Posted on 10/28/2004 5:54:13 PM PDT by notkerry
Ummm,
The multiple posts are a litle annoying.
That said I believe you are trying to get input as to what is really going on and to make others aware of the stunts the MSM is pulling.
But maybe you should clarify that at the beginning in your post.
Other wise, tensions being as they are, you will be flamed as a Troll
Take a deep breath, don't be offended by what people say and clarify what you mean to say.
So, we're talking approx. 400 tons of WMD...
NJ_wants_Bush - member since 10/28/04
Welcome to FreeRepublic!
Play nice newbies!
Funny how we never heard any ""concern"" from the leftists over any of these materals BEFORE. How conveeeenient.
Soooo....Saddam really WAS a threat after all, eh? What a shock.
Source?
If the lefties are this desperate to make this story work, it means they probably don't have anything else in their dirty tricks bag...
It is pro-Kerry but if is an MSM story, we need to hear it.
Think about the 3 talking points from the Pentagon and Bush camp when this came up:
1. It was not in US military custody or at least no evidence the US military ever had it in custody.
2. It was a small amount compared to the ocean of weapons in Iraq. about 100,000 tons of weapons have been destroyed.
3. It happened 17 months ago, if it happened via looting at all. This explosive is only an issue for IAEA if it were used as a nuclear trigger.
ALL THREE POINTED TO THIS BEING A NON-STORY FOR ONE WEEK BEFORE THE ELECTION.
Now we have deuling scenarios - pre-war vs post-war removal. The embedded reporter seeing some seals may influence judgement on #1 but doesnt change #2 and #3 ... the big issue then is why does Kerry think this is a big deal?
According to Kerry this is a huge blunder. we now find it was more like 190 tons - of raw explosives, not weapons. Alas, he's the one blundering because he made claims without evidence to back it up.
KERRY NEEDS THIS TO DISTRACT FROM WHO HE IS. AN EXTREMIST LIBERAL AND SOMEONE WHO WILL BE WEAK, WOBBLY AND WRONG ON NATIONAL SECURITY ISSUES.
So Baradei leaks this and it reveals Putin stabbing Bush in the back -- tell me something I didn't know already -- and Kerry puts on the UN blue beret like a fool's fool, and the yellow-brick road leads right to Syria.
The points for me: Does the video show an IAEA copper seal, and did the video get taken at Al Qaqaa?
I watched the big ABC News report: “Video Suggests Explosives Disappeared After U.S. Took Control.”
And at first glance, it appears to make the case that when the 101st Airborne Division arrived on April 18, 2003, there was still a large supply of explosive materials in the facility.
But there are still a few problems with this story.
Problem one: Take a look at the orange label on the container, in this photo.
It says, “EXPLOSIV EXPLOSIVE 1.1 D 1”. (The same label can be purchased here.)
There are three explosives we are looking for here:
HMX, cyclotetramethylene-tetranitramine, also called
Tetrahexamine Tetranitramine
RDX, Cyclotrimethylene trinitramine, and
PETN, Pentaerythritol Tetranitrate
According to this chart from GlobalSecurity.org, the 1.1D classification can be used for the storage and transport of quite a few high powered explosives. Among them are:
Cyclotetramethylene-tetranitramine, wetted or HMX, wetted or Octogen, wetted with not less than 15 percent water, by mass
Cyclotrimethylene-trinitramine, wetted or Cyclonite, wetted or Hexogen, wetted or RDX, wetted with not less than 15 percent water by mass
Pentaerythrite tetranitrate, wetted or Pentaerythritol tetranitrate, wetted, or PETN, wetted with not less than 25 percent water, by mass, or Pentaerythrite tetranitrate, or Pentaerythritol tetranitrate, or PETN, desensitized with not less than 15 percent phlegmatizer by mass.
So - this orange 1.1 D is the label we would look for on HMX, RDX, or PETN. But did those explosives in these containers have 15 or 25 percent water or other dilution liquid in them? Or did they look pretty dry in that desert?
And as we look at the rest of that chart, we see that a lot of other explosives that fall in the 1.1 D category.
Specifically there are 79 other substances and types of explosive material and supporting equipment that would get the 1.1 D label, including gunpowder, flexible detonating cord, photo-flash bombs, mines, nitroglycerin, rocket warheads, grenades, fuzes, torpedoes and charges. And few of them require any liquid dilution.
Is what’s on this news report video HMX, RDX, or PETN? Possibly, if the material inside is some sort of diluting liquid that we didn’t see on the tape, or if the Iraqis were storing these high-grade explosives in an unsafe manner. Or it could be one of the 79 other substances. Or some containers could have the big three, and some could have others.
As usual, it is foolish for folks to jump in and conclude that they know what was in the containers without gathering all of the facts. How many Kerry-backing writers who will cite this video as a smoking gun are familiar with what materials are classified 1.1D?
Problem two: This doesn’t quite explain the internal IAEA documents ABC reported that suggested that significant amounts were gone before the invasion began. “Confidential IAEA documents obtained by ABC News show that on Jan. 14, 2003, the agency's inspectors recorded that just over three tons of RDX were stored at the facility — a considerable discrepancy from what the Iraqis reported.” It all suddenly came back before the war? Or is what we’re seeing in the video three tons?
Problem three: This doesn’t quite explain the Pentagon’s satellite photos of large numbers of trucks leaving the facilities before the war.
Problem four: This doesn’t quite explain how all this could be taken down a road full of heavily armed U.S. forces, under skies full of coalition warplanes. The Pentagon called the removal of that much material from the facility during or after the war “very highly improbable”:
Col. David Perkins commanded the 2nd Brigade of the 3rd Infantry Division, the division that led the charge into Baghdad. Those troops first captured the Iraqi weapons depot from which 377 tons of explosives disappeared.
Two major roads that pass near the Al-Qaqaa installation were filled with U.S. military traffic in the weeks after April 3, 2003, when U.S. troops first reached the area, the colonel said.
Perkins and others in the military acknowledged that some looting at the site had taken place. But he said a large-scale operation to remove the explosives using trucks almost certainly would have been detected.
Problem five: This doesn’t quite explain why none of this explosive has to date shown up in any Iraqi insurgent attack.
One last observation. Follow the shifting headline as the story moves from one news agency to another:
ABC News headline: “Video Suggests Explosives Disappeared After U.S. Took Control
Reuters headline: “Report: Video Shows Explosives Went Missing After War”
I will have to post David Kay's remarks when the transcript comes up on CNN. Its Kay's opinion that we dropped the ball.
So, Saddam did have weapons of mass destruction.
Good thing we went in.
So, Saddam did have weapons of mass destruction.
Good thing we went in.
And its my opinion that Kay should STFU.
He asked for the ISG assignment then quit half way through, if he was too busy for that, he could have at least stayed away from MSM watering holes!
HMX and RDX
Dateline: 02/08/99
By Alan Bruzel
Rocket fuels and explosives used in industrial, aerospace, and military applications all share common characteristics. They are reasonably stable (that is, they do not detonate during normal handling), but will explode violently with a high detonation velocity and pressure when initiated by a more sensitive, primary explosive such as lead azide or mercury fulminate.
RDX is a popular explosive used in oil exploration, rocket propellants, and armaments. (Its acronym has been variously ascribed to Research Department eXplosive, Royal Demolition eXplosive, or Royal Dutch eXplosive.) Its chemical name is cyclotrimethylenetrinitramine and it is synthesized by the nitration of hexamethylenetetramine (HA).
Interestingly, until the advent of sulfa drugs and other therapies, HA was used orally to treat urinary infections – in urine, it hydrolyzes into formaldehyde. World War II rapidly brought HA out of the clinic and into the munitions factory. Why? Because its nitration product, RDX, has more explosive power than TNT.
A side reaction of HA nitration yields cyclotetramethylenetetranitramine, abbreviated HMX (from High Melting eXplosive, Her Majesty's eXplosive, or His Majesty's eXplosive). HMX has one of the fastest detonation velocities known: 9,110 meters per second (20,380 miles per hour).
Powerful explosive forces such as these are effective in penetrating steel and concrete. Add to this the plasticity of RDX and HMX (within proper limits, they can be heated without exploding and cast into a variety of shapes), and one comprehends their potential uses. Military dynamite is 75% RDX, 15% TNT, and 10% plasticizers and desensitizers. The plastic explosive Composition C4 (known simply as C4, and the stock-in-trade of terrorists) is 91% RDX and 9% plasticizer. Exploding HMX provides the detonation waves that compress an atom bomb's uranium-235, thereby initiating the vast energies of nuclear fission. (Iraq has imported hundreds of tons of HMX.)
An inescapable truth is that military preparedness always requires newer and better explosives. In 1987, Arnold Nielson working at the US Naval Air Warfare Center Weapons Division at China Lake synthesized hexanitrohexaazaisowurtzitane (designated as CL-20). Like HMX and RDX, CL-20 is a cyclic nitramine stable to handling and amenable to casting into shaped charges, but is up to 20% more powerful than HMX. In a test using shaped charges (30 grams each) of CL-20 and PBXN-5 (the explosive used in armor-piercing 30mm ammunition fired by the M230 chain gun on the AH-64 Apache helicopter), the CL-20 was able to penetrate seven one-inch steel plates compared to PBXN-5's five plate penetration.
HMX and RDX
Dateline: 02/08/99
By Alan Bruzel
Rocket fuels and explosives used in industrial, aerospace, and military applications all share common characteristics. They are reasonably stable (that is, they do not detonate during normal handling), but will explode violently with a high detonation velocity and pressure when initiated by a more sensitive, primary explosive such as lead azide or mercury fulminate.
RDX is a popular explosive used in oil exploration, rocket propellants, and armaments. (Its acronym has been variously ascribed to Research Department eXplosive, Royal Demolition eXplosive, or Royal Dutch eXplosive.) Its chemical name is cyclotrimethylenetrinitramine and it is synthesized by the nitration of hexamethylenetetramine (HA).
Interestingly, until the advent of sulfa drugs and other therapies, HA was used orally to treat urinary infections – in urine, it hydrolyzes into formaldehyde. World War II rapidly brought HA out of the clinic and into the munitions factory. Why? Because its nitration product, RDX, has more explosive power than TNT.
A side reaction of HA nitration yields cyclotetramethylenetetranitramine, abbreviated HMX (from High Melting eXplosive, Her Majesty's eXplosive, or His Majesty's eXplosive). HMX has one of the fastest detonation velocities known: 9,110 meters per second (20,380 miles per hour).
Powerful explosive forces such as these are effective in penetrating steel and concrete. Add to this the plasticity of RDX and HMX (within proper limits, they can be heated without exploding and cast into a variety of shapes), and one comprehends their potential uses. Military dynamite is 75% RDX, 15% TNT, and 10% plasticizers and desensitizers. The plastic explosive Composition C4 (known simply as C4, and the stock-in-trade of terrorists) is 91% RDX and 9% plasticizer. Exploding HMX provides the detonation waves that compress an atom bomb's uranium-235, thereby initiating the vast energies of nuclear fission. (Iraq has imported hundreds of tons of HMX.)
An inescapable truth is that military preparedness always requires newer and better explosives. In 1987, Arnold Nielson working at the US Naval Air Warfare Center Weapons Division at China Lake synthesized hexanitrohexaazaisowurtzitane (designated as CL-20). Like HMX and RDX, CL-20 is a cyclic nitramine stable to handling and amenable to casting into shaped charges, but is up to 20% more powerful than HMX. In a test using shaped charges (30 grams each) of CL-20 and PBXN-5 (the explosive used in armor-piercing 30mm ammunition fired by the M230 chain gun on the AH-64 Apache helicopter), the CL-20 was able to penetrate seven one-inch steel plates compared to PBXN-5's five plate penetration.
David Kay just told Aaron Brown that those explosives would not be concidered WMB. But they are what brought down the Pan Am flight.
Thanks. If you have an URL (for the Kerry spot piece on the terrorists not using RDX or HMX), thanks again in advance!
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