The NYT/Drudge Bombshell: Huge Cache of Explosives Vanished From Site in Iraq

NY Times ^ | JAMES GLANZ, WILLIAM J. BROAD and DAVID E. SANGER

[icecold]

Huge Cache of Explosives Vanished From Site in Iraq By JAMES GLANZ, WILLIAM J. BROAD and DAVID E. SANGER

Published: October 25, 2004

This 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 Sunday. United Nations weapons inspectors had monitored the explosives for many years, but White House and Pentagon officials acknowledge that the explosives vanished sometime after the American-led 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......"

[crushelits]

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... More... http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/25/international/middlee...

[crushelits]

Don't worry.
We're just discussing if this will affect Bush or not.
The night that Rather of CBS came out with the fake
documents, the discussion were heated abd long.
Thread after thread thread after thread.
The big boys at the Pentagon will probably have an answer to this.

[jbstrick]

Whoops. You are ABSOLUTELY right. I was reading an analysis of the artucle and not the article itself.

My BAD.

[2ndreconmarine]

Dr. EhlBaradei, a European diplomat said, is "extremely concerned" about the potentially "devastating consequences" of the vanished stockpile

Rather than hurting Bush, this looks to me like it hurts Kerry, big time. And, the issues of whether we "lost" it or whether there was a "cover up" are utterly inconsequential.

Others have pointed this out in some form as well (xzins, icecold, Keerrymakesmesleep, lahargis, cookcountry, et.al.)

Now, let me get this straight. We have heard from the MSM and Democrats that there were no WMDs. Bush lied about WMDs. There was no reason to go to war.

Now we find there were WMDs, or at least the components for it. NYT walked into that one. These are actually conventional explosives but they noted that they were used for nuclear weapons. Moreover the IAEA put them under seal. OK, so there were WMDs.

Now the MSM and Demos wanted us to use the UN and IAEA to find and remove the WMDs. OK, they tried that. They found these WMDs and left them in place, "under seal." Smart move. Still in Iraq, still under Iraqi control.

The MSM and Demos wanted us to use the UN inspectors to disarm Iraq. Tried that, but they were first kicked out of Iraq in 1998. Therefore, these explosives were no longer protected "under seal". Saddam could have given them away to anyone, anytime he wanted to. Indeed, it would be in his best interest to do so.

The MSM and Demos wanted us to believe there was no "imminent threat" and that we could have contained Saddam. Well, if there was no "imminent threat", what is this 350 tons of explosives? Sounds like a threat to me. NTY has made it pretty clear that its a threat.

So finally, the MSM wants us to believe that the Bush administration "lost" these explosives. HUge threat to national security (by implication). However, if we had not gone into Iraq in the first place, Saddam could have given this stuff away like Halloween candy.

What these guys have done is to undermine the very arguments they have been making so shrilly against Bush. I think most Americans will sort this out to a simple conclusion: "So there were WMDs after all."

Great hit piece on Kerry. Thanks NYT

[crushelits]

FROM THE FREAKING DU

When this hits the press tomorrow and gets play tomorrow night on all the talking heads....

....the incompetence of the current administration and the idiocy of their supporters will be obvious and incontrovertible.

Not enough soldiers on the ground to secure this kind of materiel?
Not enough effort made in securing it?
Didn't know what in the hell you were doing?

Nice work, guys, now every family that has lost a son or daughter in a car bombing in Iraq knows where the insurgents got the explosives. And they know YOU TRIED TO HIDE IT from them.


Yo, George, you can run.....but YOU CAN'T HIDE!!!!!

And to those Freepers wanting to smear the NYT... Be honest with yourselves, just once, and admit the truth: this is sheer, unmitigated incompetence. The NYT got the goods. If you can't do better than attacking the messenger, then in my opinion, you are not worthy of being American. You are for yourselves first and second and the hell with everyone and everything else. Accountability is not other people, but all people. Including high-ranking GOP officials.

Mac in Ga

[Lady In Blue]

I wouldn't doubt it. A few weeks ago on Sean Hannity's radio show,Rove closed by saying that the Administration "had a few October surprises."

[Lady In Blue]

I think I remember that they Administration wanted to compare or check for "fingerprints" to match the Libya "stuff" with Saddam's "stuff." I wondered a few days ago had they completed the tests and if so were there any matches?!

[DoorGunner]

but White House and Pentagon officials acknowledge that the explosives vanished after the American invasion last year.

I am not certain as to your point, here. The article, itself, states that the Marines explored this facility, and the explosives were already GONE. This was not AFTER the invasion, rather it was DURING the invasion.

Furthermore, the mere fact that a NYT writer claims that an unidentified someone "said" something does not make that claim true, OR that the (possibly imaginary) source actually knew what he was talking about.

DG

[crushelits]

I LIKE YOUR TYPEFACE, seriously I like the typeface you're using. What is it?

Let me check my remark, and I'll get back OK?

[crushelits]

My point is this:

"A MINUTE AGO, FOX NEWS JUST REPORTED THIS. 12:07 AM EST"

The Fox reporter also said something like the "looting"

could have happened as late as LAST SATURDAY

[picturefan]

The section of the dateline Bagdad story you've put in bold is from the NY Times article which goes on to point that intl. inspectors and administration officials have no way of knowing whether the bunkers were emptied before or after the invasion. The inspectors quoted in the story indicate that Saddam Hussein would probably have moved the munitions prior to the invasion to avoid damage from coalition bombings.

In short, there is no story here...no proof of any wrongdoing or negligence on the part of the administration.

[infohawk]

I'm a newbie, but a legitimate one!

I completely agree that our apprehension over the NYT story was overblown. The piece is actually a very weak attempt to suggest that the Bush Administration is responsible for all unaccounted for missing weapons in Iraq. The story is clearly no "bombshell" or October surprise. Some of our "friends" over at DU were hyperventilating as well because they thought the piece was going to claim that Bush pressed the Iraqi's to lie to the IAEA about the missing munitions or otherwise provide evidence that the Bush Administration was involved in a cover-up.

The truth about this story is that even the Times had to hedge by including information acknowledging that there is a great deal of uncertainty surrounding the disappearance of munitions at the site in question. The authors also had to use words such as "unclear," "assume," and "presumed."

When I read between the lines I discerned an entirely different story than what the Times was attempting to write. I'll break it down below.

Here's what the Iraqi's are saying:

"the minister of science and technology, Rashad M. Omar, ... "Yes, they are missing,"..."We don't know what happened."

The International Atomic Energy Agency is saying:

"The I.A.E.A. says it also does not know, and has reported that machines tools that can be used for either nuclear or non-nuclear purposes have also been looted."

"By late 2003, diplomats said, I.A.E.A. experts had obtained commercial satellite photos of Al Qaqaa showing that two of roughly 10 bunkers that contained HMX appeared to have been leveled by titanic blasts, apparently during the war. They presumed some of the HMX had exploded, but that is unclear."

"I.A.E.A. experts say they assume that just before the invasion the Iraqis followed their standard practice of moving crucial explosives out of buildings, so they would not be tempting targets."

My analysis is that the major entities with oversight responsibilities simply don't know what happened to the munitions. This means that they cannot even confirm that the sites were indeed "looted." As the above excerpts indicate, the munitions may have been looted, may have been moved to another site by the old regime or some of the munitions may have been destroyed during the war. I would also submit the possibility that they were trucked out of Iraq immediately prior to the war. Remember the stories about convoys of trucks headed to Syria prior to the beginning of hostilities while we were messing around with the United Nations?

With regard to whether or not the site was adequately guarded:

"The Qaqaa stockpile went unmonitored from late 1998, when United Nations inspectors left Iraq, to late 2002, when they came back. Upon their return, the inspectors discovered that about 35 tons of HMX were missing."

and

During the run-up to the war "Dr. ElBaradei reported that the I.A.E.A. had found no sign of new atom endeavors but "has continued to investigate the relocation and consumption of the high explosive HMX."

My analysis is that the period between 1998 and 2002 and immediately prior to the beginning of the war provided ample opportunity for some of the munitions to "disappear." The IAEA has already documented that 35 tons of munitions were missing. Of course, they can only speculate as to what happened. Once again, they don't know. They are still investigating. If we want to play the blame game, we need to point out that it was the Clinton national security team and their U.N. allies that allowed the inspectors to be removed from Iraq in 1998. The only reason the inspectors returned to Iraq to discover that 35 tons of munitions were missing was because of George W. Bush. Were these munitions "looted" or sold to terrorists? The bottom line is that if the NYT wants to speculate about what happened to the munitions after the invasion commenced, the Times should also focus on the period between 1998 and 2002.

With regard to trying to implicate President Bush:

"It is unclear whether President Bush was informed."

My analysis is that, once again, they don't know. And we have to know that if the Times could implicate, they would. They can't, so they don't.

Now here is the real story:

"Administration officials say Iraq was awash in munitions, including other stockpiles of exotic explosives."

"It would take probably 10 battalions 10 years to clear that out." (referring to the Al Qaqaa site).

My analysis is that these two sentences alone make the case for the necessity of the Iraq War. The country was crawling with weapons and there was no reason to think that Saddam wouldn't have provided them to terrorists with designs on striking the West or Israel. It is even more likely that some enterprising Iraqi official would have setup a little side business selling munitions to terrorists on the black market. These possibilities echo the Kay Report which claimed that, in many ways, Iraq was an even more dangerous place than we thought. The article also contained a quote regarding the possession by the U.S. of a list of munitions sites ranked by priority. The coalition have checked out as many as they could, with some being an even higher priority than the Al Qaqaa site.

[picturefan]

Mac in GA: the Sunday looting that Fox was reporting was removal of portions of the bunkers and metal parts -- not the munitions which were most likely removed by Saddam Hussein before the invasion as stated by experts on the 3rd page of the NY Times article.

[DoorGunner]

I like the typeface you're using. What is it?

Verdana. I am experimenting on ways to differentiate between quotes from another, and my comments. I used to use boldface, but some people didn't like it.

DG

[Neoc0n]

Let me see if I understand this.

Saddam had dangerous explosives, which could be used to detonate nuclear weapons, or use is massive attacks.

So, now the moonbat claim is, Saddam had WMD, but we lost them?

[picturefan]

Further information just added to the NY Times article regarding Hussein's movement of munitions and weapons prior to the invasion:

A Pentagon spokesman, Lawrence Di Rita, said Sunday evening that Saddam Hussein's government "stored weapons in mosques, schools, hospitals and countless other locations," and that the allied forces "have discovered and destroyed perhaps thousands of tons of ordnance of all types." A senior military official noted that HMX and RDX were "available around the world" and not on the nuclear nonproliferation list, even though they are used in the nuclear warheads of many nations.

[Neoc0n]

Let me also understand this, The Iraqi government informed us of this?

How is this a problem for Bush? Don't get it.

[picturefan]

Infohawk -- your analysis is right on. The inference of "looting" is pure speculation by the NY Times and others -- they have no way of knowing when or where the munitions were moved as they get around to stating on page three of the story.