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

[GePap]

And why would Maj. Pearson be the bearer of said news, and say, not, THE PENTAGON?

[Harry Tuttle]

Originally posted by Drachasor
The fact that the Administration didn't know what was going on and has admitted we didn't have enough troops to guard everything is proof enough of their incompetence; Horrible planning.

Anything else is just more evidence to that effect.

-Drachasor

400,000 tons of ammunition and explosives destroyed since cleanup began. Again, you are drooling on the carpet.

[Harry Tuttle]

Originally posted by GePap
And why would Maj. Pearson be the bearer of said news, and say, not, THE PENTAGON?

Where do you think he was speaking from? Would Donald Rumsfeld be more credible to you?

[Dinner]

CNN is currently showing footage made by one of it's reporter back in May of 2003 which shows the facility with the explosives still in side and the UN selas still in place. A few American soldiers were looking around and didn't know what the seals were so they cut the locks and removed the seals.

So anyway we now have photographic proof that Saddam didn't remove the 380 tons of explosives like Rumsfield was claiming yesterday.

[Harry Tuttle]

Originally posted by Oerdin
CNN is currently showing footage made by one of it's reporter back in May of 2003 which shows the facility with the explosives still in side and the UN selas still in place. A few American soldiers were looking around and didn't know what the seals were so they cut the locks and removed the seals.

So anyway we now have photographic proof that Saddam didn't remove the 380 tons of explosives like Rumsfield was claiming yesterday.

Yeah and we also have someone who was there, who removed explosives. I betcha he bothered to look inside the containers.

[GePap]

Originally posted by Harry Tuttle


400,000 tons of ammunition and explosives destroyed since cleanup began. Again, you are drooling on the carpet.

And that is what % of the total that was laying around?

That is the figure that matters.

[Sava]

It's Not Just Al Qaqaa
By PAUL KRUGMAN

Published: October 29, 2004

Just in case, the right is already explaining away President Bush's defeat: it's all the fault of the "liberal media," particularly The New York Times, which, so the conspiracy theory goes, deliberately timed its report on the looted Al Qaqaa explosives - a report all the more dastardly because it was true - for the week before the election.

It's remarkable that the right-wingers who dominate cable news and talk radio are still complaining about a liberal stranglehold over the media. But, that absurdity aside, they're missing a crucial point: Al Qaqaa is hardly the only tale of incompetence and mendacity to break to the surface in the last few days. Here's a quick look at some of the others:

Letting Osama get away Just before the story about Al Qaqaa broke, the Bush-Cheney campaign was frantically trying to debunk John Kerry's statement that Mr. Bush let Osama bin Laden get away when he was cornered at Tora Bora. That getaway, Mr. Kerry asserts, was possible because the administration "outsourced" the job of closing off escape routes to local Afghan warlords.

In response, Gen. Tommy Franks claimed that we don't know that Osama was at Tora Bora, and, anyway, we didn't outsource the work of catching him. Dick Cheney called Mr. Kerry's claims "absolute garbage." But multiple reports from 2001 and early 2002 confirm Mr. Kerry's version. As Peter Bergen, a terrorism expert, writes, Mr. Kerry's charge is "an accurate reflection of the historical record."

Letting Zarqawi get away On Monday The Wall Street Journal confirmed an earlier report that in 2002 the military drew up plans for a strike on the base of the terrorist leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi in an area of Iraq not under Saddam's control. But civilian officials vetoed the attack - probably because they thought it might undermine political support for the war against Saddam. So Mr. Zarqawi, like Osama, was given the chance to kill another day.

The situation in Iraq Dick Cheney is telling supporters that Iraq is a "remarkable success story." But the news from Iraq just keeps getting worse. After 49 Iraqi National Guard recruits were killed, execution style, even Ayad Allawi, the Iraqi prime minister - who usually acts as a de facto spokesman for the Bush-Cheney campaign - accused coalition forces of "gross negligence." It's now clear that the insurgency is much larger than U.S. officials initially acknowledged, and that Iraqi security forces have been heavily infiltrated.

$70 billion more Earlier this week The Washington Post reported that administration officials were planning to seek an additional $70 billion for Iraq and Afghanistan after the election. Whatever the precise number, it has long been obvious to knowledgeable observers that this was coming, but the news will come as a shock to many people who still don't realize how deep a quagmire Mr. Bush has gotten us into.

All of these stories would be getting more play right now if it weren't for the Al Qaqaa mess. Still, one can understand why the right is so upset.

After all, Al Qaqaa illustrates in a particularly graphic way the failures of Mr. Bush's national security leadership. U.S. soldiers passed through Al Qaqaa, a crucial munitions dump, but were never told that it was important to secure the site. If administration officials object that they couldn't have spared enough troops to guard the site, they're admitting that they went in without enough troops. And the fact that these explosives fell into unknown hands is a perfect example of how the Iraq war has worsened the terrorist threat.

The story of Al Qaqaa has brought out the worst in a campaign dedicated to the proposition that the president is infallible - and that it's always someone else's fault when things go wrong. Here's what Rudy Giuliani said yesterday: "No matter how you try to blame it on the president, the actual responsibility for it really would be for the troops that were there. Did they search carefully enough?" Support the troops!

But worst of all from the right's point of view, Al Qaqaa has disrupted the campaign's media strategy. Karl Rove clearly planned to turn the final days of the campaign into a series of "global test" moments - taking something Mr. Kerry said and distorting its meaning, then generating pseudo-controversies that dominate the airwaves. Instead, the news media have spent the last few days discussing substance. And that's very bad news for Mr. Bush.

E-mail: krugman@nytimes.com

link: http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/29/op...tml?oref=login

I found this interesting and thought I'd post it in this thread.

I like how Rudy Giuliani has now joined the Communist Party.

"No matter how you try to blame it on the president, the actual responsibility for it really would be for the troops that were there. Did they search carefully enough?"

uh oh, he's not supporting the troops!!

[GePap]

Originally posted by Harry Tuttle


Yeah and we also have someone who was there, who removed explosives. I betcha he bothered to look inside the containers.

Except that he is claiming we took it, a claim that:

1. Makes little sense, since I assume he would take the time to tell his superiors he was removing 200 tons of high explosives from a site that was suspected of holding WMD materials, and also happened to have these strange IAEA stickers

2. Is utterly unsubstantiated, much like the original Drudge claim that the news then ran with and has now been totally discredited.

[chequita guevara]

Originally posted by Harry Tuttle
Maj. Austin Pearson has now said the amount is 250 tons.

If he's not lying to help the Prez, then there ought to be some paperwork to support him. I expect we'll see it in the next day or so, which will be too late to impact the race. Weekend news doesn't usually have much of an impact.

[Drachasor]

Originally posted by Harry Tuttle
400,000 tons of ammunition and explosives destroyed since cleanup began. Again, you are drooling on the carpet.

Your penchant for ad hominem attacks is unfortunate. You could at least attempt to be civil.

The fact is that the administration has admitted it couldn't guard all the sites. This isn't inherently bad, but when a medium-level site can't get guarded like Al Qaqaa, then something has gone horribly wrong.

The test isn't how much explosives the administration has destroyed, it is about how well the guarded all of the explosives and how many have gotten into the hands of insurgents.

Clearly the medium-level sites were not all that secure. Especially worrisome since Al Qaqaa was one of the largest such sites around. If they couldn't secure that, they probably didn't secure all that much.

-Drachasor

[Drachasor]

Originally posted by GePap
And that is what % of the total that was laying around?

That is the figure that matters.

I think the figure that matters to him is how much "drool" he thinks I am releasing.

-Drachasor

[Harry Tuttle]

Originally posted by Drachasor


I think the figure that matters to him is how much "drool" he thinks I am releasing.

-Drachasor

barrels...

[chequita guevara]

Originally posted by Sava
I like how Rudy Giuliani has now joined the Communist Party.

Sweet!

[Ogie Oglethorpe]

QUOTE] Originally posted by Oerdin
CNN is currently showing footage made by one of it's reporter back in May of 2003 which shows the facility with the explosives still in side and the UN selas still in place. A few American soldiers were looking around and didn't know what the seals were so they cut the locks and removed the seals.

So anyway we now have photographic proof that Saddam didn't remove the 380 tons of explosives like Rumsfield was claiming yesterday. [/QUOTE]

Much as I hate to say it. To GePaps point why were these materials not reported to the IAEA, I don't know and for that matter no one here I expect does for now.

But it is clear that if soldiers were cutting the seals which was then followed at a later time by a removal squad coming in later to remove High Explosives with seals missing it might have been simply an oversight. Afterall, from the standpoint of the removal squad, all they are is explosives its not like they were WMD and with seals missing nothing would precipitate a call to the IAEA.

Again lets get more on the story before a) claiming that these were actually removed or b) if removed were done in a fashion that would imply negligence on a chain of command vs. a series of events that would have resulted in a honest oversight.

But to point a) if these high explosive were removed AND we believe the ABC story regarding IAEA revised estimates of RDX then the 250 tons (if the HDX was removed and not some other High Exploisve) represents the entirety of the original 377 tons in question.

[GePap]

Originally posted by Ogie Oglethorpe
Much as I hate to say it. To GePaps point why were these materials not reported to the IAEA, I don't know and for that matter no one here I expect does for now.

A question which would have been irrelevant, if the admin. in an ideological hissy fit, had not barred the IAEA form coming in immidiately after the fall of Saddam

But it is clear that if soldiers were cutting the seals which was then followed at a later time by a removal squad coming in later to remove High Explosives with seals missing it might have been simply an oversight. Afterall, from the standpoint of the removal squad, all they are is explosives its not like they were WMD and with seals missing nothing would precipitate a call to the IAEA.

Again lets get more on the story before a) claiming that these were actually removed or b) if removed were done in a fashion that would imply negligence on a chain of command vs. a series of events that would have resulted in a honest oversight.

But to point a) if these high explosive were removed AND we believe the ABC story regarding IAEA revised estimates of RDX then the 250 tons (if the HDX was removed and not some other High Exploisve) represents the entirety of the original 377 tons in question.

Maybe people don't understand that this is a huge complex that most likely held more than 380 tons of high explosives of this type, like more common explosives.