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
Seriously... the ONLY way!
Maybe we California Conservatives (No it's not an oxymoron!!) need to develope a secret handshake!
Koppel said at the time he did not realize it but he was at the KaKa facility at the time in question. He showed video of him intervgiewing a soldier there.
He ended the show by stating that the weapons were not there and were removed before the invasion.
good grief.
This is huge.
I do note that Fox news is now carrying the report that over 200 tons of materials from that site were removed and destroyed in April of 2003.
So there you have it. Any more questions before you leave?
I assume that you have now seen the film with your own eyes and enjoyed the next 3 explanations the pentagon has given ending with pulling a poor soldier out to say he blew up some munitions, but he did not know if theses were a part of it.
This was a huge screw up by the pentagon , plain and simple.
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