Huge Cache of Explosives Vanished From Site in Iraq

Foxfyre, at one end of the spectrum is absolute perfection. At the other end of the spectrum is total complete disaster. We agree it's neither of those extremes; where we disagree is where things do fall on that spectrum. The Bush administrations' handling of Iraq has shown MANY, many problems, especially of a certain type -- ignorning intelligence and warnings, only to experience just what the intelligence and warnings indicated would happen. From relatively narrow issues like the looting of priceless antiquities (predicted, ignored, easily foiled) to the larger issues like the fact of the size and strength of insurgency (predicted, ignored, prime opportunities to foil lost).

I still don't know how bad this is. I was responding to the "rush to judgement". I don't comdemn the administration for one error in reporting, if that's what it was -- I condemn the administration for systematically mishandling the war in Iraq.

I find these details from my above linked 10/29/04 New York Times article about the April 18,2003 TV journalist visit to al Qaqaa fascinating



"Mr. Caffrey said the soldiers used bolt cutters to cut through chains with locks on them, as well as seals. He said the seals appeared to be lead disks attached to very thin wires that were wrapped around the doors of the bunker entrances, forming a barrier easily cut in two."

"The gloomy interiors revealed long rows of boxes, crates and barrels, what independent experts said were three kinds of HMX containers shipped to Iraq from France, China and Yugoslavia."

"The team opened storage containers, some of which contained white powder that independent experts said was consistent with HMX".

"Mr. Caffrey added that the team left the bunker doors open. "It would have been easy for anybody to get in," he said."

"Mr. Staley recalled that during the drive back to camp, they saw a red Toyota pickup truck with some Iraqis in it. "Our impression was they were looters," he said."

What I find fascinating are attempts by some proponents of The Opposition to build a fortress from whisps of straw.

It's very much like building a case for war.

I don't know how reputable this source is but it makes a case that we'll be getting a lot of those explosives back at us soon.


http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/story.jsp?story=577148


US troops refused requests to protect explosives store
By Kim Sengupta in Baghdad
29 October 2004


Al-Qaqa'a, the Iraqi military complex from which 350 tons of explosives disappeared, was looted after US troops left the area refusing requests to protect the site, Iraqi witnesses say.

They say unguarded buildings were stripped of their contents after the arrival and departure of American troops in the last few days of the war.

Yesterday an armed Islamic group claimed to have obtained a large quantity of the explosives and threatened to use them against coalition troops. The group, calling itself al-Islam's Army Brigades, al-Karar Brigade, said on a video that it had co-ordinated with officers and soldiers of "the American intelligence" to obtain a "huge amount of the explosives that were in the al-Qaqa'a facility".

The looted explosives have become a contentious issue in the US election campaign, adding weight to the accusations of John Kerry, that George Bush mishandled the war.

Iraqi people claim US forces were specifically asked to secure the complex but declined to do so, saying their orders were to proceed towards Baghdad. The looters are said to have removed everything from desks and computers to ammunition and artillery shells.

The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has revealed that among the items stolen were HMX and RDX, key components in plastic explosives such as C-4 and Semtex, which are favoured by insurgent groups. The IAEA said it had warned the Bush administration of the vulnerability of the al-Qaqa'a arsenal in April last year after the looting of the main Iraqi nuclear facility. There is strong suspicion that the explosives have been used in the car bomb attacks in which hundreds of civilians as well as US and Iraqi government forces have been killed.

Al-Qaqa'a was identified in Tony Blair's Iraq weapons dossier of September 2002 as a place where phosgene was used to produce chemical or nerve agents. The United Nations, the IAEA and the Iraq Survey Group all found the claims to be false. The factories did, however, legitimately produce explosives for Iraq's armed forces. Before the war, IAEA inspectors checked the seals in the bunker where the material was stored and found them to be intact.

The Bush administration has moved to discredit the reports about the al-Qaqa'a looting, accusing Russian special forces of helping to spirit the explosives out of Iraq. The Russian defence ministry was adamant in denying the charge.

Mohammed Hamid Abdullah, from Yusufiah, 30 miles south of Baghdad, where al-Qaqa'a is located, said: "I know the Americans were told what was in the factories, and they must protect it. But they said they had to go on to Baghdad. We all saw people go in there afterwards and take everything they could. It went on for days."

Colonel Joseph Anderson, of the 2nd Brigade of the 101st Airborne Division, said his troops had mustered at al-Qaqa'a on 10 April 2002, simply as a convenient location. No one had told him about the explosives inside the complex.
29 October 2004 15:37

UN inspectors say entry denied



Allegations made on Iraq arms sites

By Farah Stockman and Bryan Bender, Globe Staff  |  October 30, 2004

WASHINGTON -- United Nations weapons inspectors pressed for permission to return to Iraq to help monitor weapons sites on the heels of the US-led invasion but were denied entry by the US-led coalition, according to a former inspector, UN officials, and a letter from the International Atomic Energy Agency obtained by the Globe.
The sites included Al Qaqaa, a sprawling facility about 30 miles south of Baghdad. At least 377 tons of powerful explosives, including the particularly dangerous substance known as HMX, have vanished from that location.

"They wanted to go. They were begging to go," said David Albright, a former weapons inspector who now heads the Institute for Science and International Security and who lobbied in vain for the UN agency in April 2003 to be allowed to resume work in Iraq. "They would have gone to Al Qaqaa and said, 'Here's the HMX. Burn it.' They would have been a driver of efforts to find these things. . . . They would have provided a tremendous service."

Yesterday, a US official said the inspectors' request to return to Iraq was denied because of "logistics and timing" and because the United States and Britain took on the inspections-related work.

"The US and the UK were taking the lead in searching for the arms, and there was really no reason" to allow the inspectors back, said Joe Merante, spokesman for the US mission to the UN.

Still, even now, the US military is unsure when the bunkers containing HMX at Al Qaqaa were searched after the war and how the munitions disappeared.

The missing explosives that had been monitored by the UN agency before the war have become a heated campaign issue in the final days before the election, as candidates trade accusations about under whose watch the munitions vanished.

Democratic challenger John F. Kerry has accused the Bush administration of allowing the explosives to fall into the hands of insurgents, while the White House and Pentagon suggest that the explosives may have been destroyed by US soldiers or taken by former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein shortly before the war.

The controversy of the Al Qaqaa munitions erupted months after another team of UN weapons inspectors reported evidence of widespread looting at other weapons sites. The UN Monitoring and Verification Commission, a group that monitors non-nuclear weapons activity in Iraq from its New York headquarters, found 20 missile engines in a scrap yard in Jordan this summer and 22 other missile engines in the Netherlands, the group reported in August.

Before the war, inspectors had asked for more time to search for banned weapons, while President Bush and other high-level US officials said UN inspectors and sanctions were not working and swift action had to be taken. The inspectors left Iraq in March 2003, on the eve of the invasion, and asked to return in April and May, as the war unfolded and news reports detailed massive looting of radioactive material at Al Tuwaitha.   


link

I love the "Commies took 'em" approach. Prior to the invasion Colin Powell could show us a picture of a van on the ground in Iraq and assure us that it was proof positive of Saddam's mad lust for WMD's.

Now, to steal 350 tonnes of material would involve like 350 trucks in a convoy travelling from Iraq to Russia. That would stick out like a dog's turd in a bowl of caviar - Colin Powell, where's the pics? For that matter, where's Colin Powell lately?

Win lose or draw Colin Powell is history. He should find a different line of work. Being a shill for the Bush administration has made him damaged goods.