Posted on 10/29/2004 2:03:51 AM PDT by ambrose
Posted on Fri, Oct. 29, 2004
TV Video May Show Missing Explosives
Associated Press
WASHINGTON - Videotape shot by a Minnesota television crew traveling with U.S. troops in Iraq when they first opened the bunkers at the Al-Qaqaa munitions base nine days after the fall of Saddam Hussein shows what appeared to be high explosives still in barrels and bearing the markings of the International Atomic Energy Agency.
The video taken by KSTP of St. Paul on April 18, 2003, could reinforce suggestions that tons of explosives missing from a munitions installation in Iraq were looted after the U.S. invasion and occupation of Iraq. The video was broadcast nationally Thursday on ABC.
"The photographs are consistent with what I know of Al-Qaqaa," David A. Kay, a former American official who directed the hunt in Iraq for unconventional weapons and visited the site, told The New York Times. "The damning thing is the seals. The Iraqis didn't use seals on anything. So I'm absolutely sure that's an IAEA seal."
The question of what happened to the tons of explosives has become a major issue in the closing days of the presidential campaign.
Democrat John Kerry says the missing explosives - powerful enough to demolish a building, bring down a jetliner or set off a nuclear weapon - are another example of the Bush administration's poor planning and incompetence in handling the war in Iraq. President Bush says the explosives were possibly removed by Saddam's forces before the invasion.
Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld entered the debate Thursday, suggesting the 377 tons of explosives were taken away before U.S. forces arrived, saying any large effort to loot the material afterward would have been detected.
"We would have seen anything like that," he said in one of two radio interviews he gave at the Pentagon. "The idea it was suddenly looted and moved out, all of these tons of equipment, I think is at least debatable."
The Pentagon also declassified and released a single image, taken by reconnaissance aircraft or satellite just days before the war, showing two trucks outside one of the dozens of storage bunkers at the Al-Qaqaa munitions base.
The particular bunker is not one known to have contained any of the missing explosives, and Pentagon spokesman Larry Di Rita said the image only shows that there was some Iraqi activity at the base when it was taken, on March 17. Di Rita said the image says nothing about what happened to the explosives.
Rumsfeld, in one radio interview, also cast doubt on the suggestion of one of his subordinates that Russian forces assisted the Iraqis in removing them.
John Shaw, the deputy U.S. undersecretary of defense for international technology security, suggested to The Washington Times in an interview that the Russians may have been involved, prompting an angry denial from Moscow.
Rumsfeld said, "I have no information on that at all, and cannot validate that even slightly."
But at issue is whether the weapons were moved before or after U.S. forces occupied that region of the country in early April. No one has been able to provide conclusive evidence either way, although Iraqi officials blamed it on poor U.S. security after Baghdad fell.
The Pentagon has said it's looking into the matter, and officials note that 400,000 tons of recovered Iraqi munitions have either been destroyed or are slated to be destroyed.
The 138 tonnes of RDX is confirmed to have been moved before the American Military arrived at Al Qa Qaa...
Mohamed El Baradei lied in his letter to the UN when he stated that there were 380 tonnes of HE at Al Qa Qaa
http://www.foxnews.com/projects/pdf/alqaqaa_documents.pdf
unsubstantiated rumour is now the news...
At least according to CBS, NY Times, and ABC's 2 videos (Explosives and terrorist video).
In other words, Kerry's still screwed :)
The Democrats and their media accomplices are wasting their ammo. The war is over. Bush is surging.
2. IAEA ADMITS ONLY 3 TONS LEFT
Well, maybe it was a bookkeeping error
380 tons was actually 3.80 tons.
Somebody forgot the decimal point.
Well, give the left credit for at least talking about the war, and not a woman's right to "choose."
This too, please."
FOX reported this morning that in the IAEA report it was noted that there was access to the bunkers through vent shafts and that their seals could not prevent entry.
News Video Might Show Missing Explosives
The other thread was pulled, not sure exactly why.
Thanks! I've been looking for that.
Thanks!
What is the skinny on this story about the Minn newscrew filming the "380 tons of explosives" is this verified?. Will it hurt Bush? Inquiring minds want to know.
Read the previous posts. The claim is bogus. It has been grossly overestemated and the more Kerry wan'ts to make it an issue he exposes the reasons WHY we wnet into Iraq in the first place. The stuff has moved before the US was there.
what kind of a stupid "seal" is that?
I guess I should have added (sarcasm). My bad.
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