Posted on 10/28/2004 4:36:02 PM PDT by Cavalier79
Oct. 28, 2004 — The strongest evidence to date indicates that conventional explosives missing from Iraq's Al-Qaqaa installation disappeared after the United States had taken control of Iraq.
Barrels inside the Al-Qaqaa facility appear on videotape shot by ABC television affiliate KSTP of St. Paul, Minn., which had a crew embedded with the 101st Airborne Division when it passed through Al-Qaqaa on April 18, 2003 — nine days after Baghdad fell.
Discrepancy Found in Explosives Amounts
Alleged American Al Qaeda Warns of U.S. Attacks Video Suggests Explosives Disappeared After U.S. Took Control Person of the Week: Complete Coverage Experts who have studied the images say the barrels on the tape contain the high explosive HMX, and the U.N. markings on the barrels are clear.
"I talked to a former inspector who's a colleague of mine, and he confirmed that, indeed, these pictures look just like what he remembers seeing inside those bunkers," said David Albright, president of the Institute for Science and International Security in Washington.
The barrels were found inside sealed bunkers, which American soldiers are seen on the videotape cutting through. Inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency sealed the bunkers where the explosives were kept just before the war began.
"The seal's critical," Albright said. "The fact that there's a photo of what looks like an IAEA seal means that what's behind those doors is HMX. They only sealed bunkers that had HMX in them."
After the bunkers were opened, the 101st was not ordered to secure the facility. A senior officer told ABC News the division would not have had nearly enough soldiers to do so.
It remains unclear how much HMX was at the facility, but what does seem clear is that the U.S. military opened the bunkers at Al-Qaqaa and left them unguarded. Since then, the material has disappeared.
ABC News' Martha Raddatz filed this report for World News Tonight
Newt is making the point on Fox..This story was released and published to hurt the President's reelection chances and someone else said this..I paraphrase..In war "stuff" happens and to expect tactical decisions to be perfect in the midst of war is outrageous..
These guys were trying accomplish a mission, free Iraq and this is one tenth of one percent of what they have captured.(400,000 tons)
I do not believe 370 tons were looted..I don't believe it was possible...some was probably looted.
What it looks like to me is that ABC may have gotten a little "creative" with their story here.
How you can expect Rove or anyone to predict what lie the media will tell next is beyond me.
Just for this forum I'll put ABC news on. It's just starting and I literally haven't watched it in years. Gas mask on...I'm going in!
I heard the Reporter on talk radio today ( KTSP 1500) and he said that they have the GPS coordinates and that he was trying to get the markings verified by the military, which also includes the date. ABC only told part of the reporters story, surprise not.
Why doesn't the media cut the crap and let the people of this country decide who will be president?
I agree, I watched the video and there were no seals on the bunkers.
There were tons of explosives on the site, but they weren't the explosives in question.
That's what it looks like to me. Combined with the camera crew's uncertainty of where they were, and the date being a week later, I appears these guys were filming a different bunker at a different place at a different time ("Wrong bunker, wrong place, wrong time" ?)
So the stuff they are taping WAS secured by troops and WAS NOT lost. It is not "proof" that there was explosive at Al QaaQa when the U.S. arrived. And if that is the case, this report was a bigger mis-information attempt than RaTHergate.
The label identifying numbers in the IATA system are:
HMX is UN 0226
RDX is UN 0072
PETN is UN 0150
I just saw it here. She said "how much HMX, *if it was indeed HMX*..."
I agree there was a strain in her voice.
Unfortunately I missed the very first part of the report but was back in time to see the padlock, the picture of the bunker and the interior shots, then her comments. I looked for a date stamp on the video but saw none. Did she say a date? The articles regarding the story say April 18, but the 101st was at Al Qaqaa on April 10.
Absolutely correct. http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/library/policy/army/fm/4-30-13/apph.htm
There are quite a few types of explosives listed as 1.1D
Without a UNO number not much can be gleaned from the pics.
It is revealing that ABC says 1.1D means it's HMX, when it could ALSO be any of a dozen or more other common explosives including black powder and gunpowder.
Oh brother.
The IATA UN classification numbers for explosives all begin with zero., so that "23---" probably is something else. There isn't any 023x that falls into 1.1, either
HMX is UN 0226
RDX is UN 0072
PETN is UN 0150
Exactly. Those people who already disliked him were already going to vote against him. The Bush supporters won't be swayed a bit by this...
Just watched it and I didn't see any seals either.
He was very adamant that he did not know what he saw or for that matter exactly where he was and he was waiting for more information before he would be confident that the stuff he saw was indeed the controversial explosives."
Thanks Debbie. It looks like the embedded reporter is not at fault here and ABC decided to "jump to conclusions" as is their wont (when it's "Get Bush" time).
I think ABC just got PJed. Thank you.
Look, it's way too late in the game to try and honestly refute this story in toto, one which relies so much on inference and extrapolation (if we have video of SOME explosives then, well, ALL of the 380 tonnes must have been there and subject to looting after the invasion).
The best way to respond? Obsfucate!
Who cares, at this point, if it's 100% accurate, but the best way to go is to repeat---again and again and again---that questions about what happened at Al Qaaqaa post-invasions are attacks on brave members of the Armed Forces.
Period.
THEY report half-truths and try to steer voters into making certain conclusions, so why can't we do the same?
"John Kerry attacked our men in uniform after Vietnam for political gain, and he's doing it again now for the very same reason."
Works for me.
I find it strange (and awfully convenient) that all the writing on the boxes and barrels is in english.
If Bush doesn't win, then look for MSM stories to 'highlight the positive progress in the Iraq war', in order to make Kerry look good right off the bat.
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