Huge Cache of Explosives Vanished From Site in Iraq

Here is even more from KSTP News 5 in Minnesota

The crew also videotaped the IAEA seals


http://kstp.com/article/stories/S3741.html?cat=1

This certainly isn't definitive proof that these explosives are the ones that are missing, but I am more swayed by this evidence than I am of a corrupt Bush appointee saying the Russians stole it (as Michael Savage is running with that explaination as we speak)

 

Two different words.

Cache
Cachet


The latest update is that one can make out the UN seals on the explosives in those embed videos. One can also read the words "high explosive" on the side of the containers. This was after the soldiers broke into the bunker to check what was in a few.

 

UN inspectors are now saying that the explosives in the video are HMX

"Experts who have studied the images say the barrels on the tape contain the high explosive HMX, and the U.N. markings on the barrels are clear.
http://abcnews.go.com/WNT/story?id=206847

"I talked to a former inspector who's a colleague of mine, and he confirmed that, indeed, these pictures look just like what he remembers seeing inside those bunkers," said David Albright, president of the Institute for Science and International Security in Washington.

The barrels were found inside sealed bunkers, which American soldiers are seen on the videotape cutting through. Inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency sealed the bunkers where the explosives were kept just before the war began.

"The seal's critical," Albright said. "The fact that there's a photo of what looks like an IAEA seal means that what's behind those doors is HMX. They only sealed bunkers that had HMX in them."

After the bunkers were opened, the 101st was not ordered to secure the facility. A senior officer told ABC News the division would not have had nearly enough soldiers to do so. "

 

Hey, you got to use one yourself! I could have used that one but it wasn't the message that I was looking for.

 

Its not impossible but it is improbable.

 

The borders turned into sieves *after* we took over. We fired all security apparatus which included the border guards, remember? Anyways, if you remember, Powell repeatedly said we watched every one of those weapons sites and knew when and where they were moving anything from our satellite/unmanned recon/airplane recon. Or are you calling Powell a liar now?

What is the Ruskies motivation? Running short on high explosives? Couldn't find any Chechyan terrorists?

Both moot points.

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=564&e=1&u=/nm/20041028/ts_nm/iraq_explosives_abc_dc

Report: Video Shows Explosives Went Missing After War

 

http://www.kstp.com/article/stories/S3735.html?cat=1

Armed group claims it has explosives missing from Iraqi depot


BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) - An armed group claimed in a video Thursday to have obtained a large amount of explosives missing from a munitions depot facility in Iraq and threatened to use them against foreign troops.

A group calling itself Al-Islam's Army Brigades, Al-Karar Brigade, said it had coordinated with officers and soldiers of "the American intelligence" to obtain a "huge amount of the explosives that were in the al-Qaqaa facility."

The claim couldn't be independently verified. The speaker was surrounded by masked, armed men standing in front of a black banner with the group's name on it in the tape obtained by Associated Press Television News.

"We promise God and the Iraqi people that we will use it against the occupation forces and those who cooperate with them in the event of these forces threatening any Iraqi city," the man added.

Nearly 400 tons of conventional explosives have disappeared from the al-Qaqaa facility south of Baghdad, according to the International Atomic Energy Agency.

The U.N. agency's chief Mohamed ElBaradei,reported the disappearance to the U.N. Security Council on Monday, two weeks after Iraqi officials told the nuclear agency that 377 tons of explosives had vanished as a result of "theft and looting ... due to lack of security."

The disappearance of the explosives has become a huge campaign issue in the U.S. presidential election.

 

See the video of those people who "claimed" to have captured the weapons:

http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/1098966798669_47?hub=World#

Click on video on the right.

 

Which pronounciation do you want?

French, Latin or English?

 

This is the most authenticating part of this story for me.

 

BUSH LIARS BUSTED!

The Bush campaign can't get a break. Here they thought they could lie and run the clock out till after November 2. and claim to be investigating like they have done with the Plame Afair and many other issues. What were the odds that they would be totally outted before then. Miniscule.

The last incident like this was when they claimed they had wasted some terrorists out in the Iraqi country side and there was no evidence that it was a wedding party. . Unbelievably the Iraq wedding party was being filmed and the film was retrieved along with the rmemanants of the wedding and its guests. Busted. What were the odds?

Hey I thought it was UnChristian to bear false witness. Giving the Bush folks a break it is wrong to "jump to conclusions".

See the latest NYT article with the Minnesota TV clips.

nyt

 

Come on glynch! It's all a LIBERAL conspiracy! Remember?

 

As far as I know, it is pronounced like cash. As was pointed out, there is a word, cachet, that is pronounced cash-aa, but I have always pronounced cache like the colloquialism for money.

FWIW, I am an IT guy too, so maybe it is just a geek anomaly.

 

It looks like Cheney and company saying that Kerry Rushed, apparently rushed themselves and in the end were wrong. The weapons disappeared after the U.S. invaded and failed to guard them.

Yesterday Rudy Giuliani said it was the fault of the troops on the ground and not Bush's.

Wow, which side is it that is supporting the troops, or is quick to blame the troops again? I have heard of passing the buck, but passing the buck down to the troops to avoid blaming the commander in chief is silly.

What will the administration use as an excuse now that the video is out?

 

I haven't see the actual Giuliani quote posted in this thread yet, so here it is.

 

Presidents don't micro-manage wars. End of subject.

 

If we had more boots on the ground (an executive decision), we could have guarded all of the ammo and WMD sites. Ball back in your court.

 

Some of them barely manage wars at all, and when they do they do it very poorly.

Even if Bush didn't tell which troops to guard what, wouldn't you think it was his job to hold others accountable for getting the correct facilities guarded?

Who has Bush ever held accountable for any of the many mistakes in this war?

Bush also clearly manages things on the ground to a level that he told the Marines to pull out of Fallujah after they had already started invading.

 

I thought there was railing about the cost of the war. More boots is more expensive. Another damned if you do; damned if you don't.

If you want more boots on the ground, tell the French and the Germans and the Russians to get out of Saddam's pocket.

 

I'm not surprised none of the Bush apologist have surfaced in this thread, there really isn't much you can say in defense of Bush and his lies.

Bush, Cheney and the Pentagon can dance all they want with their excuse-factory, but this video is pretty damning

Here is former head UN weapons inspector, David Kay's interview with Aaron Brown:

Aaron Brown: We saw at the top of the program there is new information to factor in. Pretty conclusive to our eye. So we'll sort through this now. Take the politics out of it and try and deal with facts with former head UN weapons inspector, US weapons inspector, David Kay. David, it’s nice to see you.

David Kay: Good to be with you, Aaron.

AB: I don't know how better to do this than to show you some pictures have you explain to me what they are or are not. Okay? First what I’ll just call the seal. And tell me if this is an IAEA seal on that bunker at that munitions dump?

DK: Aaron, about as certain as I can be looking at a picture, not physically holding it which, obviously, I would have preferred to have been there, that is an IAEA seal. I've never seen anything else in Iraq in about 15 years of being in Iraq and around Iraq that was other than an IAEA seal of that shape.

AB: Was there anything else at the facility that would have been under IAEA seal?

DK: Absolutely nothing. It was the HMX, RDX, the two high explosives.

AB: OK now, I’ll take a look at barrels here for a second. You can tell me what they tell you. They, obviously, to us just show us a bunch of barrels. You'll see it somewhat differently.

DK: Well, it's interesting. There were three foreign suppliers to Iraq of this explosive in the 1980s. One of them used barrels like this, and inside the barrels a bag. HMX is in powder form because you actually use it to shape a spherical lens that is used to create the triggering device for nuclear weapons. And particularly on the videotape, which is actually better than the still photos, as the soldier dips into it, that's either HMX or RDX. I don't know of anything else in al Qaqaa that was in that form.

AB: Let me ask you then, David, the question I asked Jamie. In regard to the dispute about whether that stuff was there when the Americans arrived, is it game, set, match? Is that part of the argument now over?

DK: Well, at least with regard to this one bunker, and the film shows one seal, one bunker, one group of soldiers going through, and there were others there that were sealed. With this one, I think it is game, set, and match. There was HMX, RDX in there. The seal was broken. And quite frankly, to me the most frightening thing is not only was the seal broken, lock broken, but the soldiers left after opening it up. I mean, to rephrase the so-called pottery barn rule. If you open an arms bunker, you own it. You have to provide security.

AB: I'm -- that raises a number of questions. Let me throw out one. It suggests that maybe they just didn't know what they had?

DK: I think you're quite likely they didn't know they had HMX, which speaks to lack of intelligence given troops moving through that area, but they certainly knew they had explosives. And to put this in context, I think it's important, this loss of 360 tons, but Iraq is awash with tens of thousands of tons of explosives right now in the hands of insurgents because we did not provide the security when we took over the country.

AB: Could you -- I’m trying to stay out of the realm of politics. I'm not sure you can.

DK: So am I.

AB: I know. It's a little tricky here. But, is there any -- is there any reason not to have anticipated the fact that there would be bunkers like this, explosives like this, and a need to secure them?

DK: Absolutely not. For example, al Qaqaa was a site of Gerald Bull's super gun project. It was a team of mine that discovered the HMX originally in 1991. That was one of the most well-documented explosive sites in all of Iraq. The other 80 or so major ammunition storage points were also well documented. Iraq had, and it's a frightening number, two-thirds of the total conventional explosives that the US has in its entire inventory. The country was an armed camp.

AB: David, as quickly as you can, because this just came up in the last hour, as dangerous as this stuff is, this would not be described as a WMD, correct?

DK: Oh absolutely not.

AB: Thank you.

DK: And, in fact, the loss of it is not a proliferation issue.

AB: Okay. It's just dangerous and its out there and by your thinking it should have been secured.

DK: Well look, it was used to bring the Pan Am flight down. It's a very dangerous explosive, particularly in the hands of terrorists.

AB: David, thank you for walking me through this. I appreciate it, David Kay the former head US weapons inspector in Iraq.

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