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Posted on 10/24/2004 7:21:04 PM PDT by icecold
Edited on 10/25/2004 6:42:02 AM PDT by Admin Moderator. [history]
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......"
I agree, just trot out Franks or somebody to explain how the real world works. As has been said repeatedly, from a few days into Iraqi Freedom on, the country was an ammo dump.
Any news organization or "reporter" that breaks an october surprise story this week should be given the egg treatment.
Isn't this the same story that has been floating around for about 3 weeks?
The October Surprise in all this is that they seem to believe this recycled story, built on a heap of conjecture, will affect the election.
Welcome to FRee Republic. Sign up dates: 2004-10-08 and 2004-09-18, respectively.
Nowhere does it say that we actually took possession of it, and it disappeared under our watch.
The best they can say is that it was there BEFORE we invaded and it isn't there now.
It was most likely in those trucks Saddam sent to Syria days before we invaded.
This only confirms Bush's claim that Iraq was armed to the teeth and a danger to the world....and even WORSE that these arms could have gotten into the hands of terrorists.
And WHO wins when Americans feel threatened by terrorism. BUSH.
All polls show Bush beats Kerry when it comes to the war on terrorism.
I also thought this was spoken about in the Dolpher (sp?) report and thought it might have been moved before the war. But I'm not to sure about this one
In the world of the New York Times, a convoy of 80 to 100 tractor trilers hauling away HE is a quite exceptable notion but 4 tractor trailers hauling off WMD and one jeep carrying a suitcase with the bio crap is out of the question. They are pathetic.
The surprise will be when the Dems think they have given this story legs and the administration admits that we took it out of country.
NYT Excerpted. Posted entire article at #12.
You are dreaming. The perception that the war wasn't planned carefully is a long dead horse. Nobody is going to be swayed one way or the other at this point in the election on the Iraq issue, based on this story.
Perhaps I missed something, but the article doesn't state conclusively that the explosives disappeared after the war. It says that the IAEA was monitoring the site prior to the war, but I'm sure they stopped days if not weeks before the invasion. The soldiers looked at the site, and determined that nothing was there shortly after the invasion started. Thus, they weapons could easily have been moved by Saddam to Syria prior to the war.
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Am I missing something? Does it say anywhere that the 377 tons of explosives were verified to have been there at the time of the invasion?
"Weapon inspectors determined that Iraq had bought the explosives from France, China and Yugoslavia, a European diplomat said."
Hmmm.
Yup. Zarqawi rolled up 1600 Toyota pickups in the early days of the war and carried it all out.
When the NYT questioned him at the time, he claimed the trucks were being used in a wedding procession.
The answer seemed to satisfy the keen analytical minds at the Times.
if you had to bet, would you bet against the DNC having some backchannel method to communicate with Zarqawi? or iran? you know you wouldn't.
this is the real thing to fear here - this story as a standalone means almost nothing. But some huge attack in iraq, as you say regarding what the trolls are posting, that kills a large number of US soldiers in one event - that could be the real agenda here.
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Kerry will try to make hay out of this, but I don't see this having much effect on the election. If anything, it reminds people that Saddam was working on nukes.