Huge Cache of Explosives Vanished From Site in Iraq

[zimv20]

link (http://nytimes.com/2004/10/25/international/middleeast/25bomb.html?hp&ex=1098676800&en=61cf6e1aa29b7871&ei=5094&partner=homepage)


BAGHDAD, Iraq, Oct. 24 - The Iraqi interim government has warned the United States and international nuclear inspectors that nearly 380 tons of powerful conventional explosives - used to demolish buildings, produce missile warheads and detonate nuclear weapons - are missing from one of Iraq's most sensitive former military installations.

The huge facility, called Al Qaqaa, was supposed to be under American military control but is now a no-man's land, still picked over by looters as recently as Sunday. United Nations weapons inspectors had monitored the explosives for many years, but White House and Pentagon officials acknowledge that the explosives vanished after the American invasion last year.

The White House said President Bush's national security adviser, Condoleezza Rice, was informed within the past month that the explosives were missing. It is unclear whether President Bush was informed. American officials have never publicly announced the disappearance, but beginning last week they answered questions about it posed by The New York Times and the CBS News program "60 Minutes."

Administration officials said yesterday that the Iraq Survey Group, the C.I.A. task force that searched for unconventional weapons, has been ordered to investigate the disappearance of the explosives.


The International Atomic Energy Agency publicly warned about the danger of these explosives before the war, and after the invasion it specifically told United States officials about the need to keep the explosives secured, European diplomats said in interviews last week. Administration officials say they cannot explain why the explosives were not safeguarded, beyond the fact that the occupation force was overwhelmed by the amount of munitions they found throughout the country.


After the invasion, when widespread looting began in Iraq, the international weapons experts grew concerned that the Qaqaa stockpile could fall into unfriendly hands. In May, an internal I.A.E.A. memorandum warned that terrorists might be helping "themselves to the greatest explosives bonanza in history."

are we feeling safer yet?

[pseudobrit]

How many American soldiers have already died from explosives "liberated" from this site?

How many will die in the months to come?

What are the chances that Sunnis who hate America now hate it enough to take some potent plastic explosives they've gotten hold of and deliver them to agents who will exact terror on our planes or cities?

Good thing the oil fields are secure, though. Phew!

[solvs]

Good thing the oil fields are secure, though.
Yeah, I'm glad Kerry brought this up. I just wished he pressed it more. We hear so much about how he mentioned Cheney's gay daughter (not like Keyes called her an abomination or anything), but no one mentions we went into Iraq under false presumptions and immediately guarded the oil, leaving the dangerous stuff to disappear and kill our troops. Yet Bush is pro-troops, and those who oppose him are against!?! We hear this stuff in passing and it's back to what the candidates did in the 70's. :mad:

I saw a report earlier on the news where this woman kept saying how she didn't understand why people hated Bush when he saved us from all of Saddams WMDs after he attacked us on 9/11. :rolleyes: Someone tried correcting her, but she wasn't hearing it. Sad.

[skunk]

It's a shame nobody gets fired for incompetence any more. I mean, it must have been SOMEBODY's responsibility to secure this stuff. Either the troops on the ground, or the man at the top. Cover up and carry on!

[blackfox]

It's a shame nobody gets fired for incompetence any more. I mean, it must have been SOMEBODY's responsibility to secure this stuff. Either the troops on the ground, or the man at the top. Cover up and carry on!Well, we shall see in a little over a week...
neat thing is, if the top man goes, all the support staff get the axe too...<crosses fingers>

[toontra]

This would seem to indicate that the insurgence isn't being led by a few Saddam extremists backed by Al Qaida imports. Together with the "precision" execution of 50 Iraqi army recruits yesterday, it would seem that there are, at the very least, active sympathisers within the Iraqi security forces. If that is indeed the case, be prepared for things to get much worse.

Bush's judgment over this whole thing is incompetent to the point willful neglect. It is now clear that the US and the rest of the world would be safer had he not invaded Iraq.

[IJ Reilly]

This would seem to indicate that the insurgence isn't being led by a few Saddam extremists backed by Al Qaida imports. Together with the "precision" execution of 50 Iraqi army recruits yesterday, it would seem that there are, at the very least, active sympathisers within the Iraqi security forces. If that is indeed the case, be prepared for things to get much worse.

If you read the Fallouja article I posted recently your worst fears will be confirmed. The leader of the Iraqi security force which was hastily improvised during the early days of that crisis was an ex-Saddam guy who turned out to be an insurgency leader, so in all probability the weapons and supplies he was given were, in short order, directed right back at US troops. I think it might be time to stop calling this an insurgency and to start referring to it by its real name, a civil war. The US has little to no ability to discern who is on what side.

[SiliconAddict]

It doesn't matter. I've lost faith in the American public to put 2 and 2 together and realize that maybe. Just maybe Kerry is dead on, on a majority of his attacks. It isn't mud slinging when you are telling the truth damn it!

[Dont Hurt Me]

True, I hope that all of these boondoggles will wake up the Republican Zealots who think Bush is their savior. How many screw ups can we tolerate from one administration? It makes you wonder if these clowns have any idea what to do about anything? Heck these clowns cant even manage the Flu vaccine let alone their war. How many Tons of weapons were just ignored by this administration??? Lets just face the fact that this is the most incompetant,inept administration since Carter. We can do better. Ill vote for Kerry. Enough of the constant Boondogles from Cheney, i mean Bush. I feel like America is being ran by a 3rd grader.

[pseudobrit]

It's a shame nobody gets fired for incompetence any more. I mean, it must have been SOMEBODY's responsibility to secure this stuff. Either the troops on the ground, or the man at the top. Cover up and carry on!

They don't even bother to cover up anymore.

You're mistaking this administration (and perhaps its constituency) for one that gives a ****.

[Macmaniac]

Its one thing if they can't find the WMDs, but its a whole 'nother thing if they can't keep what they have found secure!
My god, the incompetence is outrageous, 1 pound of this stuff brought down an air plane, imagine 314 tons of this stuff lost in Iraq, there is enough to make bombs galore.
Now the Pentagon says this is no problem, there are already a lot of weapons lying around in Iraq. Well if they can't secure a known weapons site in Iraq that they had under their control during the war, then how are they going to keep us safe at home.

[IJ Reilly]

The Bush campaign's response to this story is that it's just "headlines."

Mr Orwell, Mr Serling.
Mr Serling, Mr Orwell.

edit:
A spokesman for the Bush campaign dismissed the criticism in a comment that did not address directly the allegation of negligence.

“John Kerry has no vision for fighting and winning the war on terror, so he is basing his attacks on the headlines he wakes up to each day,” Steve Schmidt said.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20041025.wkerr1025/BNStory/specialUSelection/

[blackfox]

Unbelieveable response (thanks IJ)...

You know, if the "headlines" read "1,000,000 new jobs created" or some such hypothetical instead, would they merely be "headlines" then?

Reality: "you are doing a piss-poor job Mr Bush."
Mr Bush: " how would you know sir, we have never met before this moment"
Reality: "umm...touche"

[zimv20]

the following day, of course, we'd see footage of mr bush introducing mr reality at a senate prayer breakfast.

[skunk]

the following day, of course, we'd see footage of mr bush introducing mr reality at a senate prayer breakfast.
That's always assuming that Mr Reality is not a Muslim...

[IJ Reilly]

Update

White House Downplays Missing Iraq Explosives

WASHINGTON — The White House acknowledged Monday that nearly 380 tons of powerful explosives were missing from a weapons facility that American forces failed to guard after the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, raising fears that the munitions could be given to militants or used for attacks against troops in Iraq.

U.S. officials say the explosives — which are powerful enough to detonate a nuclear bomb — may have been looted from one of Saddam Hussein's bomb-making plants when U.S. forces worked to pacify Baghdad and other restive cities.

...

"It had already been looted by the time U.S. forces went through there," the senior Defense official said. "When the troops went in, they never saw anything that was tagged."

Some cast doubt on the Pentagon's claim. Given the size of the missing cache, it would have been difficult to relocate undetected before the invasion, when U.S. spy satellites were monitoring activity at sites suspected of concealing nuclear and biological weapons.

"You don't just move this stuff in the middle of the night," said a former U.S. intelligence official who worked in Baghdad.

Iraqi officials told the International Atomic Energy Agency — the U.N. monitoring group — earlier this month that the explosives were looted after April 9, 2003, when U.S. forces entered Baghdad. IAEA officials verified that the explosives were still at the site and under seal in January 2003, the last time the inspectors were there.

The IAEA had been monitoring the material — known as HMX and RDX — as part of the U.N. inspection program after the 1991 Persian Gulf War.

The agency had issued numerous warnings about the explosives falling into the wrong hands before and after the U.S. invasion.

Pentagon officials said that although U.S. troops searched the facility on several occasions during and after the invasion, the facility was not high on U.S. commanders' list of sites to guard because survey teams found no nuclear or biological materials at Al Qaqaa, a collection of 87 buildings and underground bunkers less than 30 miles south of Baghdad.

Asked if U.S. troops were ever ordered to guard the facility, where Hussein built conventional warheads and the IAEA dismantled parts of his nuclear program after the Gulf War, a Defense official responded, "Not that I'm aware of."

David Kay, the CIA's former chief weapons hunter in Iraq, believes that the material was looted in the immediate aftermath of the war.

He said he saw the facility in May 2003, "and it was heavily looted at that time. Sometime between April and May, most of the stuff was carried off. The site was in total disarray, just like a lot of the Iraqi sites."

Kay said that HMX and RDX were "superb explosives for terrorists" because they were stable compounds that could be transported safely and used for large-scale attacks.

Both types of material "would be good for a car bomb or a truck bomb," Kay said. "Just pack it together with a detonator."

The U.S. failure to guard hundreds of ammunition depots after the invasion has been well documented. Top military officials in Iraq believe that weapons taken from these sites have armed an insurgency that is taking American lives almost daily. More than 1,100 U.S. troops have been killed since the invasion began.

The explosive power of the stolen material — just half a pound of HMX brought down Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, in 1988 — has officials particularly worried.

"That's half a pound; 380 tons are missing — that's almost 40 truckloads," an IAEA official said on condition of anonymity. "Imagine what it could do in the hands of insurgents there. It's a huge concern that it is missing, whatever it may be used for."

...

Officials at the White House, the State Department and the Pentagon insisted that the 380 tons of stolen explosives were not a nuclear threat and noted that roughly 400,000 tons of collected munitions in Iraq had either been destroyed or were in U.S. custody.

"There is not a nuclear proliferation risk," White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan told reporters aboard Air Force One. "We're talking about conventional explosives."

...

Jon Wolfstahl, deputy director of the nonproliferation project at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, said the Al Qaqaa location was well known to U.N. nuclear weapons inspectors and had been routinely visited by them from 1991 to 1998 — before inspectors left Iraq.

"This isn't some stash that no one knew about," Wolfstahl said. "The IAEA knew about it and warned the administration about its sensitivity."

...

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/iraq/la-fg-explosives26oct26,1,5204158.story

So, are we feeling safter yet?

[zimv20]

from the article:

"There is not a nuclear proliferation risk," White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan told reporters aboard Air Force One. "We're talking about conventional explosives."
oh, that's reassuring. why not just say that 9/11 was no big deal, since nukes weren't involved?

and then there's this:

Asked if U.S. troops were ever ordered to guard the facility, where Hussein built conventional warheads and the IAEA dismantled parts of his nuclear program after the Gulf War, a Defense official responded, "Not that I'm aware of."
bloody incompetent planning

[zimv20]

pre-war planning:

the plan
1. get saddam
2. collect flowers
3. enjoy re-election

the goals
goal 1: get saddam
goal 2: see goal 1

[skunk]

or Plan 3: Own goal.

[zimv20]

from here (http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/26/opinion/26krugman.html?hp=&oref=login&pagewanted=print&position=)


If the administration had had its way, the public would never have heard anything about this. Administration officials have known about the looting of Al Qaqaa for at least six months, and probably much longer. But they didn't let the I.A.E.A. inspect the site after the war, and pressured the Iraqis not to inform the agency about the loss. They now say that they didn't want our enemies - that is, the people who stole the stuff - to know it was missing. The real reason, obviously, was that they wanted the news kept under wraps until after Nov. 2.

[solvs]

pre-war planning:

the plan
1. get saddam
2. collect flowers
3. enjoy re-election

the goals
goal 1: get saddam
goal 2: see goal 1
You forgot guard oil fields. Just because the reason we said we were going was for WMDs, doesn't mean we have to guard them when we get there. Just like we get attacked by one guy, and go after another. Step 1... misdirected vengeance. Step 2... ? Step 3... profit. Makes perfect sense to anyone angry enough to be blind to the truth.

[skunk]

Why is most of the press reporting that the WH claims 243,000 tons of munitions have been made secure, thereby implying that the 350 tons is a drop in the ocean? It is 243,000 "pieces of ordnance", not 243,000 tons. Makes quite a difference to how it reads. 243,000 TONS is a hell of a lot of gear. I thought it looked sus, so I checked, and, Hey Presto:
White House press secretary Scott McClellan said the administration's first concern was whether the disappearance constituted a nuclear proliferation threat. He said it did not.

"We have destroyed more than 243,000 munitions" in Iraq, he said. "We've secured another nearly 163,000 that will be destroyed."

Concerns over the security of former nuclear sites in Iraq have arisen before. In April, the IAEA reported that some Iraqi nuclear facilities appear to be unguarded, and radioactive materials were being taken out of the country.

Separately, the Los Angeles Times reported that 2,500 barrels of uranium that could be used to produce nuclear weapons had been left unguarded at the Tuwaitha nuclear research center site for several days following the withdrawal of Iraqi troops.
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/10/25/iraq/main651082.shtml
as opposed to:
Ereli said coalition forces have cleared 10,033 weapons caches and destroyed 243,000 tons of munitions. Another 162,898 tons of munitions are at secure locations and awaiting destruction, he said.

A senior administration official played down the importance of the missing explosives, describing them as dangerous material but "stuff you can buy anywhere."

The official noted that the administration did not see this necessarily as a "proliferation risk."

"In the grand scheme -- and on a grand scale -- there are hundreds of tons of weapons, munitions, artillery, explosives that are unaccounted for in Iraq," the official said.
http://edition.cnn.com/2004/WORLD/meast/10/25/iraq.explosives/

[skunk]

http://cnn.netscape.cnn.com/news/story.jsp?floc=NW_1-T&oldflok=FF-APO-PLS&idq=/ff/story/0001/20041028/0436129648.htm
Armed Group Claims to Have Iraq Explosives


BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) - An armed group claimed in a video Thursday to have obtained a large amount of explosives missing from a munitions depot facility in Iraq and threatened to use them against foreign troops.

A group calling itself Al-Islam's Army Brigades, Al-Karar Brigade, said it had coordinated with officers and soldiers of ``the American intelligence'' to obtain a ``huge amount of the explosives that were in the al-Qaqaa facility.''

The claim couldn't be independently verified. The speaker was surrounded by masked, armed men standing in front of a black banner with the group's name on it in the tape obtained by Associated Press Television News.

``We promise God and the Iraqi people that we will use it against the occupation forces and those who cooperate with them in the event of these forces threatening any Iraqi city,'' the man added.

Nearly 400 tons of conventional explosives have disappeared from the al-Qaqaa facility south of Baghdad, according to the International Atomic Energy Agency.

The U.N. agency's chief Mohamed ElBaradei,reported the disappearance to the U.N. Security Council on Monday, two weeks after Iraqi officials told the nuclear agency that 377 tons of explosives had vanished as a result of ``theft and looting ... due to lack of security.''

The disappearance of the explosives has become a huge campaign issue in the U.S. presidential election.
Hmmm.

[skunk]

The disappearance raised questions about why the United States didn't do more to secure the facility and failed to allow full international inspections to resume after the March 2003 invasion.

In the aftermath of Saddam’s ouster, U.S. troops looked for weapons of mass destruction in a variety of locales, including Al-Qaqaa. U.S. commanders say the military had already destroyed or secured and prepared to destroy more than 400,000 tons of explosives, artillery shells, mines and ammunition.
and a couple of paragraphs later:

White House press secretary Scott McClellan said the administration's first concern was whether the disappearance constituted a nuclear proliferation threat. He said it did not.

"We have destroyed more than 243,000 munitions" in Iraq, he said. "We've secured another nearly 163,000 that will be destroyed."
Why does the press continue to confuse weight with number? 406,000 munitions is a very different thing from "more than 400,000 tons". Probably no more than 10-20,000 tons, which puts the "missing" 400 tons into a much clearer perspective. It's quite a significant percentage.

[skunk]

http://www.defenselink.mil/news/Oct2004/n10292004_2004102904.html
Ordnance Officer Confirms About 250 Tons of Munitions Removed From Iraqi Site

By Kathleen T. Rhem
American Forces Press Service

WASHINGTON, Oct. 29, 2004 -- A U.S. Army ordnance company removed roughly 250 tons of munitions from Iraq's Al Qaqaa weapons depot in mid-April 2003, that unit's commander said in the Pentagon today.

But officials said it is not known if any of the material removed then is part of the roughly 380 tons of high explosives claimed to be missing from the site.

In recent days, International Atomic Energy Agency officials have said about 380 tons of high-melting explosive, known as HMX, and rapid-detonating explosive, RDX, are missing from the site in Iraq.

The agency had tagged the explosives at the site and departed before hostilities started. On May 27, 2003, experts with the 75th Exploitation Task Force confirmed the IAEA-sealed explosives were missing.

In today's press briefing, Army Maj. Austin Pearson explained how his former unit, the 24th Ordnance Company of the 24th Corps Support Group, entered the Al Qaqaa facility, which fell in an area known to the unit as "Objective Elms." On about April 13, 2003, less than a month after the start of Operation Iraqi Freedom, the company removed about 250 tons of "TNT, plastic explosives, … detonation cords, initiators and white-phosphorus rounds," Pearson said.

He explained that his company's primary mission was to supply U.S. units with conventional ammunition. Secondary missions called for the unit to manage a captured-ammunition holding area and to assist 3rd Infantry Division units in clearing captured enemy ammunition from their operational areas.

DoD spokesman Larry Di Rita pointed out several items in media accounts that are now in question. The amount of missing explosives is "probably not accurate," he said, noting initial reports claimed there were 140 tons of RDX at this facility. That appears to not be the case, he said.

There is even some confusion about exactly what kind of explosives were at the site and what type the 24th Ordnance Company removed. Di Rita explained that many people use the terms RDX and plastic explosive interchangeably. Even ordnance handlers, he said, commonly refer to all plastic explosives as RDX.

Pearson said he is a specialist in ammunition handling and management, not an expert in different types of ordnance. He noted he couldn't know for sure what type of explosive his unit removed from the site in April 2003. None of the munitions Pearson's company removed from Al Qaqaa contained seals from the IAEA, he said.

Also important to note, Di Rita said, is that even if 380 tons of explosives are missing from the site, that still only represents a thousandth of the total munitions coalition forces have destroyed in Iraq or marked for destruction to date. "We've destroyed or marked for destruction 1,000 times more ammunition than the amount of ammunition that has been called into question," he said.
You'd have thought that if it was the sealed stuff they removed, they would have a record of it.
I also still question the quantities being thrown around here: they are AGAIN claiming that it's over 400,000 tons of munitions, when it has been clearly stated by the Pentagon (see posts above) that the quantity seized was 400,000 munitions. There is potentially a HUGE difference here. 400,000 tons seems a ridiculously large amount, even for a regime like Saddam's. The Pentagon's accounting is as bad for munitions as it is for civilian deaths. The sad fact is that nobody in authority seems to have any regard for the truth or honesty of what they say.

[solvs]

For those asking how much was really there (and therefore is now in the hands of the real terrorists):

1: Enough to prove Iraq had weapons.

2: But not enough to hurt us if it falls into the wrong hands (which it already has).

3: Unless Kerry is elected. (Even though Bush didn't understand the situation before, he does now. Not that he made a mistake before. But now he knows that this is serious. So we're going to continue guarding oil fields in Iraq because that's where the terrorists are. They weren't before, but they are now. So we've got to get them before they attack us again. Even though they didn't attack us, Bin Laden and Al Qaeda did. Even though he runs free, and we create more terrorists than we kill. But since Kerry doesn't understand that, he's dangerous for America. Bush is good for America... because we said so. Trust us. Temporary perceptions of security are better than freedom. Because we are an administration of hope. And fear. Be afraid, everyone else is out to get you. Like Kerry. He's a Liberal. And that's bad. Plus we think he might be French...)

4: You see, Kerry's a flip-flopper. After the facts came out disproving what Bush told them, he changed his mind. We can't have that. Even if you're wrong, you can't change your mind. Or speak out against those who makes mistakes. This is America. And God. And apple pie. Was that a terrorist?

Look over there... shiny.