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

[Geronimo]

Originally posted by GePap


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

That is the figure that matters.

CNN keeps reporting an estimate of 30,000 tons of explosives still at large in the country. So perhaps a majority of the explosives have been dealt with, but 30,000 tons can still deal a hell of a lot of mischief

[Drachasor]

Originally posted by Harry Tuttle
barrels...

Well, perhaps you'd like responding to actual issues that are being brought up instead of engaging personal attacks.

The latter does not somehow conceal your lack of the former.

-Drachasor

Edit: For clarity

[Mordoch]

Originally posted by Ogie Oglethorpe
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.

This is FLAGRANTLY wrong. The high explosives removal squad came 5 days BEFORE the video was taken. The seals were still up at that time in at least a bunch of the cases. This came from another group of soldiers that were just briefly passing through later on. The story and the video linked to in the following post shows that at least some of the HMX explosives were still there at the time. (All the barrels you see in the video footage are HMX explosive.) The report also suggest that the soldier in question probably didn't remove any of the HMX at all, but merely other explosives.

http://kstp.com/article/stories/S3777.html?cat=1

[Ogie Oglethorpe]

Thanks for the update, Mordoch. More I'm sure to be coming in.

[The Emperor Fabulous]

http://kstp.com/article/stories/S3723.html?cat=1

The actual account of the embedded team

[Dinner]

Originally posted by Cruddy
Given the number of car bombings - I doubt the insurgents will run out of explosives any time soon.

Even if some feckless squaddie is going to admit to moving 200 tons of them.

"Thou shalt not get caught" (11th commandment).

They won't be running out of explosives any time soon. The Iraqi government under Saddam owned something like 1 million tons of explosives; to compare the entire US military currently owns 1.5 million tons of explosives so Iraq is flooded in the stuff. Ammo dumps are every where and poor Iraqi farmers have taken to looting the ammo dumps because very few of them are secured and they can make good money selling explosives and brass shell casings on the open market. Interesting enough peopole are more interested in the brass then the explosives because the local market is already saturated with explosives so prices are dirt cheap. Brass on the other hand can be sold for scrap metal on the world market.

[Ned]

You know, I am constantly amazed how much I learn by reading Apolyton. Until I just read through this thread again just now, I did not know that it now appears likely that the 3rd ID moved the "missing" explosives.

Oerdin, as to that CNN report, if the explosives were still there in May when the US began guarding the ammo dump, was there any time after that date that we stopped guarding the ammo dump?

I still look forward to an official report.