Huge Cache of Explosives Vanished From Site in Iraq

One might be wondering why the IAEA didn't reveal it to the public since according to you not revealing means they were covering it up.

 

Sure, one can read it that way.
But that still does not change the fact that the Bushies knew about this, had eyes and ears and boots over the country, and did not plan to secure it in it's tunnel vision search for made up WMD, and it's probably being used to kill Americans and Iraqis.

 

stop seeing this only through your political lens...back up and look objectively....no matter which "team" is doing it, it sucks. it's indefensible to time your reporting to maximize political impact. or making up stories to create a political impact. as a journalist, that's not your job. at all.

you see all this evil being spewed from the right, but when it's done from the left it's just called balance? please. where's the integrity?

 

I see another piece of evidence that the President will continue to live and rule in his own little universe without need or compulsion to be open with the American public, and I also see the right-wing press trying to shift the focus (again) from the issue at hand to petty unimportant issues , example: Kerry-lesbian comment

IAEA is only reporting it now b/c Iraq is only reporting it to them now. The USA failed to report this to the IAEA and was trying to force Iraq to keep quiet about it as well - the US knew that if anyone reported it to the IAEA, it would become public knowledge that thier imcompetence is directly leading to American lives being ended would be exposed even more.

 

You're right.

Omitting stories can be equally partisan. I just think they made the wrong call here. And I do tend to think the decision to go with that story at that time was done fully congnisant of its potential impact. And that sits wrong with me. Given this election is rather important, i would have expected a bit more purdence on their part.

And i do make a distinction between a newsmagazine, that picks and chooses the issues it covers, and a news broadcast -- which should be reporting this as it is uncovered.

 

To clarify...(i think ), i'm not saying this should be covered up. The newspapers, and the newscast should be covering it.

I just think that shows like 60 minutes have a very different format...and cover selected issues in an indepth manner. I would be equally frustrated if they were to do an indepth piece on Teresa Kerry, or John Edward or anyother piece that could be seen as partisan.

Not that those topics are offlimits...just that they should not be timed a day or two before the election.

 

...with an eye toward impacting the election.

 

Back to the matter at hand!

A few words from Josh...

------------------------------
OKAY, NOW CAN we say that the NBC Nightly News report that the explosives at al Qaqaa were already gone when the first US troops arrived -- the one Drudge goaded CNN into running with far harder than NBC ever did -- is now officially no longer operative?

Earlier we noted that MSNBC had interviewed a member of the NBC news crew that was embedded with the 101st Airborne, Second Brigade, which visited the al Qaqaa facility on the April 10th, 2003.

She said they didn't do any search. They were there on a "pit stop" on the way to Baghdad.

Now, NBC's Jim Miklaszewski just went on MSNBC with this follow-up (emphasis added) ...

Following up on that story from last night, military officials tell NBC News that on April 10, 2003, when the Second Brigade of the 101st Airborne entered the Al QaQaa weapons facility, south of Baghdad, that those troops were actually on their way to Baghdad, that they were not actively involved in the search for any weapons, including the high explosives, HMX and RDX. The troops did observe stock piles of conventional weapons but no HMX or RDX. And because the Al Qaqaa facility is so huge, it's not clear that those troops from the 101st were actually anywhere near the bunkers that reportedly contained the HMX and RDX. Three months earlier, during an inspection of the Al Qaqaa compound, the International Atomic Energy Agency secured and sealed 350 metric tons of HMX and RDX. Then in March, shortly before the war began, the I.A.E.A. conducted another inspection and found that the HMX stockpile was still intact and still under seal. But inspectors were unable to inspect the RDX stockpile and could not verify that the RDX was still at the compound.

Pentagon officials say elements of the 101st airborne did conduct a thorough search of several facilities around the Al QaQaa compound for several weeks during the month of April in search of WMD. They found no WMD. And Pentagon officials say it's not clear at that time whether those other elements of the 101st actually searched the Al QaQaa compound.

Now, Pentagon officials say U.S. troops and members of the Iraq Survey Group did arrive at the Al QaQaa compound on May 27. And when they did, they found no HMX or RDX or any other weapons under seal at the time. Now, the Iraqi government is officially said that the high explosives were stolen by looters. Pentagon officials claim it's possible -- they're not sure, they say, but it's possible that Saddam Hussein himself ordered that these high explosives be removed and hidden before the war. What is clear is that the 350 metric tons of high explosives are still missing, and that the U.S. or Iraqi governments or international inspectors, for that matter, cannot say with any certainty where they are today.

-- Josh Marshall

 

Not true. The IAEA says it delayed reporting this because it wanted to 'give the coalition time to recover the materials,' and that it only went public because it was being reported in the media. There is no indication the US was 'trying to force Iraq to keep quiet about it,' or that they were trying to exert pressure on the IAEA.

Interesting pieces of the article that we seem to be skipping over:

IRAQ HAD ALREADY REMOVED SOME OF THE MATERIAL

"The Qaqaa stockpile went unmonitored from late 1998, when United Nations inspectors left Iraq, to late 2002, when they came back. Upon their return, the inspectors discovered that about 35 tons of HMX were missing. The Iraqis said they had used the explosive in civilian programs."

"...inspectors were unable to inspect the RDX stockpile and could not verify that the RDX was still at the compound." (from the MSNBC article)

NO SEALED MATERIAL WAS PRESENT AFTER INTERVENTION

"A senior Bush administration official said that during the initial race to Baghdad, American forces "went through the bunkers, but saw no materials bearing the I.A.E.A. seal." It is unclear whether they ever returned."

IT WAS STANDARD PRACTICE FOR SADDAM'S IRAQ TO REMOVE THE MATERIALS

"I.A.E.A. experts say they assume that just before the invasion the Iraqis followed their standard practice of moving crucial explosives out of buildings, so they would not be tempting targets. If so, the experts say, the Iraqi must have broken I.A.E.A. seals on bunker doors and moved most of the HMX to nearby fields, where it would have been lightly camouflaged - and ripe for looting."

Undoubtably having these materials in the hands of the insurgents, whether AQ or Saddam loyalists, is a bad thing. The larger issue seems to be, at least in this forum, is whether or not they were there when the US intervened, and I don't see any compelling evidence that it was.

The MSNBC report above is also misleading in that the IAEA says they inspected the site and found the seals intact before the intervention, not that they inventoried the explosives, which is what the article implies.

 

more from Josh



CBS Evening News just did a follow-up on the missing explosives story and it adds a few new facts to the mix.

First of all, remember how yesterday Scott McClellan said that,"the Pentagon, upon learning of [the disappearance of the explosives], directed the multinational forces and the Iraqi Survey Group to look into this matter, and that's what they are currently doing."

CBS talked to the Chief of the Iraq Survey Group, Charlie Duelfer, in Baghdad and he says he hasn't gotten any order like that.

Duelfer does say something that may provide some grist for the White House's defenders. At this point, he says, he doesn't think the stuff is even worth looking for.

Here's the text from the CBS press release ...

"It's hard for me to get that worked up about it," Duelfer said in a phone interview from Baghdad, adding that Iraq is awash in hundreds of thousands of tons of explosives.

And how about the first troops who arrived on the scene and didn't find any weapons? Maybe not.

The commander of the first unit into the area told CBS he did not search it for explosives or secure it from looters. "We were still in a fight," he said. "our focus was killing bad guys." He added he would have needed four times more troops to search and secure all the ammo dumps he came across.

Too few troops?

-- Josh Marshall

 

As an attorney you realize how utterly unworkable and fluid this new doctrine is, right?

 

Yeah, because all legal doctrine is static and workable. Like 'I'll know it when I see it,' lol.

 

Well the Bush administration has been caught in a lie again(the supposed issue to international troops to investigate, which has been rejected.) CBS was playing this story for political timing, which is disgusting. Things seem to stay the same.

Is 60 minutes on weekly still? I do wonder how early they could have gotten the story on.

 

Wow! Embedded reporters aren't allowed to go on extensive searches of massive explosive storage facilities during an invasion...

Duh.

 

I think IAEA should shut up and stick to doing what they do best: making furniture.

 

That is IKEA

I know you knew this already.

 

Josh has the brain of a four-year old baboon. By the way, that baboon wants his brain back.

Meanwhile,
from http://www.instapundit.com/

 

I thought that Saddam's Iraq was a nation riddled with lousy record keepers anyway?

 

so which is it ? First they say there are no WMD's, now they are saying Bush lost WMD's?