protect these kind of caches?

MR. McCLELLAN: See, that's -- now you just hit on what I just said a second ago, that the sites now are really -- my understanding, they're the responsibility of the Iraqi forces. And I disagree with the way you stated your question, because one of the lessons we've learned of history is that it's important to listen to the commanders on the ground and our military leaders when it comes to troop levels. And that's what this President has always done. And they've said that we have the troop levels we need to complete the mission and succeed in Iraq.

Q But you're saying this is the responsibility of the Iraqi forces. But this was our responsibility until just recently, isn't that right? Weren't these -- there is some U.S. culpability, as far as --

MR. McCLELLAN: You're trying -- I think you're taking this out of context of what was going on. This was reported missing after -- when the interim government informed that these munitions went missing some time after April 9th of 2003, remember, that was when we were still involved in major military action at that point. And there were a number of important priorities at that point. There were munitions, munition caches spread throughout Iraq. There were -- there was a concern that there would be massive refugees fleeing the country. There is concern about the devastation that could occur to the oil fields. There was concern about starvation that could happen for the Iraqi people.

So -- and obviously there is an effort to go and secure these sites. The Department of Defense can talk to you about -- because they did go in and look at this site and look to see whether or not there were weapons of mass destruction there. So you need to talk to Department of Defense, because I think that would clarify that for you and set that record straight.

http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2004/10/20041025-1.html

A Pentagon source contradicts the NBC story:

At the Pentagon, an official who monitors developments in Iraq said US-led coalition troops had searched Al-Qaqaa in the immediate aftermath of the March 2003 invasion and confirmed that the explosives, which had been under IAEA seal since 1991, were intact. Thereafter the site was not secured by U.S. forces, the official said, also speaking on condition of anonymity.

http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=JPost/JPArticle/ShowFull&cid=1098677410357

And as the Times article points out, the Iraqi Interim gov't contradicts the NBC story.

[GePap]

I think everyone should keep the simple reality in mind: if this admin. had half a brain, they would have welcomed the immidiate return of the IAEA into Iraq to inspect the condition of all sites that had been under IAEA monitoring before.

They did not.

[Ramo]

Yep, this is nothing less than gross incompetence.

[Ramo]

One thing I noticed on Drudge's summary, the headline isn't actually attributed to any reporters. In fact, the only person who says something to that effect in that article is "a top Republican."

[Kaak]

http://edition.cnn.com/2004/WORLD/meast/10/26/iraq.explosives/

there you go...

[Kaak]

Baghdad fell on April 9, 2003. According to NBC, troops from the 101st Airborne arrived the next day to find that the material was already gone.

[Bosh]

Kaak look at this: http://www.globalsecurity.org/org/ne...eadiness01.htm

the 3rd Infantry division found lots of explosives there when it showed up. It things got picked clean, it was AFTER American troops arrived on the scene.

And if the US has known that al Qa Qaa has been stripped clean for a while now (as is almost assuredly the case), then Whtiehouse Spokesmen McClellan is a bare-faced liar when he said:

"Q When did the President find out?

MR. McCLELLAN: That's why I said, we were informed on October 15th. Condi Rice was informed days after that. This is all in the last, what, 10 days now"

http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2004/10/20041025-1.html

Also, the Pentagon officials have said that they had found the explosives INTACT after the invasion:

At the Pentagon, an official who monitors developments in Iraq said US-led coalition troops had searched Al-Qaqaa in the immediate aftermath of the March 2003 invasion and confirmed that the explosives, which had been under IAEA seal since 1991, were intact. Thereafter the site was not secured by U.S. forces, the official said, also speaking on condition of anonymity.

http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=JPost/JPArticle/ShowFull&cid=1098677410357

I taking the NBC report with a VERY big grain of salt.

[The diplomat]

Well, CNN is now confirming the explosives were already gone when US troops arrived:

http://www.cnn.com/2004/WORLD/meast/10/26/iraq.explosives/index.html

[Ramo]

It cites the same NBC report referred to twice earlier that doesn't actually mention a source beyond "a top Republican," and which is contradicted by the White House, the Iragi Interim Gov't, and a Pentagon source.