Tick, Tick, Tick...
Posted on 10/28/2004 8:56:14 AM PDT by ambrose
Last Update: Friday, October 29, 2004. 0:50am (AEST)
IAEA defends missing explosives report
A report on the amount of conventional explosives missing from an Iraqi storage site did not overstate the stockpile's size as a US media report suggests, the UN nuclear watchdog says.
The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) had said that 342 tonnes of high explosives had disappeared from a site near Baghdad.
Iraq told the IAEA the explosives at the sprawling Al Qaqaa military facility had gone missing through theft and looting due to lack of security after the US-led invasion.
But ABC News (America) reports that confidential IAEA documents show that on January 14, 2003, UN inspectors found just over three tons of one type of explosive, RDX.
That inspection was conducted before the war began.
"The bulk of the RDX was stored at another site that was under Al Qaqaa's jurisdiction," IAEA spokeswoman Melissa Fleming said.
She says that the report seen by ABC only covers the Al Qaqaa site itself.
The second site, Al Mahaweel, is roughly 45 kilometres from Al Qaqaa.
"They (Iraq) considered that site part of Al Qaqaa and that's how it was always declared," she said.
"IAEA inspectors inventoried that site on January 15, 2003," the day after the Al Qaqaa inspection reported by ABC.
RDX is one of three types of explosive at the Al Qaqaa site that arms experts say could potentially be used to make a detonator for a nuclear bomb, blow up an airplane or building, or in numerous other military and civilian applications.
However, Ms Fleming says it is possible that the Iraqi report on missing explosives overstated the amount of RDX by 10 tons because it did not take account of an earlier Iraqi statement that that amount had been used for civilian purposes.
The IAEA has yet to verify the Iraqi statements because it has been barred from most of Iraq since the war.
It has watched from afar as the former nuclear sites it once monitored have been stripped by looters.
-- Reuters
El Baredi fighting for his job
El Baredi is the problem.
But ABC News (America) reports that confidential IAEA documents show that on January 14, 2003, UN inspectors found just over three tons of one type of explosive, RDX.
3 tonnes is a far cry from 342tonnes, then there is the point that it was gone before we ever got there.
I guess it would be to much to expect for AP or Reuters to question the timing of this release. Nah!
So the big pile went to a little pile. In other words, yesterday Kerry considered the stockpile WMDs...a big no-no since he already said there were no WMDs. Since it is a little pile, they aren't WMDs. Or are they explosives? Kerry just keeps waffling on and on. Pretty soon, we will find out the non-story is just that; a non story.
Tick, Tick, Tick...
Now you know what they mean by "MAY" have been overstated.
Oh, IIIII Seeeeeee! It was another site. Anything else you want to tell us?
Why, yes, I guess there is.
The IAEA has yet to verify the Iraqi statements because it has been barred from most of Iraq since the war.
Hmmm. You mean the IAEA doesn't actually know what they are talking about? Well, thank you for that little piece of information.
Um, Ms. Fleming. You and your IAEA stooges can shut up now.
Did the IAEA find 3 tons at Al QaQaa and the balance at Al Mahaweel?
If so maybe it's still there. If not then?
El Baredi is full of QAQAA!!!
Appears that the UAEA is playing a shell game.
Make that ''IAEA'', doofus.
Pretty bad when you can predict what your adversary will say before they say it.
While we're on the subject, maybe the IAEA would care to explain why they refused to destroy the RDX back in 1995 when Charles Duelfer asked them to.
Yes, along with the entire United Nations. That the UN would be truthful in any situation that would be favorable to the US, US policy, or W is just plain ludicrous. The UN is entirely corrupt and has the goal of putting the US under UN authority. They will slide a knife in the back of any American that slows them from that goal. Kerry is their man, and the DemoRats their troops.
You're reading it wrong. Of the two types of explosive, it was only the RDX that was overestimated (140 vs. 3). The HMX figures were consistent. So it's not 342 vs. 3, it's more like 340 vs. 180.
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