Posted on 11/04/2004 12:02:01 PM PST by Mayflower Sister
media*
They only worry when there's been too long a time between terrorist attacks on our troops. ........it destroys their "it's another Vietnam" rants.
yep, on page one of USAtoday and Cnn.com
About some troops watching looting of the ammo at Qua qua..they did say way down into the story that reports weren't sure if the looting was of the really bad stuff we kept hearing about, or just small time looting.
I thought it was interesting this was being hit again.
of course not - it was an attempted october surprise.
the UN and media were aware of the situation 18 months ago, just as the Pentagon was.
they chose to kite it not because it was important but because it was, if properly packaged and spun, potentially damaging to Dubya's reelection prospects.
Now that he has been soundly reelected, the point is moot.
otoh, I see no reason why WE should let the media get away with what they attempted.
I heard they were shipped to Floriduh and used to demolish the Kerry campaign there!
| U.S. Team Took 250 Tons of Iraqi Munitions | ||||||||||||||||||||||
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Saturday, October 30, 2004 
Maj. Austin Pearson said at a Pentagon news conference that he was tasked in the days after the fall of the Iraqi regime with a mission to secure and destroy ammunition and explosives. He led a 25-man team called Task Force Bullet. His comments were the latest twist into the mystery of what happened to 377 tons of explosives that the International Atomic Energy Agency (search) reported missing from Al-Qaqaa. The IAEA reported the matter to the United Nations on Monday and said it feared that looters may have stolen the explosives. The issue also has dominated much of the presidential campaign in its final full week. To read more about the political impact, click here. Pearson's team arrived at Al-Qaqaa on April 13, 2003, 10 days after U.S. forces first reached the site and four days after Saddam went into hiding. This was the same time that the 101st Airborne Division had secured Al-Qaqaa and the surrounding area. According to Pearson, the team removed 250 tons of material including TNT, plastic explosives, detonation cords and munitions. He arrived at that estimate because he said the team used nine truck-trailer combinations that each could carry 33 tons of material. While Pearson could not characterize the tonnage of plastic explosives his team removed and he could not remember seeing any IAEA tags on the bunkers, he said plastic explosives taken from the site were used to detonate thousands of tons of other munitions collected further north in Baghdad. Pearson also described the area around Al-Qaqaa, which the Army called “Objective Elms.” "At the time when I was in Objective Elms, that area was very pacified where there wasn't a lot of civilians in the area at that time. If they were, they were very respectful to U.S. forces. They were very respectful to us. I didn't see any hostilities at that location at that time,” he told reporters. Pentagon officials conceded that Pearson’s description did not answer all the questions about the missing explosives. "I can't say RDX that was on the list of IAEA is what the major pulled out,” said Pentagon spokesman Larry Di Rita. “We believe that some of the things they were pulling out of there were RDX." He also said that the IAEA has not come forward with documentation that explains how it arrived at the figure of 377 tons of missing explosives. The IAEA so far only has verified in its paperwork that 219 tons of explosive materials were at Al-Qaqaa and surrounding facilities. Di Rita said that the major's disclosure was a potentially significant development in unraveling the mystery. "We've described what we know, and as we know more we'll describe that," said Di Rita. |
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Even mainstream media's reporting is noticeably absent. Hehehehe! Old Dan Blabber hasn't said one word about it.
What the media ATTEMPTED was nothing short of an overthrow of the president through a coordinated campaign with the DNC.
There are a number of examples of collusion. Not mere media bias in newsrooms but direct communication between the campaign and newsmakers.
Heads have to roll over this.
And don't get me started on the election violence (the shootings and vandalism and theft at campaign offices and intimidation of those who put Bush-Cheney signage on their yards and cars). Straight out of the brownshirts handbook.
To be fair, there is a front page story in the LA Times today (I only bought it to see how they spun the Bush victory,) claiming that troops admit some explosives were looted. There is not word on the amount though.
I heard that same report on the radio today. I've had the radio on more or less all day, but only heard it reported the one time.
Pray for W and Our Troops
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6405578/
They were looted. “It was complete chaos. It was looting like L.A. during the Rodney King riots,” one officer said.
I, too, was thinking the story might disappear after the election, but today's Seattle Times had a front-page story claiming that several soldiers reported widespread looting at the site AFTER the war started. They said they were undermanned and couldn't patrol the whole site. It wasn't clear, however, exactly what was looted.
The LA Slimes has a full half page on the subject TODAY. Interviews with some reserve soldiers who say they watched looters run off with the stuff. Who cares now, it didn't work!
Oct. 27, 2004 — Iraqi officials may be overstating the amount of explosives reported to have disappeared from a weapons depot, documents obtained by ABC News show.
But International Atomic Energy Agency documents obtained by ABC News and first reported on "World News Tonight with Peter Jennings" indicate the amount of missing explosives may be substantially less than the Iraqis reported.
The information on which the Iraqi Science Ministry based an Oct. 10 memo in which it reported that 377 tons of RDX explosives were missing — presumably stolen due to a lack of security — was based on "declaration" from July 15, 2002. At that time, the Iraqis said there were 141 tons of RDX explosives at the facility.
But the 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.
The IAEA documents could mean that 138 tons of explosives were removed from the facility long before the United States launched "Operation Iraqi Freedom" in March 2003.
The missing explosives have become an issue in the presidential campaign. Sen. John Kerry has pointed to the disappearance as evidence of the Bush administration's poor handling of the war. The Bush camp has responded that more than a thousand times that amount of explosives or munitions have been recovered or destroyed in Iraq.
The IAEA documents from January 2003 found no discrepancy in the amount of the more dangerous HMX explosives thought to be stored at Al-Qaqaa, but they do raise another disturbing possibility.
The documents show IAEA inspectors looked at nine bunkers containing more than 194 tons of HMX at the facility. Although these bunkers were still under IAEA seal, the inspectors said the seals may be potentially ineffective because they had ventilation slats on the sides. These slats could be easily removed to remove the materials inside the bunkers without breaking the seals, the inspectors noted.
ABC News' Martha Raddatz filed this report for "World News Tonight." Luis Martinez contributed to this report.
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