Posted on 10/30/2004 12:25:54 AM PDT by kattracks
WASHINGTON - An Army ordnance expert stepped into the furious campaign fray over missing explosives in Iraq yesterday - declaring his unit removed and destroyed 250 tons of ammunition from Saddam's massive weapons depot in April 2003.Maj. Austin Pearson of the Army's 3rd Infantry Division told reporters at a Pentagon news conference yesterday that his unit was at the Al-Qaqaa weapons depot on April 13, 2003, 10 days after U.S. forces reached the site.
He said 250 tons of plastic explosive, TNT, detonation cords and white phosphorous rounds were removed on nine forklifts and tractor-trailers and later destroyed at a nearby U.S. military base.
That was part of a massive U.S. effort that has resulted in the destruction of 400,000 tons of ammunition and explosives from Saddam Hussein's arsenal since the end of the war.
Pentagon spokesman Larry DiRita said Pearson's report could help explain what happened to the 377 tons of the high-energy explosive RDX that was officially marked by inspectors from the U.N.'s International Atomic Energy Agency before the war - but has gone missing.
RDX is often considered plastic explosive, or plastique.
(Excerpt) Read more at nypost.com ...
Who is actually covering these latest very significant facts...anyone in the MSM?
He was interviewed on FOX, Hannity & Comes last night.
I'm cornfused, the IAEA says it marked this stuff but Pearson saw no markings? There was even more of it at the site before the IAEA arrived?
But again what concern does an atomic energy agency have with conventional explosives?
These were nuclear bomb triggering explosives. Baaad stuff.
RDX can be used as a nuclear "trigger" charge. I am not really a nuclear scientist. Don't ask me anything further about it. I just slept in a Holiday Inn Express and install auto glass as my real job.
The nuclear material for a nuclear weapon is the hard part not the conventional explosives to detonate it.
The explosive is press formed, molded or machined into a lens shape to be used cylindrically around the round implosion device. It's just not packing explosives next to uranium, but much more complicated than that.
LOL!
In terms of making a nuke the RDX in powder form was not the difficult material to acquire and does not represent some great forward step towards that goal.
Ping to a drawing that makes sense.
Yep. And all that data on his nuclear program is buried (or sold) for sure.
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