Huge Cache of Explosives Vanished From Site in Iraq

the IAEA only checked the seals on the HDX seals, not the RDX seals in March. the statement from the pentagon was that a thorough inventory was not done because they were concentrating on getting to bagdad, but that there were no IAEA seals in place. I thought these were already cited but I'll go back and check.

on the HDX, they didn't check the seals on the RDX. As I've said before they don't usually just check the seals, but also inventory the ordinance, which they didn't do in March, but in January.

There is no differing evidence. No one says there were seals on ordinance when the US arrived.

Except that its the IAEA that says Saddam normally would have moved out the ordinance, not the administration.

OK, what does that get you? Nothing. We don't know whether the weapons were there or not. Some say they weren't. No one says the seals were on the ordinance when US troops arrived. The IAEA says its likely Saddam moved them.

Not really. Securing the oil made more sense. Certainly if I were planning it I would have wanted enough troops to do it all, but when you're talking about 500 sites with hundreds of thousands of tons of ordinance its not that significant that 350 tons, which may or may not have been there, wasn't secured. For all we KNOW, it was gone before US troops got there, making it a moot point.

 

I can't make sense of this. Want to reword it explain?

 

I'll try it again ...

We do not know if the explosives were taken before the invasion.

We would have known then that the explosives were taken if we had tried to secure them during or just after the invasion.

Thus, I deduce that we did not try to secure the 350 tons of high grade explosives at the time of the invasion.

If we had attempted to secure the explosives and found them missing, we would not have had the opportunity to secure them (as you mentioned) AND we would have definitively known that 350 tons of exposives were on the loose. The chain of command would have been informed and there would be no question now of when the explosives were taken.

 

And your sides position is to lay the blame for every setback in a groundwar at the foot of the big desk in the Oval Office.

andymoon is in charge of the "Poor Planning" chorus!

 

Looks like I forgot to list the:
No one is to blame even though we are in charge of two branches of the federal government and have installed political appointees over qualified bureaucrats in every possible position. That's why in this adminstration the only people that get fired are whistleblowers, incompetence is par for the course.

 

Absolutely correct.

Unless the report that there were no IAEA sealed bunkers is correct. In that case we know that they were already gone. If that report turns out to be erroneous, then I 100% agree.

Besides I'm coming to the realization that I agree the planning was poor for post-capitulation Iraq, so what's the point? Bush clearly is responsible for the final decision and having a closed loop vis-a-vis troop levels is, in the end, his mistake.

 

Sorry not to get back to you sooner, but I was running around, doing stuff with the family. (how dare they interfere with my BBS time?? )

ron, you can do both. I'd like to read some conservative takes on why Bush, along with his advisors, who have never done anything worthy of getting fired over, evidently, just left Mr. Zarqawi sitting there, with known AQ fighters present, in an area Saddam did not control, and why they weren't blasted, bombed and otherwise reduced to bloody fragments. This is according to that liberal rag, the Wall Street Journal. The same man we are frantically trying to find and kill today in Iraq, and who may be using some of these missing munitions. Whatever Zarqawi is using, when he isn't videotaping his brutal murders of innocent civilians, is damned effective. He is one problem, among the host of others in Iraq, that could have been dealt with before the invasion and occupation of that country.

What on earth was going on in the Bush Administration that could possibly excuse such a lapse in judgement? And why hasn't anyone been fired for giving Bush the advice not to take action when action could have been taken? Heaven forbid that Bush should take any responsibility himself for anything that possibly be construed as a mistake.

Of course, the Wall Street Journal could have made it all up, in an attempt to hurt Bush's campaign.



Keep D&D Civil!!
And post whatever the hell you want... just keep it civil!

 

First of all, the story has not been proven to be a fraud. You have done nothing to prove it was incorrect.

Before the invasion there weren't scores of terrorist groups operating in Iraq to get hold of these explosives. After the invasion there were. It became more dangerous and more of a threat after the invasion.

You can try and shield blame from whoever you want. You can say that we are blaming the troops, or their commanders, or the Rumsfeld or Bush, or whoever. It doesn't mean that someone didn't screw up.

These are the kinds of places we should have been guarding. I will blame whoever made the decision to not guard them, or didn't allow for the proper man power to not guard them. That is who should be blamed. If it is the troops who made that mistake, then I will blame the troops. If it is Bush, or Rumsfeld or commanding officeers, or a combination of people, they should all be blamed.

Unlike you, apparently, I believe in holding people accountable and responsible for mistakes.

 

as well it should. He was warned, from within and without.

Pottery barn.

 

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

Iraq says 'impossible' explosives taken before regime fall
AFP: 10/27/2004
BAGHDAD, Oct 27 (AFP) - A top Iraqi science official said Wednesday 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.

He warned that explosives from nearby sites could have also been looted.

The UN nuclear watchdog this week said the explosives went missing from a weapons dump some time after Saddam Hussein's regime was toppled in April 2003 by the US-led invasion .

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

The Pentagon has said it did not know when the explosives went missing.

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

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giddy he's not called the CIC for nothing.

 

Sure, someone saying 'not on our watch' sounds familiar. These being the same guys who stole 50 tons of explosives under seal the last time, and the same guys who would have been ordered by saddam to move it out. They're going to come forward now and say 'yeah, we moved it out so saddams fadeyeen would have explosives to kill US troops.'

Not credible IMO.

 

I don't have a problem with your argument (other than it's speculation that can't be proved one way or the other except that he talked to US officials which could attempt to buttress his arguments or discredit him) but what's his motivation for speaking at all right now?


Back to immediate subject of responsibility - the general pattern is the Bushies only thought of one outcome and didn't even bother to consider any ramifications or possibilities.

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Had Cheney, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, or Feith calculated the risks and benefits of disbanding the Iraqi army—and had they listed the looting of these arsenals as one of the risks—it's hard to believe that they still would have approved (or allowed Bremer to issue) Order No. 2. It's easier, or perhaps just more comforting, to imagine that they simply didn't do any calculations.

And so we're left wondering whether, on the most crucial matter about the war (keeping Iraq secure after Saddam's downfall), our top officials have been reckless or just careless. At this point, it's a tossup which is scarier.
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http://slate.msn.com/id/2108764/

 

When was the last time a CEO got ousted because an employee at a branch across the country cheated on his expense account or stole pencils from the supply room.

This is all just political hooey. This lost cache amounted to less than 1% of the total munitions in Iraq under Saddam. It is sophisticated stuff that some street looter would not and could not probably tame... at least that's what I've heard. Do you know something different?

 

One percent of a extremely large number is still a large number. Playing with the terminology does not reduce the problem.

 

I play with the math not the terminology. You play with the circumstance. You just want to play the blame game to piss on W.

 

So are you accusing our troops of being thieves?

 

The Bushies came into office proclaiming they were bringing accountability *back* to the White House. Just one broken campaign pledge after another. The evidence just shows they and their supporters just want power without any of the responsibility and accountability. Eighteen months after we heard about losing this stuff, they have zero idea where it went.
The Bushies would be perfect as Jeffy in the Family Circus.

In the words of one of the members of the Bush team - we broke it, we own it.

 

Just as you or anyone else has done nothing to prove it was correct.

 

No, it's the Kerry/Pottery Barn rule: "you broke, you fix it".