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
forget it. if you just saw the CNN segment with David Kay detailing what the photos show - you wouldn't like it.
No--I have Laura Ingraham on MSNBC because she wants a bigger audience than Chris Matthews. LOL
What is Kay saying?
Could you please enlighten us with what he said.
How does he know what happened at whatever this site is? (it's more than likely not Al Qaqaa, the site at issue in this idiotic story)
I'll post the transcript when it comes up on CNN. But it is his opinion, that we (the soldiers) dropped the ball.
It sounded like he knew the site (it was the site for Gerald Bull's supergun project). he identified the seals in the photos, and the cannisters of the material in the bunker. he did say that perhaps the US troops didn't know what they had.
Watch the video people and then look at the Sat pics of the complex. By their own admission they weren't even close to the complex. Now, any moron who thinks they can move 400 tons of anything in that area during a war needs their heads examined!
Remember it is DOCUMENTED that they were certainly not there in May when Survey group did the detailed sweep.
Kerry and his anti-American supporters put their faith in the NYT and UN over the troops. That's the bottom line!
Now you troll, go back to DU and rally your base.
Watch the video people and then look at the Sat pics of the complex. By their own admission they weren't even close to the complex. Now, any moron who thinks they can move 400 tons of anything in that area during a war needs their heads examined!
Remember it is DOCUMENTED that they were certainly not there in May when Survey group did the detailed sweep.
Kerry and his anti-American supporters put their faith in the NYT and UN over the troops. That's the bottom line!
Now you troll, go back to DU and rally your base.
now Gertz is on Greta Van Susteren again - still pushing this Russia thing. This story is out of control - all these different things cannot be true.
I guess he's assuming the "facts" as presented to him as true.
If the stuff wasn't at the site when our troops arrived at Al Qaqaa then it wasn't there.
I watched the ABC report and at the end Martha says "the HMX, *IF IT WAS HMX*..." and so we have a report that has questions about "where, when and what".
As President Bush has stated, jumping to conclusions is not the wise course and Kaye doesn't have enough information to state categorically that anyone dropped the ball.
Everybody's a friggin' expert. With all this dust, most voters are going to be neutral on this story, which means that Kerry's efforts have all been in vain.
There was some expert on CNN that said it was not HMX. Just on MSNBC was that whimp inspector (US) guy with the mustache saying it was HMX.
I didn't get that impression from what Kaye said, but you will have to see it yourself and make your own judgement.
Bump for anyone interested in shipping codes.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/1260694/posts?page=148#148
well, perhaps that is true. on the face of it, this story is about 100 times too complex for the average sheeple undecided voter to handle. hell, I will admit that I don't know what the hell is going on now either.
but you still have to worry that the media has enough to package a story to spoon feed them, and there is too much uncertainty to be able to hit back with some consistent rebuttal.
No, they aren't all true. The thread has much detail but let me summarize a bit:
The ABC story says the 101st was at Al Qaqaa--*the site that is at issue where the 380 tons was supposed to be* on April 18.
That is false. They were there on April 10. I therefore deduce the video in this report is from a different site. We don't know what was done by other troops at the site this video was shot at or with the stuff found there because the reporting has not been on it---it's been on the Al Qaqaa complex.
The Russian story I don't know if it is true. The satellite picture released today was taken two days before the war even began--the picture taken at the site in question, not wherever this ABC story was (they said it was Al Qaqaa but it couldn't have been)
And remember, once our troops were on these roads we owned the roads and we owned the skies. We monitored convoys and the stuff was not "looted" or stolen under our noses because we would have seen it. Period.
Darn. Did you do that right off the top of your head?
are you talking about David Kay? he was on CNN.
It appears, putting this together with the satellite photos, that the Iraqi's were busy transporting these materials out of Al Qa Qaa, but were not quite through with the job, before cutting out ahead of our advancement.
On CNN Headline News, Kay just went over the satellite photos as well, and it seems, coming to this conclusion. He asserted there just weren't enough troops to cover this compound, but stressed how huge it was -- roughly the size of Manhattan.
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