Huge Cache of Explosives Vanished From Site in Iraq

In the AFP story on yahoo, the Iraqis in charge now, who presumably have no axe to grind against Bush otherwise they wouldn't have campaigned for Bush last month, have said that staffers of the former regime had control of the entire facility until the war started.

 

The excuses for the Bushies are great.

This happened eighteen months ago so it's not important.
It's the UN's fault.
Don't blame our troops.
Hey, we already admit we lost control of over 200 tons of other explosives so what's another 350 tons?
It's Clinton's fault.
We *think* no one's used them against us yet.
We didn't send enough troops to guard the museums so how could we guard all the dangerous weapons sites in the country?

 

Very good point. It wasnt a problem when weapons were unaccounted (WMD) for before the war, why should it be now?

 

Oh, I forgot that W/Condi/Powell/Rumsfeld were the ones who were standing guard at the site and the ones who graciously invited the terrorists in to steal these weapons.

This thread should serve as a monument to what happens when liberals jump to conclusions. They get

EXPOSED

 

Everythign I have seen is that this is, at least, TWICE as powerful as TNT. Anyways, if its just some innocent explosives, why are we concerned about them being missing? Maybe a construction company took it to clear some land. After all, isnt that what Saddam was going to do with 760,000 pounds of the stuff.

 

you forgot Cheney

 

No, but there is plenty of evidence that would lead a reasonable person to believe that the site was secured and the explosives remained there until just before our invasion. The site remained sealed by the UN until at least a month before the invasion and after that, the Iraqis had control of the site until we chased them out.

There is not eveidence as to EXACTLY when the explosives left, but the evidence certainly points to that event being after we invaded.

 

prewar/postwar argument about weapons location-
That's a straw man argument - the situation on the ground now is not the same as it was before the war. Prewar - no anti American terrorist presence except in regions the US controlled via the no fly zone or near where it could have if they so desired. no American ground troops in danger from Iraqis on the ground. Now we know all bio/chem/nuke weapons systems accounted for by UN weapons inspectors. All other weapons dumps in hands of despicable but non jihadist dictator. Ordinary people live in *relative* security but under totalitarian dictatorship.

Post war - chaos, American troops involved in middle of budding civil war. Half of weapons dump contents still not accounted for according to White House. Borders wide open to infiltration by foreign terrorists due to lack of security infrastructure and not enough boots on the ground to prove Rumsfeld's small army concept. No one is safe without lots of armor and lots of security guards. No foreigner is safe if they step out of Green Zone.

 

We are talking about VASTLY different weapons. In addition, as the inspectors found, the only thing unaccounted for regarding Iraq's WMDs was paperwork. Now, we are talking about explosives that they had, we KNEW they had, and WE didn't secure.

HUGE difference.

 

This is where you should have ended your post. You have no proof, which is what Hayes asked you. No proof. No proof and no cred.

 

I don't think so. First, the UN didnt inventory the explosives in March, they inventories them in January. When the checked the seals in March they only checked half the seals. When US troops went into Al Qaqaa there were no sealed buildings left. Its consistent, as I posted before, that Saddam would have moved the ordinance before the intervention.

Now, the ordinance would not be, presumably, missing sans the intervention. And that is a credible negative of the intervention. Whether we just skipped it and someone came and pilfered it is another matter, and pure speculation at this point.

 

The US military forces did not attempt to secure the 350 TONS of high grade EXPLOSIVES just after the invasion or we would have known then if they were gone.

Saying that we can not be sure if the explosives were there or not implies we don't know. Saying that we do not know implies that we did not secure the explosives during or just after the invasion. We can now say that securing these explosives was not a priority then. This is a HUGE F*CKUP. Not matter how you slice it.

 

Exactly, doing a spot check before they were kicked out of the country by GWB. They checked to make sure the seals were in place, which they were.

And that is where differing reports have differing "evidence."

Just as consistent as the administration directing its people to report that the seals were gone when they arrived.

Just as it is pure speculation to say that the explosives were gone before we got there.

The real point is that because of the way this thing was planned and executed, there is no way to account for the 350 TONS of explosives that disappeared from this site alone. I am not even a military guy, but if I were planning a military action, the one thing that I would secure above everything else would be weapons caches, particularly stores that contain explosives.

 

t_j,
Talk to me about credibility after you have stopped running away from my challenge like the coward you have proven yourself to be.

 

350 out of 400,000+ is not that significant. If they were already gone then there was no opportunity to secure them.

 

you have sources for these statements? I don't ask in an aggressive way, just b/c I haven't seen these 2 assertions before.

---

If we are to believe the Republican spin, what motivation do the Iraqis have for saying the exact opposite ?

http://www.turkishpress.com/news.asp?id=31993

 

and we would know that new and now. What we do not know for certain is whether the explosives were taken before or after the invasion.

 

except for those soldiers over in Iraq, right?

 

At least Cheney's a realist - today he's calling Iraq so far "a remarkable success story".

 

Shouldn’t that be a catastrophic success?