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Posted on 10/27/2004 7:03:43 PM PDT by ambrose
MISSING EXPLOSIVES
4 Iraqis Tell of Looting at Munitions Site in '03
By JAMES GLANZ and JIM DWYER
Published: October 28, 2004
BAGHDAD, Iraq, Oct. 27 - Looters stormed the weapons site at Al Qaqaa in the days after American troops swept through the area in early April 2003 on their way to Baghdad, gutting office buildings, carrying off munitions and even dismantling heavy machinery, three Iraqi witnesses and a regional security chief said Wednesday.
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The Iraqis described an orgy of theft so extensive that enterprising residents rented their trucks to looters. But some looting was clearly indiscriminate, with people grabbing anything they could find and later heaving unwanted items off the trucks.
Two witnesses were employees of Al Qaqaa - one a chemical engineer and the other a mechanic - and the third was a former employee, a chemist, who had come back to retrieve his records, determined to keep them out of American hands. The mechanic, Ahmed Saleh Mezher, said employees asked the Americans to protect the site but were told this was not the soldiers' responsibility.
The accounts do not directly address the question of when 380 tons of powerful conventional explosives vanished from the site sometime after early March, the last time international inspectors checked the seals on the bunkers where the material was stored. It is possible that Iraqi forces removed some explosives before the invasion.
But the accounts make clear that what set off much if not all of the looting was the arrival and swift departure of American troops, who did not secure the site after inducing the Iraqi forces to abandon it.
"The looting started after the collapse of the regime," said Wathiq al-Dulaimi, a regional security chief, who was based nearby in Latifiya. But once it had begun, he said, the booty streamed toward Baghdad.
Earlier this month, on Oct. 10, the directorate of national monitoring at the Ministry of Science and Technology notified the International Atomic Energy Agency that the explosives, which are used in demolition and missiles and are the raw material for plastic explosives, were missing. The agency has monitored the explosives because they can also be used as the initiator of an atomic bomb.
Agency officials examined the explosives in January 2003 and noted in early March that their seals were still in place. On April 3, the Third Infantry Division arrived with the first American troops.
Chris Anderson, a photographer for U.S. News and World Report who was with the division's Second Brigade, recalled that the area was jammed with American armor on April 3 and 4, which he believed made the removal of the explosives unlikely. "It would be quite improbable for this amount of weapons to be looted at that time because of the traffic jam of armor," he said.
The brigade blew up numerous caches of arms throughout the area, he said. Mr. Anderson said he did not enter the munitions compound.
The Second Brigade of the 101st Airborne Division arrived outside the site on April 10, under the command of Col. Joseph Anderson. The brigade had been ordered to move quickly to Baghdad because of civil disorder there after Mr. Hussein's government fell on April 9.
They gathered at Al Qaqaa, about 30 miles south, simply as a matter of convenience, Colonel Anderson said in an interview this week. He said that when he arrived at the site - unaware of its significance - he saw no signs of looting, but was not paying close attention.
Because he thought the brigade would be moving on to Baghdad within hours, Al Qaqaa was of no importance to his mission, he said, and he was unaware of the explosives that international inspectors said were hidden inside.
Pentagon officials said Wednesday that analysts were examining surveillance photographs of the munitions site. But they expressed doubts that the photographs, which showed vehicles at the location on several occasions early in the conflict, before American troops moved through the area, would be able to indicate conclusively when the explosives were removed.
Col. David Perkins, who commanded the Second Brigade of the Third Infantry Division, called it "very highly improbable" that 380 tons of explosives could have been trucked out of Al Qaqaa in the weeks after American troops arrived.
Moving that much material, said Colonel Perkins, who spoke Wednesday to news agencies and cable television, "would have required dozens of heavy trucks and equipment moving along the same roadways as U.S. combat divisions occupied continually for weeks."
He conceded that some looting of the site had taken place. But a chemical engineer who worked at Al Qaqaa and identified himself only as Khalid said that once troops left the base itself, people streamed in to steal computers and anything else of value from the offices. They also took munitions like artillery shells, he said.
Mr. Mezher, the mechanic, said it took the looters about two weeks to disassemble heavy machinery at the site and carry that off after the smaller items were gone.
James Glanz reported from Baghdad for this article and Jim Dwyer from New York. Ali Adeeb contributed reporting from Baghdad, and Khalid W. Hussein and Zainab Obeid fromAl Qaqaa.
Can you say CBS? The Slimes didn't vet the story...they just ran with it.
ping!!
They are just dragging up any nonsense they can find now. I sure hope there is a big backlash against the MSM after this election.
Public contact: http://www.dod.mil/faq/comment.html
(703) 428-0711
If the New York Times were a motorcycle, and the gray matter inside it's walls, fuel, there wouldn't be enough to propel it around a BB!!!!!!!!!
I think it will backfire. Did you catch the 101st Soldier on
H & C? He was pissed at Kerry for saying the military didn't do its job. I found him very persuasive.
Three Iraq's carried off 380 TONS of explosive??????
Spare me, oh Lord.
Could someone calculate how many camels it would take to spirit away 380 tons of anything?
HAHAHAHAHAHA This just kills me.
I suppose Patton induced german forces to abandon their Capitol ? ? ?? LOLOLO
Let me guess . . . McCarther induced japaneese forces to abandon Iwo/Jima ? ?? ?
The complete and utter defeat of the worlds 4th largest Army by the very best military force on the planet, according to the liberals at the NYT is just induced the Iraqi forces to adandone the site HAHAHAHAHAHa
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I'm no expert, but the Russians, French, and Germans had a great deal supplying arms to Hussien under the "oil for food program"
Once they realized that the US was going to invade and knock down the Hussein regime, they had to cover their asses.
Get rid of the evidence before the Americans arrive.
Just my take on it.
This was planned to the tee.
All they wanted was a HEADLINE! Kerry, the UN, CBS, and the NYT JUST WANTED THE HEADLINE!
CBS decided not to go with the story because they had NO DATE, NO IDEA at all if the Military had found weapons, and left them exposed, or if the just neglected to search and left them to be looted, or if they were gone before the war.
So the NYT ran it, Kerry and his PR team the MSM repeated it, Bush and the military could not comment, THEY DON'T HAVE FACTS, AND ONLY BUSH IS SUPPOSED TO HAVE FACTS, NOT KERRY.
The entire story is too hard for the public to figure out this late in the game.
Kerry will not be called on it, because AS THE ABC MEMO SAID, THIS CAMPAIGN IS NOT ABOUT KERRY.
We were had.
God help us.
What amazes me is how the ABC News website never seems to have a clue about stories that broke on the ABC World News Tonight program, and vice versa. It's like they pay no attention to each other.
They should report all relevant evidence, not just what supports their anti-Bush, anti-troop spin.
This is getting interesting. Unless Kerry wants to claim looters were stealing computers to stage internet virus attacks on our troops, I'm not sure there is much to support the movement of 380 tons of explosives (which we have learned tonight via the IAEA was actually only 3 tons...maybe...they think).
No doubt sadaam loyalist. I am certain they got viet cong to confirm this to make sure it was true.
Thanks, Jet Jag! Sounds logical. I just wish the media would explain crap like this when they tell us about it!
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Isn't it funny how our MSM takes the word of Iraqi insurgents, and 70 year old Communist Vietnamese over American Soldiers.
Very interesting. Kerry's campaign advisors must be looking for new jobs at this moment.
Oh no. Remember, those weapons weren't there to begin with. They were all a figment of Dubya's imagination. And why weren't our forces stopping the plunder of Iraqi museums instead of colluding with the conspiracy of antiquity dealers???!!!!
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