Lockhart Statement on Reports of Missing Explosives in Iraq (Also the Kerry Statement)

U.S. Newswire | 10/25/04

[areafiftyone]

To: National Desk, Political Reporter

Contact: Chad Clanton or Phil Singer, 202-464-2800, both of Kerry-Edwards 2004; http://www.johnkerry.com

WASHINGTON, Oct. 25 /U.S. Newswire/ -- Kerry-Edwards Senior Advisor Joe Lockhart issued the following statement on reports of missing explosives in Iraq:

"Today, the Bush administration must answer for what may be the most grave and catastrophic mistake in a tragic series of blunders in Iraq. How did they fail to secure nearly 380 tons of known, deadly explosives despite clear warnings from the International Atomic Energy Agency to do so? And why was this information unearthed by reporters -- and was it covered up by our national security officials?

"These explosives can be used to blow up airplanes, level buildings, attack our troops and detonate nuclear weapons. The Bush administration knew where this stockpile was, but took no action to secure the site. They were urgently and specifically informed that terrorists could be helping themselves to the most dangerous explosives bonanza in history, but nothing was done to prevent it from happening.

"This material was monitored and controlled by UN inspectors before the invasion of Iraq. Thanks to the stunning incompetence of the Bush administration, we now have no idea where it is.

"We need to know what the administration knew about this and when. We need to know why they failed to safeguard these explosives and keep them out of the hands of our enemies. The National Security Advisor should be at her desk in Washington tomorrow to work this problem and answer these questions, instead of giving speeches in battleground states."

Paid for by Kerry-Edwards 2004, Inc.

http://www.usnewswire.com/

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/© 2004 U.S. Newswire 202-347-2770/

FROM JOHN KERRY:

BUSH'S FAILURE TO SECURE IRAQI EXPLOSIVES HAS MADE THE WORLD LESS SAFE

Today, the New York Times revealed that the Bush Administration failed to secure nearly 380 tons of high-grade explosives in Iraq shortly after the United States took control over the country, despite being informed of their exact location. The failure to secure the explosives has led to three major concerns:

1) The weapons could end up or have already ended up in the hands of a terrorist group;

2) The explosives might be used against our troops on the ground; and

3) The explosives could be used to carry out a deadly attack against America or our allies.

NEW REVELATION: Failure To Secure Iraqi Explosives May Mean that Powerful Explosives are in Hands of Terrorists

Bush Administration Remained Silent About the Disappearance of Explosives. "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.'" 10/25/04]

Explosives May Help Terrorists Create Chaos. "In May, an internal I.A.E.A. memorandum warned that terrorists might be helping 'themselves to the greatest explosives bonanza in history.'"

Explosives Could Be Used For Nuclear Weapon. "The explosives could also be used to trigger a nuclear weapon, which was why international nuclear inspectors had kept a watch on the material."

NEW REVELATION: Bush Administration Was Warned About Possible Looting of Explosives But Failed To Act

Bush Administration Ignored Warnings of Leaving Explosives Unsupervised. "A European diplomat reported that Jacques Baute, head of the I.A.E.A.'s Iraq nuclear inspection team, warned officials at the United States mission in Vienna about the danger of the nuclear sites and materials once under I.A.E.A. supervision, including Al Qaqaa. But apparently, little was done. A senior Bush administration official said that during the initial race to Baghdad, American forces 'went through the bunkers, but saw no materials bearing the I.A.E.A. seal.' It is unclear whether they ever returned."

Kerry called on Bush to secure Iraq from looting "Yesterday, Kerry took issue with the Bush administration's post-war policies in Iraq. 'I think they wasted a month,' Kerry said. 'They lost a serious amount of time because they didn't have a plan. They have allowed looting to take place that has done more damage to the infrastructure than any bomb.'" Journal-Bulletin, 5/23/03]

Bush / Administration Played Down Looting at the Time:

Bush Was Unconcerned About Looting. When asked in April 2003 about concerns of looting, Bush said: "The statue comes down on Wednesday, and the headlines start to read, 'Oh, there's disorder.' Well, no kidding... But just like the military campaign was second-guessed, I'm sure the plan is being -- but we will be successful."

Rumsfeld on Looting: "Stuff Happens". "'Freedom's untidy, and free people are free to make mistakes and commit crimes and do bad things,' Rumsfeld said. ... Looting, he added, was not uncommon for countries that experience significant social upheaval. 'Stuff happens,' Rumsfeld said."

White House Said Looting Was Part of Liberation Process. In April 2003, asked about looting in Iraq, White House Spokesman Ari Fleischer said: "Clearly, anything that involves looting is not desirable. It is worth noting that what you are seeing is a reaction to oppression. ... It's also a situation the world has seen before when oppressed people find freedom. For a short period of time, these actions have occurred in history. You saw it in Sierra Leone, you saw it in the Soviet Union with the collapse of the Soviet Union. And nobody likes to see it, but I think it has to be understood in the context of people who have been oppressed, who are reacting to the oppression..."

White House Said Stories About Looting Were Overblown. Asked about the widespread looting in Iraq, Fleischer said: "This is almost starting to remind me of the stories that said our forces were bogged down, as people watched 24, 36 hours' worth of people reacting to the oppression from which they suffered. ...but there's no question, in the President's judgment, that what's happening is people are finding liberation, are finding freedom."

NEW REVELATION: Explosives May Be Used Against Our Troops

Immediate Concern Is Weapons Could Be Used Against Troops. "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."

Same Type of Explosives Have Been Used By Terrorists Before. "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."

Bush Said He Would Do Everything To Keep U.S. Soldiers Safe.

Bush: "Look, we just need strong support for our troops. And I have a solemn duty to say to you as squarely as I can, we will do the very best we possibly can to make your loved one safe. That's what we owe the family members, and that's what we owe the troops."

[texastoo]

I am not in the mood to look up anything this morning. So this is just my memory at work. All of these past looting statements are taken out of context. IIRC, these statements were in regard to the looting of museums that took place after the invasion of Bagdad.

[Diogenesis]

This harping must be seen in the background of DNC-supported terrorism.

Partial list of Terrorist Weapons - Found in Iraq:

* A clandestine network of laboratories and safehouses within the Iraqi Intelligence Service
that contained equipment subject to UN monitoring and suitable for continuing CBW research.

* A prison laboratory complex, possibly used in human testing of BW agents, that Iraqi officials
working to prepare for UN inspections were explicitly ordered not to declare to the UN.

* Reference strains of biological organisms concealed in a scientist's home,
one of which can be used to produce biological weapons.

* New research on BW-applicable agents, Brucella and Congo Crimean Hemorrhagic Fever (CCHF),
and continuing work on ricin and aflatoxin were not declared to the UN.

* Documents and equipment, hidden in scientists' homes, that would have been useful in
resuming uranium enrichment by centrifuge and electromagnetic isotope separation (EMIS).

* A line of UAVs not fully declared at an undeclared production facility and an admission
that they had tested one of their declared UAVs out to a range of 500 km, 350 km beyond the permissible limit.

* Continuing covert capability to manufacture fuel propellant useful only for prohibited SCUD variant missiles,
a capability that was maintained at least until the end of 2001 and that cooperating Iraqi scientists
have said they were told to conceal from the UN.

* Plans and advanced design work for new long-range missiles with ranges up to at least 1000 km -
well beyond the 150 km range limit imposed by the UN. Missiles of a 1000 km range would have allowed
Iraq to threaten targets through out the Middle East, including Ankara, Cairo, and Abu Dhabi.

Clandestine attempts between late-1999 and 2002 to obtain from North Korea technology
related to 1,300 km range ballistic missiles --probably the No Dong -- 300 km range anti-ship cruise missiles,
and other prohibited military equipment.

---

Still missing based on the UNSCOM report to the UN Security Council in January 1999,
when the UN inspectors left Iraq in 1998, they had been unable to account for:

• up to 360 tons of bulk chemical warfare agents, including 1.5 tons of VX nerve agent;

• up to 3,000 tons of precursor chemicals, including approximately 300 tons which,
in the Iraqi chemical warfare program, were unique to the production of VX;

• growth media procured for biological agent production (enough to produce
over three times the 8,500 litres of anthrax spores Iraq admitted to UN inspectors to having manufactured);

• over 30,000 special munitions for delivery of chemical and biological agents;

• 20 al-Hussein missles with a range of 650 km, in violation
of UN Security Council Resolution 687 (Iraq had told UNSCOM that it filled these warheads with anthrax and botulinum);

• 2,850 tons of mustard gas, 210 tons of tabun, and 795 tons of sarin and cyclosarin;

• development of the Al-Samoud short-range missle (which had the capability to fly beyond the 150 km allowed by UN resolutions)

---

=========== Documents linking Atta, Saddam, Nidal, bin Ladin ===========

Handwritten letter dated Feb. 19, 1998 linking bin Laden and Saddam Hussein
discussing arrival of a secret envoy sent by bin Laden to Iraq.
The signature beneath the letter is a codename, "MDA" - the Mukhabarat.

---

========= Chemical Warhead found in Kirkuk =============

Chemical warhead found at an Iraqi air base, marked with a green band,
the symbol for chemical weaponry. Trace amounts of a nerve agent were found
at two spots along the ~meter-long warhead. These amounts are consistent with
leakage from the chemically armed weapon. A 13-foot missile was found next to it.

---

========= Halabja =========

children, previously playing in Halabja
Victims of Saddams' WMD in March 1988.

[RtWngr]

That argument only works for the Dems: "its old news". Republicans are held to different standards. What could be older news than Bush's National Guard service - and look how long that was on the front pages again. This story will moves the polls this week - just watch.

[Eric in the Ozarks]

Unfortunately, it again points to the fact that we didn't put enough troops in country after the takeover.

[non-anonymous]

They can be used to "detonate nuclear weapons"

If there's a terrorist with nukes in mind, I doubt his most pressing problem is finding common conventional explosives.

[finnman69]

It would not be surprising if the explosives were SOLD by corrupt UN members or they were bribed to look the other way.

[coloradan]

Also missing was a case of red pushbotton switches, which can be used to detonate nuclear weapons.

[Graymatter]

The October surprise is that Kerry is still on his feet and polling in the 40's. Still no sight of his medical records, his military records, or his running mate's qualifications to stand a heartbeat away from the presidency.

[brewcrew]

Sit on it, Joe. Bush/Rove will take this and stick it up your backside, probably by the end of the day tomorrow.

[BrigidZ]

WAIT .... I thought THERE WERE NO Weapons .... Yeah Saddam had no weapons .... but wait now they say there were some ..............

THE LOGIC PEOPLE... the LOGIC ............. That's why I can't understand WHY anyone can vote for the Dems....

[2ndreconmarine]

The failure to secure the explosives has led to three major concerns:

1) The weapons could end up or have already ended up in the hands of a terrorist group;

2) The explosives might be used against our troops on the ground; and

3) The explosives could be used to carry out a deadly attack against America or our allies.

NEW REVELATION: Failure To Secure Iraqi Explosives May Mean that Powerful Explosives are in Hands of Terrorists

The sheer illogic of this is extraordinary. The argument by the MSM and Demos to date has been: 1) There were no WMDs or weapons in Iraq, 2) there was no imminent threat to the US, and 3) There was no terrorist connection between Iraq and terrorists.

Now they are saying: 1) There are weapons, 2) they pose an imminent threat to the US, and 3) they are linked to terrorists. Perhaps someone can explain this to me.

In addition... what would have been the case if we had never invaded?? Answer: the terrorists would have these explosives and a lot of other stuff too.

As other posters have observed, this essentially proves Bush's argument that there were WMDs and other weapons. It also proves an imminent threat. It also proves a terrorist connection.

[2ndreconmarine]

Darn, you beat me by a few minutes. Nice post. Could't agree more.

[rocklobster11]

Then why isn't the Bush administration getting that out in the News media. Kerry is about to give a speech on this. Bush should not let Kerry get away with this!

It's called the rope-a-dope. Let Kerry and the media spout off for a day or 2 and then hit them hard with the facts. Or perhaps, I'm off in fantasy land. We will see.

[Cicero]

This strikes me as a pretty feeble October surprise.

Next, I suppose they will bring up the theft of priceless historical works of art from the Baghdad Museum. That was all Bush's fault too.

[RtWngr]

I'll do my best. I'm beginning to understand DemoCrap, but my translation may be a bit strained:

There were no WMD's in Iraq before the war.
There was no imminent threat to the US before the war.
There was no link to terrorists before the war.

Because of the war, all three of these things are now present.

Democrat translation: We were safer with Saddam in power because he kept these things from happening, i.e. he was our ally.

Its not to difficult to imagine how they can believe Saddam was an ally when they believe that France is an ally.

[areafiftyone]

I hope so.

[sheikdetailfeather]

My brother lives in Tennessee and is a Vietnam vet. He voted early for George Bush even though he has trouble even walking around in the grocery store. He has a doctor appt. on the 26th and said he does not want to possibly be admitted to a hospital and unable to vote. He called me to announce he made sure he voted.

[Theo]

The Kerry camp had these letters ready pretty quickly, hm?

I suspect they and the NYT were working together on this story.

Otherwise, would they have been so prepared to release their responses?

[ArmyBratCutie]

bless his heart!!....you give him a hug for me...and thank him for his service to our country...

[2ndreconmarine]

I'll do my best. I'm beginning to understand DemoCrap, but my translation may be a bit strained:

There were no WMD's in Iraq before the war....

Because of the war, all three of these things are now present. ...

I'm impressed!! Nice argument, particularly since I know you don't believe it and are just trying to state the putative Demo position. However:

There were no WMDs before the war, but they suddenly appeared after the war and after we destroyed their infrastructure?

I don't think so. Their argument still doesn't work. I agree with a previous poster that surmised that this was a leak by Rove to sucker in the Demos for a "one - two punch". Let the Demos confirm the WMDs, the imminent threat, and the terrorist connection. Even the NYT walked into it with the "set off nuclear bombs" comment. Once the Demos have agreed to that, their entire criticism of the war in Iraq evaporates.