...Anyone have any idea what they ultimately determined this white powder to be.....
Rush reported a web report from someone who had visited the Holston Ammunition Plant correctly known as the Holston Army Ammunition Plant spoke of cloth rolling bins covered in white powder. His point was that the explosive is extremely stable in the white powdery form and is safely transported in bulk carriers. It is worked as required to make it into a suitable form as required for a specific task.
The report also indicated that to move the explosives would require considerable effort and that in the raw form were virtually useless to the insurgents. They require the further processed material and the fuses etc necessary to detonate.
For the record the HAAP is here where I live and is currently run under contract by BAE, British Aerospace.
It is the only American source for these super high explosives.
YOU have hit it on the head, the 'explosive' is the white powder, but in that form is useless to the insurgents. By the NYT standard if they found a supply of ammonia nitrate (fertilzer) they could call that high explosive using the same difinition (this is what tim mcveigh mixed with diesel fuel to blow up the ok city fed building),