bomb
Nearly 400 Tons of Explosives GONE!!

Missing explosives ‘could arm N-bomb’
October 26, 2004

THE United Nations atomic watchdog confirmed last night that huge amounts of conventional explosives that have disappeared from an Iraqi military facility could be used to set off a nuclear bomb.

International Atomic Energy Agency spokeswoman Melissa Fleming said there were fears the explosives might have “fallen into the wrong hands … terrorists”.

The disappearance also led to speculation insurgents were planning a massive attack on coalition troops.

IAEA chief Mohamed ElBaradei was due to provide the UN Security Council with an urgent briefing on the matter overnight.

Pentagon officials confirmed yesterday that almost 400 tonnes of explosives had disappeared from the Qaqaa military facility, about 40km south of Baghdad, which was supposed to be guarded by US troops.

How do you let 400 TONS of material get stolen? TONS!! That’s close to a million pounds. Incredible.



  1. Paddy Mullen says:

    I think it would take a lot less than 400 tons of explosives to detonate an H bomb. The B-29’s payload was ~ 20,000 lbs. Not all of that payload carried the detonator necessary for the atomic bomb. Saying 400 tons of explosives is enough to detonate an atomic bomb is redundant and inflamatory. The article should have said how much explosive charge is needed to detonate a bomb.

    That said, 400 tons is a lot of explosives and should have been much better accounted for.

  2. RAR says:

    Keeping with their plan to splash as much Anti-Bush crap on their front page as possible, the Times did NOT mention when this occurred. Of course, they’ve made it sound like it happened last weekend.

  3. Corey says:

    Indeed, this was a bad move by The Times. In this article currently on CNN and many other places, it is plainly noted that the weapons were sacked before US Forces were even in Iraq.

    I’m really interested to see what Senator Kerry has to say about his comments now. The President didn’t make any mistakes in this situation, and I hope that point is made clear.

  4. Thomas says:

    Surprise, surprise, we find out that the explosives were missing before we arrived (Drudge, NBC News). Kerry will need m0re than the press and mini-me to help him remove his foot from his mouth on this one.

  5. JB says:

    Funny how nobody mentions that this material was gone before the tropps even got there. How were they supposed to protect that?

    Also, this has been known about for months. Odd that it comes out as a major story the week before the election. What a strange coincidence.

  6. Mike Voice says:

    Interesting statement, in some recent news:
    The Pentagon ordered US-led forces in Iraq and US arms inspectors to “look into the matter and investigate what was alleged to be missing and the possible circumstances for going missing“, State Department spokesman Adam Ereli said.

    “This is 350 tonnes from a total of over almost 400,000 tonnes that we have accounted for.

    “It’s important, it’s significant, but let’s put it in the proper perspective.

    “We, from the very beginning of Operation Iraqi Freedom, did everything we could to secure arms caches throughout the country.

    “But given the number of arms and the number of caches and the extent of militarisation of Iraq, it was impossible to provide 100 per cent security for 100 per cent of the sites, quite frankly.”

    Sad. A documented site – already being auditied – and they couldn’t keep tabs on it? It’s security wasn’t planned for, the invasion?

    They gambled that this known site (and how many others?) could be left unprotected – and lost the bet. Now, they are upset that the lost wager has been made public – this close to the election? As if this shouldn’t be a consideration in how things in Iraq are being/have been run? We should wait till November to discuss this – in the proper perspective?

    Don’t worry. I already voted – so this news will not effect my vote. 😉

  7. meetsy says:

    Uhhh…RAR, so, they should mention this AFTER the elections? Should I file your comment under “what we don’t know, won’t hurt him” ?
    The BBC news gives a clearer view of this fine mess:
    Administration officials, quoted anonymously by US media, criticised the UN watchdog – the International Atomic Energy Agency – for leaking the news at such a sensitive time, a week before the US election.

    The Vienna-based IAEA said it had been informed on 10 October by the Iraq interim government that the explosives were missing.

    http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/3955007.stm

    Seems to me…that if the IAEA was told on 10/10, that our current administration probably knew on 10/11…..but chose to “not disclose it” before the election. The fact that it’s been 20+ days for us to hear about this…seems odd to me. So, how is it “Bush bashing” when it looks like a Whoopsie-gate to me. I’d give him a lot more respect if HE were the one to break the news, and explain it, than having the “other sided media” do it. Seems to me….this is what makes this such an ugly election.
    And, you are sticking up for Bush with the easy “media crap” response. So, this is what America has become…..
    FYI..it didn’t happen LAST weekend, but it WAS DISCOVERED and noted on 10/10. My question….what else haven’t we heard about? A lie is never alone.

  8. meetsy says:

    I’m confused, is this the stuff Michael Savage is saying? (I don’t know, because I get tired of the lame guys rants) but, whew…..JB and RAR, you guys seem to be spouting stuff in a savage-esque goose-step.
    I think it’s alarming that explosives are missing….in a country that has been having a “bit of a peace issue”, unstable as hell, and we have over-run with Americans (not of the tourist variety). I can’t see that our media is capable of planning long-term. If they knew about this two years ago, and just NOW reported it…..uhhh, would sort of be a miracle, wouldn’t it?
    The obvious ugly reality (no finger pointing, no blame): we didn’t secure what we said we were going to secure. Big surprise. This whole war wasn’t planned very well…understaffed (we still have troups in Afghanistan, remember?) overtime, prision abuse, suicide bombers, non-secured areas, lack of understanding of the local tribes, crumbling infrastructures….. it’s a fisaco. Saddam is on “trial” (what happened to that news?) in the country. How secured is he? We searched for WMD, but lost some explosives. Oh whoops, gee, that’s funny. What happened to the “elections” the withdrawl of troops planned for….June? July? August? Now I don’t hear about it. After the elections? Never….or many, many years from now?
    If you don’t like our “liberal media” then use the web and find foreign media, as they tend to be much more conservative and unbiased. Check the Canadian media, or the UK media, the Aussies, or the Kiwis….heck, read the India media. Then, make some decisions and form some opinions.
    Just, don’t keep spouting what Savage says! Get a grip.

  9. Anonymously says:

    Thanks for playing folks, but NBC has pulled back on its claim that the materials were gone before they got there.

    To wit:

    “ollowing up on that story from last night, military officials tell NBC News that on April 10, 2003, when the Second Brigade of the 101st Airborne entered the Al QaQaa weapons facility, south of Baghdad, that those troops were actually on their way to Baghdad, that they were not actively involved in the search for any weapons, including the high explosives, HMX and RDX. The troops did observe stock piles of conventional weapons but no HMX or RDX. And because the Al Qaqaa facility is so huge, it’s not clear that those troops from the 101st were actually anywhere near the bunkers that reportedly contained the HMX and RDX. Three months earlier, during an inspection of the Al Qaqaa compound, the International Atomic Energy Agency secured and sealed 350 metric tons of HMX and RDX. Then in March, shortly before the war began, the I.A.E.A. conducted another inspection and found that the HMX stockpile was still intact and still under seal. But inspectors were unable to inspect the RDX stockpile and could not verify that the RDX was still at the compound.

    Pentagon officials say elements of the 101st airborne did conduct a thorough search of several facilities around the Al QaQaa compound for several weeks during the month of April in search of WMD. They found no WMD. And Pentagon officials say it’s not clear at that time whether those other elements of the 101st actually searched the Al QaQaa compound.

    Now, Pentagon officials say U.S. troops and members of the Iraq Survey Group did arrive at the Al QaQaa compound on May 27. And when they did, they found no HMX or RDX or any other weapons under seal at the time. Now, the Iraqi government is officially said that the high explosives were stolen by looters. Pentagon officials claim it’s possible — they’re not sure, they say, but it’s possible that Saddam Hussein himself ordered that these high explosives be removed and hidden before the war. What is clear is that the 350 metric tons of high explosives are still missing, and that the U.S. or Iraqi governments or international inspectors, for that matter, cannot say with any certainty where they are today.”

    As the NBC reporter who was embedded at the time said:

    “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. ”

    For those who wanted to hop on the Drudge bandwagon as soon as possible, I hop you’re big fans of crow (just scroll through all the recent posts): http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/

  10. Thomas says:

    Of course only the conservatives can parrot talk shows and media nonsense, surely not the liberals ;->

    That material was missing before the military arrived. What part of before do people not understand? Given that it was missing before we got there, the only way to secure that material would be to go in earlier. It never seems to be a problem to the left to contradict themselves. For example, to exclaim that we should have taken more time to build a coalition but should have secured explosives that were missing by the time we got there is hypocritical.

  11. Ed Campbell says:

    Apparently, the Bush True Believer brigade not only has the market cornered on cordless crystal balls, they have a time machine function designed and enabled by Drudge.

    As more information comes out about this fiasco, it is clear that [1] no one knows exactly when the goods were removed — and no one tried to do anything to prevent it. [2] Our military was not briefed on the importance of the materials at Al Qaqaa. [3] The Bush Administration has been sitting on the story — just as they have about every other tale of woe from their “heroic” adventure in invasionland — hoping it would go away till after the election.

    Sadly, the only response offered by otherwise-competent folks who maintain an emotional commitment to this corrupt crew in DC — is that same rationale offered, again and again, by Bush, Rove and their flunkies: Ignorance is OK.

    Sorry, guys. There are plenty of folks out here, on the Left or Right, who believe that higher standards are required of government.

  12. Tomlaureld says:

    I saw on TV a long time ago those piles of weapons. No one bothered to even care what was stored in those depots. We just drove on by.
    Nobody asked me to search those piles for nukes or chemicals. Those piles of weapons just sat there.
    Who do I blame for not confiscating or destroying them?
    Oh yeah the liberal media for pointing them to us again.
    I certainly would not want to blame the administration for anything like that. They had a signed piece of paper saying that they were missing before we got there. I remember signing the paper myself or was it the Iraqi foreign propaganda minister.

  13. Thomas says:

    Is this reporter not the same person who is quoted as saying she didn’t see any explosives? Sure she saw stockpiles of conventional weopons, but I haven’t yet seen any substantial evidence that the big stuff, the explosives were there.

    Let’s not forget that there were 380 tons! You can’t just walk out with 380 tons of materials. The reporter even said 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.. It would require a lot of trucks to move that much material and she just admited that the roads were cut off.

  14. Anonymously says:

    Thomas,

    What evidence do you have that the material was missing before we got there? Thus far, all people seem to be able to cite is the NBC report, which is all that Drudge cited. Corey cites CNN, but their article also cited the NBC report. The Bush administration also cites the NBC report, despite the fact that Scott McClellan, prior to the report, made contradictory statments. But this NBC report has been demolished and even NBC is trying to stop the spin in its tracks. Tom Brokaw, last night even said:

    “Last night on this broadcast we reported that the 101st Airborne never found the nearly 380 tons of HMX and RDX explosives. We did not conclude the explosives were missing or had vanished, nor did we say they missed the explosives. We simply reported that the 101st did not find them. For its part, the Bush campaign immediately pointed to our report as conclusive proof that the weapons had been removed before the Americans arrived. That is possible, but that is not what we reported.”

    Indeed, as the quotes I posted above indicate, the troops weren’t even looking.

    Quoting Andrew Sullivan (who in turn quotes a CBS Report):

    ” “The commander of the first unit into the area told CBS he did not search it for explosives or secure it from looters. ‘We were still in a fight,’ he said. ‘Our focus was killing bad guys.’ He added he would have needed four times more troops to search and secure all the ammo dumps he came across.” – CBS’ latest press release on the missing explosives. Four times more troops. But that would have meant doing it right.”
    http://tinyurl.com/4fola

  15. Thomas says:

    The best evidence against looters taking the material after 101st Airborne arrived is the sheer volume of material involved. Here’s what we know for sure. We know that when the Army arrived on May 27 that none of the material was there. We know that inspectors confirmed that the material was there in March. We know that there was approximately 380 tons of material.

    Now we get down to what we think we know. The embedded reporter with the 101st Airborne says that they did a cursory inspection and that the roads would have made it very difficult for anything to get into the facility. We can deduce that the general area was free of military hostiles or else the 101st Airborne would have toasted them.

    So, in order for looters to have taken this stuff, they would have had to move 380 tons of material in 47 days without detection by satellite, air support or any other US force in the area while their capital and country was under siege. It is far more likely that the materials were moved prior to the 101st Airborne arriving when they would have had roads and time to drive trucks into the facility to move the material.

    Mr. Lefty Anonymous, you are basing all of your data on the same NYT report and that of the NBC reporter. You along with the media are jumping to the conclusion that the material must have been taken by looters. Given what we know for sure, I find it incredibly unlikely that 380 tons of material was moved by looters after the 101st Airborne left even though they only did a cursory inspection. No direct evidence has yet been presented that the same 380 tons of explosives listed in the inspection report were in fact there at the time of their arrival.

  16. Zappini says:

    Doubting Thomas-

    What part of before do people not understand?

    This particular site was looted after Saddam’s forces dissolved. Numerous people insider, outside, their side and our side raised the alarm before, during, and after. Al Qaqaa is just one of 100s of weapons caches, depots, and bunkers that went unsecured. Many of those sites contained Including nuclear material, dual use technologies, and other things better kept out of the hands of our enemies.

    Rummy’s battleplan for Iraq, especially the Phase 4 stuff, contravened established military doctrine. Rummy overruled the professional military and state dept types who accurately and repeatedly stated the dangers of going in understaffed. Rummy even shanked anyone who spoke honestly (e.g. Shinseki).

    In summation, Team Bush failed utterly in every conceiveable way. I’m thrilled that this particular story finally surfaced in the national media in time for the election.

    Cheers, Zappini – Co-Chair of Reality-Based Community Precinct #312

  17. Thomas says:

    Taking the country in a month and seizing almost 250,000 tons of material is failing in every conceivable way?! By what comparison are you concluding that the Iraq war is/was a failure? Do you realize that we have secured more territory with fewer people than the first Gulf War and that is with poorer naval access? By what historical barometer do you measure success? By that reckoning, the Cold War was an utter failure because the Soviets were able to get the bomb and WWII was an utter failure because some of the Nazis were able to escape. That’s simply a defeatist point of view. Saddam is in the can, the Taliban is scattered, the Afghanis and the Iraqis are having elections and we haven’t had another terrorist attack. All those are related and all those are tremendous successes, none of which would have made it to Gore’s resume had he been in office.

    Let’s not forget that the bozos that exclaim that we are understaffed are the same hypocrites that hailed the defense reductions and reductions in the size of the number of troops in 90’s.

  18. Wait, Iraq had 400 tons of explosives? Kerry says we should be guarding them more closely?

    I thought Iraq wasn’t a threat? I thought they didn’t have any weapons? What do these matter, then?

    I thought we shouldn’t go to war without the aid of our European allies, but Spain has already said they won’t help in Iraq even with Kerry in office. France benefitted too much from Saddam in power to ever help us. And, oh, now it seems Russia was busy moving those explosives to Syria in the middle of the night to cove r their ass.

    But Kerry’s going to bring the world together? Right.


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