Large cache of explosives missing from Iraq

[Azadre]

At the Pentagon, an official who monitors developments in Iraq said U.S.-led coalition troops had searched Al-Qaqaa in the immediate aftermath of the March 2003 invasion and confirmed that the explosives, under IAEA seal since 1991, were intact. Thereafter, the site was not secured by U.S. forces, the official said, also speaking on condition of anonymity.

The Iraqis told the nuclear agency the materials were stolen and looted because of a lack of security at governmental installations, Fleming said.

"We do not know what happened to the explosives or when they were looted," she told AP.



It was definately there. George has screwed up.

 

[stormbind]

The objective was to secure oil, not weapons that could be used against friends.

 

[Bamspeedy]

Update:

http://www.cnn.com/2004/WORLD/meast/10/26/iraq.explosives/index.html

The mystery surrounding the disappearance of 380 tons of powerful explosives from a storage depot in Iraq has taken a new twist, after a network embedded with the U.S. military during the invasion of Iraq reported that the material had already vanished by the time American troops arrived.

NBC News reported that on April 10, 2003, its crew was embedded with the U.S. Army's 101st Airborne Division when troops arrived at the Al Qaqaa storage facility south of Baghdad.

Baghdad fell on April 9, 2003. According to NBC, troops from the 101st Airborne arrived the next day to find that the material was already gone.

 

[HighlandWarrior]

http://www.drudgereport.com/nbcw6.htm

XXXXX DRUDGE REPORT XXXXX TUE OCT 26 2004 11:02:38 ET XXXXX

60 MINS PLANNED BUSH MISSING EXPLOSIVES STORY FOR ELECTION EVE

News of missing explosives in Iraq -- first reported in April 2003 -- was being resurrected for a 60 MINUTES election eve broadcast designed to knock the Bush administration into a crises mode.

Jeff Fager, executive producer of the Sunday edition of 60 MINUTES, said in a statement that "our plan was to run the story on October 31, but it became clear that it wouldn't hold..."



Elizabeth Jensen at the LOS ANGELES TIMES details on Tuesday how CBS NEWS and 60 MINUTES lost the story [which repackaged previously reported information on a large cache of explosives missing in Iraq, first published and broadcast in 2003].

The story instead debuted in the NYT. The paper slugged the story about missing explosives from April 2003 as "exclusive."

An NBCNEWS crew embedded with troops moved in to secure the Al-Qaqaa weapons facility on April 10, 2003, one day after the liberation of Iraq.

According to NBCNEWS, the explosives were already missing when the American troops arrived.

It is not clear who exactly shopped an election eve repackaging of the missing explosives story.

The LA TIMES claims: The source on the story first went to 60 MINUTES but also expressed interest in working with the NY TIMES... "The tip was received last Wednesday."

CBSNEWS' plan to unleash the story just 24 hours before election day had one senior Bush official outraged.

"Darn, I wanted to see the forged documents to show how this was somehow covered up," the Bush source, who asked not to be named, mocked, recalling last months CBS airing of fraudulent Bush national guard letters.

Developing...

-----------------------------------------------------------
Filed By Matt Drudge
Reports are moved when circumstances warrant
http://www.drudgereport.com for updates
(c)DRUDGE REPORT 2004
Not for reproduction without permission of the author


Thank you CBS for your "fake but accurate" "NEWS" reporting. Anyone believe the Press is liberal now?

 

[jack merchant]

An NBCNEWS crew embedded with troops moved in to secure the Al-Qaqaa weapons facility on April 10, 2003, one day after the liberation of Iraq.

No wonder those explosives went missing !

Anyway, if '60 minutes' airs only on Sunday and the story broke just this weekend, then next Sunday, the infamous 24 hours before the election, would be the ONLY time they could air this story, right ? Also, if this story is really 'old news', can anyone point me to a news story contemporary to the invasion which talks about this ?

 

[Norlamand]

Perhaps you should read the link that Bamspeedy provided before making inane conclusions. The explosives were missing in April 2003. The new reporting of this is a purely partisan political action to gain ground in the election. Kerry and his lapdogs are simply that desperate.

 

[jack merchant]

I was just making fun of Drudge's grammar. Anyway, this is what really happened when those US troops allegedly searched the facility for explosives (courtesy of talkingpointsmemo.com, which has a lot of info on the subject.)

This morning MSNBC interviewed one of the producers from their news crew that visited al Qaqaa as embeds with the 101st Airborne, Second brigade on April 10th, 2003.

This is the 'search' that the White House and CNN are hanging their hats on (empahsis added)...

Amy Robach: And it's still unclear exactly when those explosives disappeared. Here to help shed some light on that question is Lai Ling. She was part of an NBC news crew that traveled to that facility with the 101st Airborne Division back in April of 2003. Lai Ling, can you set the stage for us? What was the situation like when you went into the area?
Lai Ling Jew: When we went into the area, we were actually leaving Karbala and we were initially heading to Baghdad with the 101st Airborne, Second Brigade. The situation in Baghdad, the Third Infantry Division had taken over Baghdad and so they were trying to carve up the area that the 101st Airborne Division would be in charge of. Um, as a result, they had trouble figuring out who was going to take up what piece of Baghdad. They sent us over to this area in Iskanderia. We didn't know it as the Qaqaa facility at that point but when they did bring us over there we stayed there for quite a while. Almost, we stayed overnight, almost 24 hours. And we walked around, we saw the bunkers that had been bombed, and that exposed all of the ordinances that just lied dormant on the desert.

AR: Was there a search at all underway or was, did a search ensue for explosives once you got there during that 24-hour period?

LLJ: No. There wasn't a search. The mission that the brigade had was to get to Baghdad. That was more of a pit stop there for us. And, you know, the searching, I mean certainly some of the soldiers head off on their own, looked through the bunkers just to look at the vast amount of ordnance lying around. But as far as we could tell, there was no move to secure the weapons, nothing to keep looters away. But there was – at that point the roads were shut off. So it would have been very difficult, I believe, for the looters to get there.

AR: And there was no talk of securing the area after you left. There was no discussion of that?

LLJ: Not for the 101st Airborne, Second Brigade. They were -- once they were in Baghdad, it was all about Baghdad, you know, and then they ended up moving north to Mosul. Once we left the area, that was the last that the brigade had anything to do with the area.

AR: Well, Lai Ling Jew, thank you so much for shedding some light into that situation. We appreciate it.

 

[Sanaz]

Perhaps you should read the link that Bamspeedy provided before making inane conclusions. The explosives were missing in April 2003. The new reporting of this is a purely partisan political action to gain ground in the election. Kerry and his lapdogs are simply that desperate.

OK, I read it and am still confused:

The International Atomic Energy Agency revealed Monday that it had been told two weeks ago by the Iraqi government that 380 tons of HMX and RDX disappeared from Al Qaqaa after Saddam Hussein's government fell.

Is the Iraqi government lying to make the US look bad? That doesn't make sense. Was this reported publicly before two weeks ago? How would a desperate Kerry with his desperate lapdogs con the Iraqi government and the IAEA into disclosing this just before the election? Or, am I just asking the wrong questions or seeing it from the wrong direction?

Best I can tell, this stuff was missing either before, or after, the US occupied Iraq, and no one really knows. I would expect a lot of weapons to be moved before US troops stepped foot in Iraq, and that isn't too much of a concern simply because there is nothing that could be done about it. It's the stuff that went missing afterwards because the US government didn't put enough troops in place, and hasn't set the military up to be as successful as possible, that is of concern.

 

[MajII]

Apparently the Russians did it.

 

[jpowers]

Oh, who has time to worry about terrorists and ordnance when there's so much oil all over the place?!?!

 

[Paradigne]

It broke last night...

Do you even care over 350 tons of explosives are missing?

If news that America landed on the moon last night mean that it HAPPENED last night??? This 'stockpile' was disputed over a year ago. It would have taken an estimated 70 US military trucks to move the stuff (NO IDEA how many Iraqi trucks). the REAL question is: Why is this news 'breaking' NOW???

 

[Sanaz]

If news that America landed on the moon last night mean that it HAPPENED last night??? This 'stockpile' was disputed over a year ago. It would have taken an estimated 70 US military trucks to move the stuff (NO IDEA how many Iraqi trucks). the REAL question is: Why is this news 'breaking' NOW???

Because now is when Bush's ally, Allawi, broke the news. Everyone's acting like it's a media against Bush thing, when it was not the media that made the complaint, which made it to the IAEA. Unless I have completely misunderstood the timetable and circumstances, it is completely unrelated to the elections. If the US has upset Allawi already (missing weapons, and the massacre of the Iraqi security team last week), that is a very bad sign for the future of Iraq and for the future of the US in Iraq.

 

[Duke of Marlbrough]

Is seems that the US is pushing to only allow two terms for the head of the IAEA. The current head of the IAEA, ElBaradei, is in his second term right now, so some are speculating that he is attempting to influence the vote in the US in the hopes that a Kerry win will make the US stop pushing for a two-term limit.

It seems ElBaradei is the one who stirred the issue back up by sending a letter to the interm government.

Early this month, Dr. ElBaradei put public pressure on the interim Iraqi government to start the process of accounting for nuclear-related materials still ostensibly under I.A.E.A. supervision, including the Al Qaqaa stockpile.

"Iraq is obliged," he wrote to the president of the Security Council on Oct. 1, "to declare semiannually changes that have occurred or are foreseen."

The agency, Dr. ElBaradei added pointedly, "has received no such notifications or declarations from any state since the agency's inspectors were withdrawn from Iraq in March 2003."

 

[Sanaz]

It seems ElBaradei is the one who stirred the issue back up by sending a letter to the interm government.

That quote implies that the US/Iraqi interim government were 13 months delinquent on their report back to the IAEA. Is that a good thing? I have no idea if the head of IAEA is trying to influence the US elections, but I'm not convinced there's a conspiracy.

 

[amadeus]

This story is just falling apart. Now it's 3 tons, not 380. "Do'h!"

 

[Duke of Marlbrough]

Actualy the article makes it sound like they were 18 months behind. The timing of it is what people seem to be questioning. Why was no remnder letter sent out after the first six month report was missed, or after the second six month report was missed?

 

[BasketCase]

I'd be remiss if I didn't raise the possibility that the missives indicating that the first and second six-month reports were missed, were missed.....

 

[jack merchant]

Actualy the article makes it sound like they were 18 months behind. The timing of it is what people seem to be questioning. Why was no remnder letter sent out after the first six month report was missed, or after the second six month report was missed?

Because the Americans shut out the IAEA out of Iraq after the occupation started, period. The inspections regime could only start again after sovereignty was transferred back to the Iraqi's.