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
From her bio:
Since joining ABCNEWS, Raddatz has covered the Middle East, Africa, Pakistan and India while traveling with the U.S. Secretary of State. Her coverage at the State Department after the attacks of September 11, 2001, was recognized with other ABCNEWS recipients with a Peabody Award.
Raddatz has also been awarded two Emmys for coverage of Kosovo and the Elian Gonzalez case in the news program Weekend World News.
In addition to her work for ABCNEWS, Raddatz has written for The New Republic and is a frequent guest on PBS' Washington Week in Review.
From 1993-1998, Raddatz was the Pentagon correspondent for National Public Radio, where she reported on foreign policy, defense and intelligence issues. During her tenure at NPR, she made numerous trips to eastern Europe to cover the war in Bosnia.
Prior to joining NPR in 1993, Raddatz was the chief correspondent at the ABCNEWS Boston affiliate WCVB-TV. In addition to covering several presidential campaigns, she has traveled extensively, writing and reporting from the former Soviet Union, Africa, the Middle East, the Philippines and Europe.
Raddatz has been honored for her journalistic contributions many times, including a 1996 Overseas Press Club award for her live coverage of the assassination of Yitzhak Rabin. Her reporting was also recognized with the National Headliner Award for team coverage of the 1988 presidential campaign, and two Radio and Television News Director Association (RTNDA) first-place awards. In addition she has received two Associated Press first-place awards.
When I saw the video on the news, there were several US soldiers showing opening drums and crates.
I can't recall if there was a date stamp on the tape or not.
The reporter was from KSTP a local ABC affiliate.
picture yourself in an insecure war zone--do you enter a building loaded with munitions without protective body armour--without so much as a helmet?
And de nile is not just a river in...
Cleveland?
nevermind... you had to be there.
Honestly. I have a friend who has a friend who think this is true. What kinda of bull$hit is that?
What is the Institute for Science and International Security anyway? From their website:
"Employing science in the pursuit of international peace."
Why didn't ABS identify this guy as a leftist and globalist? Why?
Watch Kerry's stops tomorrow see if he resurrects the story and you'll know exactly where it came from.
My, my the MSM is on a tear tonight, someone's internal polls must be really, really bad.
IAEA report mentions that there are slats for ventilation which rendered "seals" worthless because slats could be easily removed and materials removed without breaking the "seals". Seems they forgot to mention this in thier report.
This contradicts what was on Brit Humes tonight. They said there were seals on the OUTSIDE of the 9 bunkers but they were also ventalation slants (?) that would allow access to inside without disturbing the seals. So, if someone wanted to take the munition they could have gained access that way very easily. The IAEA did not go iside the bunkers to see if the munition was still there, just that the seals had not been broken on the outside. So there is still NO proof the HMX was inside because THEY DID NOT check, they only noted the seals on the outside of the bunker had not been broken. This is what Brit said to an affect on his show tonight.
The question is: Why do the have the video available online? Why just a screen shot? Do they not want the bloggers to examine the evidence?
You know that if ABC New says something (along with most MSM), I just don't believe it until I have seen more details and confirmation from several sources. In talking to my wife, who will vote for Kerry, she also doesn't believe anything the MSM says, even if it is something she wants to hear.
That's not 400 tons.
...and it does not say anything to the point of exactly what kind of explosives they were.
No one is questioning whether a few tons of explosives disappeared. I do not believe for a moment that 400 tons disappeared from that single site after we passed it by.
In the mean time, we have gathered and destroyed many, many times over what they say was lost...and my guess is that what was lost from this site is much, much smaller than what CBS and the NYT tried to pass off.
Kerry is the one who will have the political problem over this, for going off half cocked before he knew the details.
well, it clearly wasn't 380 tons. There were a bunch of small boxes piled in stacks about waist high on the video.
My take, if there was anything in the IAEA bunkers, the bunker busters got it.
---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.---
I thought they went through on the 10th.
If this is true, how does this make it Bush's fault?
The military knew what to look for - everyone should acknowledge that.
If the video is correct, it shows that they found it.
But what happened after that?
Bush ordered the troops to put up big signs saying "Dangerous Explosives Here, Terrorists!" and then leave?
This is so stupid. This stuff isn't even usable by terrorists in the form it was in. What a joke of a scandal.
Couple this with the fact that the commander of the 101st at the time just went on record as saying he had no orders to guard the facility, and it's crystal clear: Any criticism of this sequence of events is a direct condemnation of the 101st.
I mean, this story suggests that the 101st arrived on site, took it upon themselves to partake in activities (unsealing bunkers) for which they were not trained nor under orders to perform, then simply up and left what they uncovered unguarded.
You can make the case that conventional arms and various other items were looted---hell, there are published stories from that time that clearly state that US troops almost seemed to encourage some low-level looting---but this story doesn't even come close to even thinking about explaining what happened to 377 tonnes of explosives.
...and why the media is suddenly so concerned with "missing" anything since for the past year people have been telling them that Saddam removed far worse in the lead-up to war. These are the same people who ignored UNMOVICs June report...and Paul Martin's (Canada) speech, that indicated Saddam had shipped out weapon technology that was being found as far north as the Netherlands.
For almost two years the media hasn't given a sh*t about what Saddam whisked out of Iraq prior to the war. Only now, a week before the election, are they suddenly concerned with missing explosives that even the UN admitted weren't worthy of attention. If these are so dangerous, why were they left to fester under Saddam's control for 8 years, even after Duelfer recommended they be destroyed in 1995 as per the UN resolutions. Only now, when they think they can blame Bush and the US, does the US media finally become concerned with Saddam's weapons. These people are the enemy.
IF - and that's a really BIG IF this story pans out as this would indicate - how does it go back to being Bush's fault? Is he on the ground making those decisions, or is that the job of the commanders on the ground and in theater?
Come on ABC make the video available (online) for examination... That still screen shot just won't do...
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