Tons Of Explosives Missing In Iraq

AP ^

[DocRock]

The IEAE Refused To Let U.S. Troops Remove 500 Tons of Uranium From Iraq!


San Diego Union Tribune

[OkiMusashi]

Nice article. Two questions:

1. When did the first American soldier drive up to the gates of that ammo dump?

2. Was it empty when he got there?

[Austin Willard Wright]

Err....George Bush and Donald Rumsfeld are in in charge of this particular fiasco, not Hans Blix

[Austin Willard Wright]

Thanks for being honest about your partisanship! It is refreshing to see such blunt confessions on this site.

[BladeLWS]

This coming from a source in the Kerry campaign alone makes this seem fishy.

[ml1954]

If Clinton was still President, I'd blame this on his incompetent leadership. But since Bush is President, I'm torn between "what's the big deal" and "its still Clinton's fault".

Or maybe you could just doubt the veracity and the timing of the story. The UN thought there were tons of missing anthrax and couldn't find it. This is the 'Bush Lied' story. This is about tons of explosives the UN says Saddam had but now can't find, but this is the 'Bush Is Incompetent' story. Can't have it both ways unless you're Kerry and Co.

[scoastie]

perhaps so..but the myth lives on after the reality is exposed...it is all front page news this am in the NY Times...alll frontpage stuff designed to slam Bush..and I heard on Fox and Friends this am that many in Florida got the NY Times, even though they do not have a subscription to it. Now that's calculated.

[scoastie]

so they manufactured this crap and Kerry is running with it..tell me the NYT and the Kerry campaign is NOT in cahoots..


Fox News is stating these WMD's went mssing AFTER the Iraq liberation..

[scoastie]

is Al Tuwaitha the same as Al Aqaa or whatever the hell that other place is named?

[Jack Deth]

The NY Times has been a distribution forum for Democratic Talking Points and Hand-Outs since they printed the Pentagon Papers, scoastie.

Gladly printing "All The News That Fits!"

Jack.

[Edit35]

After reading several versions of this story about missing explosives, it is not at all clear how much of the HMX material was even there in the days leading up to the war.

Also, the HMX (or whatever) was under Iraqi-UN control and could very well have disappeared before the April 2003 US liberation. It could also be a case of bad record keeping.

The NYSlimes is portraying this story as the US losing explosive material that WE brought to Iraq to fight the war on terror.

That is false. This HMX was bought by Saddam Hussein from France, China and Yugoslavia, and was being stored for some nefarious purpose. It's unclear how much was even left prior to the US liberation in April 2003.

[COEXERJ145]

Interesting that Joe Lockhart is the primary "news" source quoted by the AP......

Same on SEE-BS Radio News. This has been their top story this morning and most of the report is on what Kerry and his cronies have been spewing. Then at the end they take a dig a Rice saying she should "be behind a desk instead out campaigning".

[DocRock]

"is Al Tuwaitha the same as Al Aqaa or whatever the hell that other place is named?"

Sorry, but I haven't had time to research it yet. I am off to work and will probably not get a chance until later... much later. I just think it is important that people know that there were 500 tons of Uranium in Iraq and it didn't "pass the global test" when we wanted to remove it.

[MeekOneGOP]

[Sender]

There were, and are, so many tons of explosives and ordnance all over Iraq that we will never know the extent of it all. This is obviously a last-ditch Kerry team effort to bolster "the mess in Iraq" as a Bush failure. Unfortunately 350 tons of explosives is probably just the tip of Saddam's iceberg. The bad guys have enough bang stuff to keep making car bombs until the cows come home, or until we kill them all.

[R. Scott]

The cited article and other news reports do not say when the material “disappeared”. It could have been removed prior to the continuation of the war. The site was known to store the explosives, and should have been secured as soon as possible and an inventory taken. I vaguely remember news reports from the time of the initial combat that the area was secured and inspected – and nothing was found but empty and blown up bunkers.

From Fox News:

Iraqi officials sent a letter to the IAEA on Oct. 10 to inform the agency that tons of HMX and RDX explosives were missing from the Al Qaqaa military installation south of Baghdad. Officials believe the material was looted following the fall of Saddam Hussein’s government in April 2003.
...
ElBaradei told the United Nations in February 2003 that Iraq had declared that "HMX previously under IAEA seal had been transferred for use in the production of industrial explosives, primarily to cement plants as a booster for explosives used in quarrying."

So far I can find nothing to indicate that 380 tons of high explosives were simply left in the open to be used by the Iraqi insurgents.

[DocRock]

is Al Tuwaitha the same as Al Aqaa or whatever the hell that other place is named?

After looking into it for a couple minutes, I did find that they are in the same neighborhood. Just a few kilometers apart.

Tuwaitha

Al-qa-qaa

Check these out, pretty good info and links.

[scoastie]

hey, thanks a lot...I do see that they are in the same vicinity..but now it is being reported that the stuff vanished BEFORE the Iraq liberation....hmmm...verrrry interesting.....oh, is Salman Pak not around this area too??hmmm......

[DocRock]

It seems Al-qa-qaa is only a few kilometers away, but it is closer to Salman Pac.

Here is a good image of Salman Pac. Click on it for High Resolution: