Posted on 10/24/2004 5:55:31 PM PDT by spacejunkie
NYT DEVELOPING EXCLUSIVE FRONT PAGE STORY ON TERRORISTS AND EXPLOSIVES. EDITOR HAS SET LEAD POSITION FOR STORY, NEWSROOM SOURCES TELL DRUDGE... DEVELOPING...
It only hurts us WHEN YOU ALLOW IT TO HURT YOU, there is alot here that can be counterspun, plus it makes it far worse than knee jerk republicans cry over it
It wasn't there.
Welcome to FreeRepublic (#18)
"But the other components of an atom bomb - the design and the radioactive fuel - are more difficult to obtain. "This is a high explosives risk, but not necessarily a proliferation risk,"
There is no way this story can turn out to be the big 'October Surprise' the Dems have been hinting at. There is nothing new or earth shattering in this story. No biggie IMHO.
Yeah I am in the 10% called "wimps". LOL.
"Now we are starting to see the human consequences of that incompetence. I don't think we can know yet how many of our own troops have been killed with explosives that were looted because the administration didn't field enough troops to secure key installations like the al Qa Qaa facility. But the number may be high. And I'm sure we'll get more details on that count in reporting over the next few days."
"In any case, it puts the consequences of the administration's incompetent management of the war and occupation in a whole new light."
This jaded view is "breaking news" that's supposed to make Kerry look bad?
Halliburton is something I'd like to hear a whole lot less about. Just how much evil do they think they can sew into one company? I feel bad about the people that work there, having their careers demonized only out of political expediency. I'd be shocked to have one week go by without some dimwit dem writing a letter to the editor in my local paper with some Halliburton conspiracy.
You noticed that too, huh?
this story is a setup for something else - the 4th paragraph is the giveaway - the DNC may well be plugged in with the terrorists in iraq, with knowledge of some large scale attack in Iraq this week - using these explosives.
then it becomes a bigger story.
Dump this thread NOW!
It was planted by DUers and is now being linked for their entertainment and pushed by trolls.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=132x1158831
Welcome to Freerepublic(#19)
Boney Hiney? Get a chairpad.
Yes a HORROR!
This story will have ZERO resonsance. keep waiting for the real Surprise...it will involve an Admin turncoat or a peronsal Bush attack.
Is the NYT admitting that the Iraqis had nuclear detonation material?
Why? It wasn't stolen under his watch. It won't be claimed that Kerry rushed in without adequate troops to protect such caches etc.
Huge Cache of Explosives Vanished From Site in Iraq
By JAMES GLANZ, WILLIAM J. BROAD and DAVID E. SANGER
Published: October 25, 2004
his article was reported and written by James Glanz, William J. Broad and David E. Sanger.
BAGHDAD, Iraq, Oct. 24 - The Iraqi interim government has warned the United States and international nuclear inspectors that nearly 380 tons of powerful conventional explosives - used to demolish buildings, produce missile warheads and detonate nuclear weapons - are missing from one of Iraq's most sensitive former military installations.
The huge facility, called Al Qaqaa, was supposed to be under American military control but is now a no-man's land, still picked over by looters as recently as Saturday. United Nations weapons inspectors had monitored the explosives for many years, but White House and Pentagon officials acknowledge that the explosives vanished after the American invasion last year.
The White House said President Bush's national security adviser, Condoleezza Rice, was informed within the past month that the explosives were missing. It is unclear whether President Bush was informed. American officials have never publicly announced the disappearance, but beginning last week they answered questions about it posed by The New York Times and the CBS News program "60 Minutes."
American weapons experts say their immediate concern is that the explosives could be used in major bombing attacks against American or Iraqi forces: the explosives, mainly HMX and RDX, could be used to produce bombs strong enough to shatter airplanes or tear apart buildings. The bomb that brought down Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, in 1988 used less than a pound of the material of the type stolen from Al Qaqaa, and somewhat larger amounts were apparently used in the bombing of a housing complex in November 2003 in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, and the blasts in a Moscow apartment complex in September 1999 that killed nearly 300 people.
The explosives could also be used to trigger a nuclear weapon, which was why international nuclear inspectors had kept a watch on the material. But the other components of an atom bomb - the design and the radioactive fuel - are more difficult to obtain. "This is a high explosives risk, but not necessarily a proliferation risk," one senior Bush administration official said.
The International Atomic Energy Agency publicly warned about the danger of these explosives before the war, and after the invasion it specifically told United States officials about the need to keep the explosives secured, European diplomats said in interviews last week. Administration officials say they cannot explain why the explosives were not safeguarded, beyond the fact that the occupation force was overwhelmed by the amount of munitions they found throughout the country.
The Qaqaa facility, about 30 miles south of Baghdad, was well known to American intelligence officials: Saddam Hussein made conventional warheads at the site, and the I.A.E.A. dismantled parts of his nuclear program there in the early 1990's after the Persian Gulf war in 1991. In the prelude to the 2003 invasion, Mr. Bush cited a number of other "dual use" items - including tubes that the administration contended could be converted to use for the nuclear program - as a justification for invading Iraq. After the invasion, when widespread looting began in Iraq, the international weapons experts grew concerned that the Qaqaa stockpile could fall into unfriendly hands. In May, an internal I.A.E.A. memorandum warned that terrorists might be helping "themselves to the greatest explosives bonanza in history."
An Arsenal Turned No-Man's Land
To see the bunkers that makeup the vast Qaqaa complex today, it is hard to recall that just two years ago it was part of Saddam Hussein's secret military complex. The bunkers are so large that they are reminiscent of pyramids, though with rounded edges and the tops chopped off. Several are blackened and eviscerated as a result of American bombing. Smokestacks rise in the distance.
Today, Al Qaqaa has become a no-man's land that is generally avoided even by the Marines in charge of north Babil Province. Headless bodies are found there. An ammunition dump has been looted, and on Sunday an Iraqi employee of The New York Times who made a furtive visit to the site saw looters tearing out metal fixtures. Bare pipes within the darkened interior of one of the buildings were a tangled mess, zigzagging along charred walls. Someone fired a shot, probably to frighten the visitors off.
"It's like Mars on Earth," said Maj. Dan Whisnant, an intelligence officer for the Second Battalion, 24th Marine Regiment. "It would take probably 10 battalions 10 years to clear that out."
Continued
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Most Conservatives don't think Americans are stupid.
You just outed yourself.
Don't pull it! We're having too much fun. Send it to the Smokey Backroom or something.
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