Huge Cache of Explosives Vanished From Site in Iraq

Why are unnamed liberals not naming themselves as sources?

Why is John Kerry not focused on providing Americans plausible solutions to all of President Bush non-stop "failures"; being a Monday morning quarterback of GWB's tougher decisions/ war incidents gets him a couple of votes in the polls but won't help him (if & when) he really has to step up to the plate to advance the cause of being the President of the USA and serving our country?

Why is the media so objectively unobjective?

 

Actually the sources seem to be coming from the Pentagon so I would assume they're not very liberal.

 

Ron! Since you brought up "Monday morning quarterbacking," why don't you dive in here, http://bbs2.clutchfans.net/showthread.php?s=&threadid=85669, and give us your take. It's perfect for that exercise, and actually is pertinent to what is going on today in Iraq... possibly including who may be using some of these missing munitions.

Thanks in advance!



Keep D&D Civil!!

 

No, I was just commenting on the liberal ones who can't blow their cover

 

These are conventional explosives. The term WMD relates to chemical, biological, and nuclear weapons, weapons that Iraq definitively did NOT possess, contrary to administration claims.

Do you have any clue as to the myriad of uses there are for conventional explosives? Iraq was not required to dispose of these weapons BECAUSE THEY ARE NOT WMDS!!! The UN did what it was charged to do - inventory and secure the weapons so that it would be apparent that someone had taken them if they came through the next time and the seals were broken.

Yes, we knew for years that there were weapons that were not banned and that Iraq was not required to give up. They were required to give up their WMD programs, and by all accounts they did, leaving Bush to babble about "WMD program related activities."

It could have been used for industrial uses, it could have been used as weapons, but the real point is that these explosives were NOT on the list of banned weapons and as such, Iraq had every right to keep them. Saddam disclosed the material, opened the facility up for inspection, and the UN verified that there were not any WMDs present.

Iraq fulfilled it's mandate, the UN fulfilled it's mandate, but after we invaded, it appears that due to lack of planning, the US allowed someone to take those explosives and apparently, those people are now using those explosives against us.

 

Now do you want me to try and follow your philosophy of "keeping D&D Civil!!" or do you want me to dive in with my crazy conservative thoughts on that issue?

 

Is "fulfilled it's mandate" a code phrase for filled it's pockets with cash the oil for food program?

 

According to the 13 UN resolutions, Iraq was not allowed to have a variety of weapons that were not classified as chemical, biological, or nuclear.

You dont store 380 TONS of weapons grade explosives for YEARS because of their potential industrial use. Give me a break. A few pounds of the material will destroy a tank. A couple hundred pounds will demolish a building. THEY HAD 760,000 POUNDS IN STORAGE FOR YEARS AT ONE FACILITY.

lol, the UN did not secure them. They put a sticker on them so they would know after the fact if they were taken. Again, this is all the fault of the UN, if they were properly secured (at the least locked up or taken away until the Iraqiis had a legitimate use for it, we would not be discussing this. I dont remember you having a problem with the UN accepting the fact that Saddaam denied unmanned drones to monitor facilites like this. It was part of their "total access to all facilities plan" that the UN accepted with a wink and a nod.

Again, this is humerous at best. It was not a banned weapon, but now that it is missing, it is definately a weapon? The fact that the UN didnt classify it as a banned substance is a joke. Its like saying Antrax has the potential to cure the common cold, so Iraq should be allowed to store 300 tons of it just in case. The UN botched the whole weapons inspection process from day one. This is just another example of it. The result of these debacle is the necessity of the current war. You are pointing your finger in the wrong direction.

 

Once again, a Bush supporter tries to divert attention from the point by throwing out a red herring.

Big surprise.

 

Iraq says 'impossible' explosives taken before regime fall

Wed Oct 27, 9:47 AM ET


BAGHDAD (AFP) - A top Iraqi science official said it was impossible that 350 tonnes of high explosives could have been smuggled out of a military site south of Baghdad before the regime fell last year.

The UN nuclear watchdog this week said about 350 tonnes of high explosives went missing from a weapons dump some time after Saddam Hussein (news - web sites)'s regime was toppled in April 2003 after the US-led invasion .


But as the issue of the missing explosives took centre stage in the final days of the US presidential campaign, some US officials have suggested they had gone before the US-led forces moved on Baghdad.


"It is impossible that these materials could have been taken from this site before the regime's fall," said Mohammed al-Sharaa, who heads the science ministry's site monitoring department and previously worked with UN weapons inspectors under Saddam.


"The officials that were inside this facility (Al-Qaqaa) beforehand confirm that not even a shred of paper left it before the fall and I spoke to them about it and they even issued certified statements to this effect which the US-led coalition was aware of."


Sharaa also warned that other nearby sites with similar materials could have also been plundered.


"The Al-Milad Company in Iskandariyah and the Yarmouk and Hateen facilities contained explosive materials that could have also been taken out," the official told AFP in an interview.

The Al-Qaqaa facility is near the town of Latifiyah, 30 kilometers (18 miles) south of Baghdad and the bulk of materials in question include HMX (high melting point explosive) and RDX (rapid detonation explosive), which experts say can be used in major bombing attacks, making missile warheads and detonating nuclear weapons.


The area in Babil province, which includes the towns of Iskandariyah and Mahmudiyah, used to be the centre of Saddam's military-industrial complex.


It is now one of the most dangerous parts of the country rife with crime, kidnappings and attacks. Several headless bodies hav been found in the area, according to marines stationed there.


"It may be already too late to salvage many of these sites, which are controlled by bandits and beyond the control of Iraqi forces," warned Sharaa.


http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=1514&u=/afp/iraq_us_explosives&printer=1

 

Andy & rvolkin, if I may interject a couple of points:

The explosive materials in question, HDX & RDX, are not comparable to chemical explosives such as C4 or Semtex (of which RDX is one of many components). They are described as being "slightly more powerful than TNT". Not that it makes it much better...

PanAm 103 was destroyed with a Semtex based bomb.

According to Duelfer, the weapons inspectors tried to convince the IAEA to destroy at least some of the materials in question back in 1995...and the IAEA said no:

"The policy was if acquired for the WMD program and used for it, it should be subject for destruction. The HMX was just that. Nevertheless the IAEA decided to let Iraq keep the stuff, like they needed more explosives." -- Charles Duelfer

Andy...completely absolving the UN/IAEA of blame here is pretty ridiculous, as is completely absolving the Administration for their lack of foresight (or basic competence).

http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/na...oct26,1,5307605.story?coll=bal-home-headlines
http://history1900s.about.com/library/weekly/aa051800a.htm
http://www.nysun.com/article/3826

 

Oh, one more thing:

"They [Pentagon officials] also stressed that there is no evidence HMX or RDX have been used against coalition forces in Iraq."

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

 

what new doctrine??

i'm not making law here. i'm lamenting the system...again. the team sports joke that politics have become in this country.

 

Giving away the ingredients to make more powerful explosives is only slightly less bad than just giving away the more powerful explosives. Also these are much more stable and safer to work with compared to easily available alternatives for at home bomb makers. Since we gave them away for free, who could pass on that - we saved them time and money.

The Bushies, #1 at passing the buck and weapons to terrorists.

 

I place plenty of blame on the UN, but in this case, it appears that the UN inspectors did exactly what they were told to do, disclosed the presence of the explosives before the invasion, and now those explosives are out there, perhaps being used to prepare attacks on Americans. The military could have secured these sites, but due to the lack of planning, the sites were left unguarded and the explosives were pilfered.

There is plenty of blame to go around, but at this point the US (spcifically the people who did not plan properly before this war) deserves most of it.

 

What makes me suspicious is the timing of this story, which is rapidly becoming highly suspect. The "red herring" you might want to sniff is why the story was released just before the election (as opposed to a year ago) and by whom.

 

Rumsfeld implicitly admits lack of planning for Iraqi insurgency

WASHINGTON (AFP) - US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld has implicitly admitted the Pentagon (news - web sites) had no specific plans for handling a widespread insurgency in the aftermath of the US-led invasion of Iraq (news - web sites), but still insisted US pre-war planning was "good."

Rumsfeld also suggested the controversy over missing Iraqi explosives will probably amount to no more than a storm in a teacup and compared it to other oversold stories that circulated during the war.

The remarks, made on Tueday in an interview with Cincinnati, Ohio, radio station, came amid a barrage of charges from Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry (news - web sites) and his aides that the White House had failed to adequately plan for the possibility of a guerrilla war in Iraq.

Notice the first thing he mentions and no where does it mention planning for the insurgency.

"The postwar plan ... was designed to see that they were not able to destroy their oil wells, that they were not able to blow up their bridges, that they did not have massive humanitarian crisis with internally displaced people and refugees and food crisis, and that the war was conducted in a speedy way so that it would not run the risk of destabilizing neighboring countries," Rumsfeld said when asked to comment on the accusations.

He said all those goals had been accomplished, but he did not mention guerrilla operations among the contingencies the military had planned for, and referred to them as a problem that was being handled on an ad hoc basis.

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tm...20041027/ts_afp/us_iraq_planning_041027084055

 

Forget about the debunking of this story and the exposure of both NBCnews and the NYT over how they completely swung and missed at this story. Forget for a moment about the liberals' red-faced shame at pouncing on this story only to find out it is a fraud.

Ain't it funny that the liberals here think that suddenly we are in ENORMOUS danger because these weapons can't be accounted for? Well well well.... For some reason, unaccounted for weapons weren't such a big concern when we made the decision to go into Iraq. Oh no, unaccounted for weapons weren't a concern at all then! Heck, we could wait for dozens more UN resolutions before taking action! What a joke libs. What a JOKE.

Have you libs had a change of heart now? A flip-flop if you will? Or are you just looking for more ways to complain and highlight our troops' alleged failures? Ain't hindsight grand, libs? Well, when you get it right that is. Too bad you didn't here.

Poooooor libs....

 

Where is the proof of this? As I wrote above, there is no evidence proving WHEN the explosives left the building.

 

T_J how you continually morph criticism of the administration to criticism of the "troops" is truly amazing!