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

[chequita guevara]

So which is it? Is NBC or the Pentagon right?

[Ramo]

The crazy thing is that MSNBC doesn't actually have an article about this on their site. So either, they're not finished writing the story or the story was aborted (after being leaked to Drudge) due to factual problems. I'm guessing the latter since the leak doesn't mention that there are actual sources, and given the various contradictiosn from official sources..

[Ramo]

This is the only story about this that I could find on their site:

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

And it doesn't mention the claims Drudge cited.

[chequita guevara]

Guess that's what happens when you read the Drudge Report.

[Bosh]

There's no way NBC could be right. The inspectors confirmed that the explosives were all there a month before the US rolled into Baghdad. It would've taken a huge number of really big trucks to truck out that much stuff in a month. To think that one of the higher-priority sites could've had that much stuff trucked out of it without US satellites noticing is absurd.

[Bosh]

The best analysis of the issue that I've found has been on www.talkingpointsmemo.com. http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/arc..._24.php#003800 is the most recent article and its very informative but so are a lot of the other one's that've been posted recently.

[The diplomat]

Originally posted by Boshko
There's no way NBC could be right. The inspectors confirmed that the explosives were all there a month before the US rolled into Baghdad. It would've taken a huge number of really big trucks to truck out that much stuff in a month. To think that one of the higher-priority sites could've had that much stuff trucked out of it without US satellites noticing is absurd.

And yet we are to believe that it was all removed from right under the noses of the US military.

[Ramo]

They weren't removed under the noses of the US military; we didn't bother to secure the place.

[The diplomat]

Originally posted by Ramo
They weren't removed under the noses of the US military; we didn't bother to secure the place.

Yes, but as Boshko pointed out, it would be impossible for the US not to know that the explosives were being shipped out. Even if we did not have people on the ground, we still would have satellite reconnaissance to see what was going on.

So, supposely 1) we did not secure the sites and 2) we knew what was going on and did nothing.

There is only 1 conclusion: the US military deliberately allowed the explosives to be taken or through gross incompetence, allowed the explosives to be taken.

The conclusion is absurd. There is no way that the US military would allow, either deliberately or through negligence, that much explosives to be removed illegally.

[Ramo]

That would only be true if everything were moved in a short period of time. There's absolutely no reason to think that's the case.

[GePap]

Why are you people arguing a meaningless point?

If this disappared little by little during the occupation, that is a mayor screwup by this admin. If it disappeared before troops got there, and the National Security Advisor just learnt of it about 3 months ago, THAT isd a mayor screwup by the administration- anyway you cut it, this was a screwup by this administration- the question is of what magnitude and where the incompetence lies.

[GePap]

And again, the administration should have allowed the IAEA immidiately back into Iraq to inspect all sites it had been monitoring, as opposed to keeping them out and having the IAEA force the interim Iraqi government to start disclosing info.

Yet another ideologically drive idiocy by this admin.

[GePap]

Oh, and can someone link to the story where NBC News itself says this- like whom at NBC News?

[The diplomat]

Originally posted by GePap
Why are you people arguing a meaningless point?

If this disappared little by little during the occupation, that is a mayor screwup by this admin. If it disappeared before troops got there, and the National Security Advisor just learnt of it about 3 months ago, THAT isd a mayor screwup by the administration- anyway you cut it, this was a screwup by this administration- the question is of what magnitude and where the incompetence lies.

You seem to be starting on the false assumption that the Bush Admin is incompetent and it is just a matter of finding where and how they screwed up.

There is no screw-up. The explosives were taken before our troops arrived.

If there was a screw-up, it was wasting so much time going to the UN thereby giving Saddam ample time to hide or evacuate illegal weapons.

Maybe if we had invaded sooner and not wasted so much time debating new resolutions in the UN, our troops would have arrived in time to secure all these illegal weapons.

[GePap]

Lets see what NBC News is actually saying about the incident, ON THEIR OWN SITES:

from the link provided:

ElBaradei told the council the IAEA had been trying to give the U.S.-led multinational force and Iraq’s interim government “an opportunity to attempt to recover the explosives before this matter was put into the public domain.”

But since the disappearance was reported in the media, he said he wanted the Security Council to have the letter dated, Oct. 10, that he received from Mohammed J. Abbas, a senior official at Iraq’s Ministry of Science and Technology, reporting the theft of the explosives.

The materials were lost through “the theft and looting of the governmental installations due to lack of security,” the letter said.

The letter informed the IAEA that since Sept. 4, 2003, looting at the Al-Qaqaa installation south of Baghdad had resulted in the loss of 214.67 tons of HMX, 155.68 tons of RDX and 6.39 tons of PETN explosives.

It would be nice for the credibility of this Sludge piece to actually point out the reporters involved, and show were NBC News itself has said this- I find it strange that such a big report would not actually be reported by NBC News itself....