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2004-10-25 Home Front: Politix
NYT "discovers" explosives are missing in Iraq
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Posted by RWV 2004-10-25 11:02:59 PM|| || Front Page|| [11127 views since 2007-05-07]  Top

#1 So the NYT is saying that, likely during during the invasion in March, someone made off with items from a military installation that our guys weren't guarding because they were busily marching through the countryside and into Baghdad? Okidokie, then.
Posted by trailing wife 2004-10-25 12:18:22 AM||   2004-10-25 12:18:22 AM|| Front Page Top

#2 Lemme guess: unnamed sources, right?
Posted by badanov  2004-10-25 12:37:15 AM|| [http://www.rkka.org/title-boris.gif]  2004-10-25 12:37:15 AM|| Front Page Top

#3  How the hell do you "loot" 380 tons?

That must have been one hell of a truck that Zarqawi was driving ...
Posted by Dan Darling  2004-10-25 1:36:56 AM|| [http://www.regnumcrucis.blogspot.com]  2004-10-25 1:36:56 AM|| Front Page Top

#4 well if they made off with 380 tons of explosives--dja think they could have skidaddled with 20 pounds of anthrax and chem weapons--huh huh
Posted by SON OF TOLUI 2004-10-25 1:42:07 AM||   2004-10-25 1:42:07 AM|| Front Page Top

#5 Just wait until the NYT discovers it's missing credibility and influence - won't that make for a blockbuster story!

Pfeh. Flagship of Fools and Has-beens.
Posted by .com 2004-10-25 7:12:47 AM||   2004-10-25 7:12:47 AM|| Front Page Top

#6 Abu the sheephearder has it and has been cooking with it for months.
Posted by Sock Puppet of Doom  2004-10-25 7:15:27 AM|| [http://www.slhess.com]  2004-10-25 7:15:27 AM|| Front Page Top

#7 The Army always knows where everything it has is because of its meticulous record keeping systems. This particularly true in combat zones where all front line troops are required to provide daily counts of all personal inventory items and cycle counts of company, batallion, regimental, divisional, corps, army and army group inventories.
Posted by Mrs. Davis 2004-10-25 8:20:32 AM||   2004-10-25 8:20:32 AM|| Front Page Top

#8 I read that the Iraqi pre-OIF ammo inventory was between 1/3 to 1/2 of the entire US inventory. Just think what it was in 1990 before 1/2 of the Iraqi army was destroyed. I don't remember if the 2003 figure was over or under 1 million tons, but think of the stockpiles the US has to fight 2 major wars (including cold war stockpiles) and take 1/3 of that. The figure I read was that it was more than the US military used in 30 years. Some of the Iraqi arms dumps were 20 sqaure miles in size. But whatever the figure, we will be finding and destroying ammo/explosives for years in Iraq.
Posted by ed 2004-10-25 9:01:09 AM||   2004-10-25 9:01:09 AM|| Front Page Top

#9  ed..What I read at the time of the invasion,there was an estimated 600,000 tons scattered in as many as 130 ammo dumps,and some,as you say,20 square miles in size.So lets see here,380 tons is.......gone ? Heh.
Posted by crazyhorse  2004-10-25 10:16:36 AM||   2004-10-25 10:16:36 AM|| Front Page Top

#10 It looks like the timeframe for this 'looting' has been since the invasion. The NYT makes it sound like it was taken last weekend. I find the statement that the ammo is still being routinely 'looted' unbelevable.
Posted by CrazyFool  2004-10-25 10:23:57 AM||   2004-10-25 10:23:57 AM|| Front Page Top

#11 Qaqaa.....that's a new one.
Posted by Bomb-a-rama 2004-10-25 10:44:59 AM||   2004-10-25 10:44:59 AM|| Front Page Top

#12 The four front-page above-the-fold headlines in the print edition of the NYT are:

Left: Gore and Kerry Unite in Search for Black Votes

Left center: Administration Officials Split Over Stalled Military Tribunals (sub-heading: A Policy Unravels)

Right Center: Ambush Kills 50 Iraq Soldiers Execution Style (accompanied by gory photo of the bodies of these brave men)

Right: Huge Cache of Explosives Vanished from Site in Iraq (sub-heading: U.S. Was Warned to Safeguard Material Amid Looting After the Invasion)

And the capper is that on the Op-Ed page Bob Herbert rhetorically asks "How does a president win re-election when all the news the voters are seeing is bad?"
Posted by Matt 2004-10-25 11:09:56 AM||   2004-10-25 11:09:56 AM|| Front Page Top

#13 It's not clear to me that anyone has established that the disappearance occurred after the invasion. And I can't picture Saddam worried about IAEA seals. And I can't imagine that he would leave all those goodies in one spot for the taking or destroying. We obviously dropped a few bombs and ascertained that the goodies were gone -- otherwise we'd have bombed extensively. It's 40 truckloads minimum, and my bet is that they're buried not too far away. It was too much risk to cart it off to Syria.
Posted by Tom 2004-10-25 11:10:20 AM||   2004-10-25 11:10:20 AM|| Front Page Top

#14 This is all Israeli propaganda, the Joooos took it.

Seriously, my theory is that the U.S left some explosives and weapons there, as BAIT. I bet your bottom dollar that the U.S has surveillance on who took the weapons(RDX, HMX, MC Hammer, DMX, Tu Pac, 50 Cent). From my POV, most of the terrs involved in the theft had a meeting with our friends JDAM and Hellfire, when they reached a certain distance down the road. There are enjoying raisins about right now.
Quite possibly, some terrs were "allowed" to steal, so the U.S. can trace them back to their hideouts. Hence the recent targeted bombings at hideouts Fallujaaaah & other places. NYT sez-"picked over by looters as recently as Sunday"
Posted by Poison Reverse 2004-10-25 11:49:03 AM||   2004-10-25 11:49:03 AM|| Front Page Top

#15 Dan Darling: How the hell do you "loot" 380 tons?

An 18-wheeler can carry about 30 tons. 380 tons is about 13 truckloads worth of stuff. I assume Saddam has at least 13 18-wheelers' worth of trucking capacity at his disposal.
Posted by Zhang Fei 2004-10-25 12:39:01 PM||   2004-10-25 12:39:01 PM|| Front Page Top

#16 This is what you get (even in a supposedly mainstream well written paper) when you personally (the journalist)hasn't got a f**king clue as to what you are writing about. They have taking this IAEA report at face value without sitting down with ordinance and intelligence experts and dissected the information for what it means and how it was carried out. But noooooooo not our venerable gray lady that is so damn anti-Bush and anti-American that it can't even see the partisanship in their front page.
Posted by Jack is Back! 2004-10-25 1:19:49 PM||   2004-10-25 1:19:49 PM|| Front Page Top

#17 ZF I advise you to try and dodge the scales in Florida. :)
Posted by Shipman 2004-10-25 1:47:24 PM||   2004-10-25 1:47:24 PM|| Front Page Top

#18 Did anyone notice how Kerry was running with this right from the start. Do you think the NYT 'story' was co-odinated with the Kerry office?

Me to....
Posted by CrazyFool  2004-10-25 1:50:47 PM||   2004-10-25 1:50:47 PM|| Front Page Top

#19 Ship - thinking about your advice to ZF, and the image of the Highway Patrol guy in the mirrored specs (ala Cool Hand Luke chain-gang guard) came to mind --- then it hit me! If they're called Chippies in Laficornia, are they called Flippies in Diflora?

At the peril of your life, perhaps?

;->
Posted by .com 2004-10-25 1:52:08 PM||   2004-10-25 1:52:08 PM|| Front Page Top

#20 Since El Baradei is doing such a great job of finding conventional weapons in Iraq instead of Nukes in Iran, perhaps it should be renamed the International Conventional Energy Agency.
Posted by Mrs. Davis 2004-10-25 2:44:42 PM||   2004-10-25 2:44:42 PM|| Front Page Top

#21 CF -- have you seen an anti-Bush story that HASN'T been coordinated with the Donks?
Posted by Robert Crawford  2004-10-25 2:44:43 PM|| [http://www.kloognome.com/]  2004-10-25 2:44:43 PM|| Front Page Top

#22 Like any other NYT story, ya got to read the fine print: The Qaqaa stockpile went unmonitored from late 1998, when United Nations inspectors left Iraq, to late 2002, when they came back. Upon their return, the inspectors discovered that about 35 tons of HMX were missing. The Iraqis said they had used the explosive mainly in civilian programs.
The remaining stockpile was no secret. Dr. Mohamed ElBaradei, the director general of the arms agency, frequently talked about it publicly as he investigated - in late 2002 and early 2003 - the Bush administration's claims that Iraq was secretly renewing its pursuit of nuclear arms. He ordered his weapons inspectors to conduct an inventory, and publicly reported their findings to the Security Council on Jan. 9, 2003. During the following weeks, the I.A.E.A. repeatedly drew public attention to the explosives. In New York on Feb. 14, nine days after Secretary of State Colin L. Powell presented his arms case to the Security Council, Dr. ElBaradei reported that the agency had found no sign of new atom endeavors but "has continued to investigate the relocation and consumption of the high explosive HMX."A European diplomat reported that Jacques Baute, head of the arms agency's Iraq nuclear inspection team, warned officials at the United States mission in Vienna about the danger of the nuclear sites and materials once under I.A.E.A. supervision, including Al Qaqaa.
But apparently, little was done. A senior Bush administration official said that during the initial race to Baghdad, American forces "went through the bunkers, but saw no materials bearing the I.A.E.A. seal." It is unclear whether troops ever returned.
By late 2003, diplomats said, arms agency experts had obtained commercial satellite photos of Al Qaqaa showing that two of roughly 10 bunkers that contained HMX appeared to have been leveled by titanic blasts, apparently during the war. They presumed some of the HMX had exploded, but that is unclear. Other HMX bunkers were untouched. Some were damaged but not devastated. I.A.E.A. experts say they assume that just before the invasion the Iraqis followed their standard practice of moving crucial explosives out of buildings, so they would not be tempting targets. If so, the experts say, the Iraqi must have broken seals from the arms agency on bunker doors and moved most of the HMX to nearby fields, where it would have been lightly camouflaged - and ripe for looting.

So, between 1998 and 2002, 35 tons went bye-bye - Allah knows where, two of the bunkers got blown up during the war, and SOP for the Iraqis was to move the explosives before the shooting started.
Yet somehow, it's our fault?
Posted by Steve  2004-10-25 2:46:27 PM||   2004-10-25 2:46:27 PM|| Front Page Top

#23 .com The FHP is called by those who have reason to worry.... roadmen/man as in...

Oh Shit! It's a Road Man!

I have a cousin (a cop) who saw a near riot broken up in St. Petersburg by the timely arrival of one FHP Trooper who drove into the crowd and came out with shotgun and the Proper Cop Attitude.

Watch Out! It A Road Man!
Posted by Shipman 2004-10-25 3:11:12 PM||   2004-10-25 3:11:12 PM|| Front Page Top

#24 Cool! Road Men (lol - Road Warriors) = Florida Rangers. Melike Law & Order, heh.
Posted by .com 2004-10-25 3:14:48 PM||   2004-10-25 3:14:48 PM|| Front Page Top

#25 Here is the letter sent from an Iraqi Official telling of the missing stockpile.

Notice the date 10/10/20&%?
Posted by Wholuling Snuth8432 2004-10-25 5:01:25 PM||   2004-10-25 5:01:25 PM|| Front Page Top

#26 Oops
Posted by Wholuling Snuth8432 2004-10-25 5:08:35 PM||   2004-10-25 5:08:35 PM|| Front Page Top

#27 Wesley Clark was just on with John Gibson trying to spin this Gibson beat him with the "facts"
Posted by Sock Puppet of Doom  2004-10-25 5:13:53 PM|| [http://www.slhess.com]  2004-10-25 5:13:53 PM|| Front Page Top

#28 And NBC says their embeds say only conventional weapons there, via KerrySpot:

NBC BLOWS A HOLE IN THE KERRY ATTACK ABOUT THE EXPLOSIVES

Jim Miklaszewski of NBC News pretty much dismantled the New York Times attack on behalf of Kerry today.

NBC News: Miklaszewski: “April 10, 2003, only three weeks into the war, NBC News was embedded with troops from the Army's 101st Airborne as they temporarily take over the Al Qakaa weapons installation south of Baghdad. But these troops never found the nearly 380 tons of some of the most powerful conventional explosives, called HMX and RDX, which is now missing. The U.S. troops did find large stockpiles of more conventional weapons, but no HMX or RDX, so powerful less than a pound brought down Pan Am 103 in 1988, and can be used to trigger a nuclear weapon. In a letter this month, the Iraqi interim government told the International Atomic Energy Agency the high explosives were lost to theft and looting due to lack of security. Critics claim there were simply not enough U.S. troops to guard hundreds of weapons stockpiles, weapons now being used by insurgents and terrorists to wage a guerrilla war in Iraq.” (NBC’s “Nightly News,” 10/25/04)
Posted by anonymous2u 2004-10-25 11:34:57 PM||   2004-10-25 11:34:57 PM|| Front Page Top

#29 yep, anon 2U - good catch - I posted it separately
Posted by Frank G  2004-10-25 11:44:23 PM||   2004-10-25 11:44:23 PM|| Front Page Top

01:38 Sock Puppet of Doom
00:55 Asedwich
00:54 Zenster
00:00 Frank G
23:55 Barbara Skolaut
23:53 Frank G
23:52 Barbara Skolaut
23:51 anymouse
23:50 Frank G
23:48 Frank G
23:46 Barbara Skolaut
23:46 Frank G
23:44 Frank G
23:43 Barbara Skolaut
23:42 Zenster
23:35 Zenster
23:34 anonymous2u
23:30 Cheaderhead
23:29 John in Tokyo
23:22 Frank G
23:21 Frank G
23:20 Zenster
23:16 Zenster
23:13 Fred









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