KAAAAAAAAABOOOOM! Iraqi Al QaaQaa witnesses materialize! [View All]

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From the NYT:

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/28/international/middleeast/28bomb.html?oref=login&oref=login

4 Iraqis Tell of Looting at Munitions Site in '03
By JAMES GLANZ and JIM DWYER

Published: October 28, 2004

BAGHDAD, Iraq, Oct. 27 - Looters stormed the weapons site at Al Qaqaa in the days after American troops swept through the area in early April 2003 on their way to Baghdad, gutting office buildings, carrying off munitions and even dismantling heavy machinery, three Iraqi witnesses and a regional security chief said Wednesday.

The Iraqis described an orgy of theft so extensive that enterprising residents rented their trucks to looters. But some looting was clearly indiscriminate, with people grabbing anything they could find and later heaving unwanted items off the trucks.

Two witnesses were employees of Al Qaqaa - one a chemical engineer and the other a mechanic - and the third was a former employee, a chemist, who had come back to retrieve his records, determined to keep them out of American hands. The mechanic, Ahmed Saleh Mezher, said employees asked the Americans to protect the site but were told this was not the soldiers' responsibility.

Much more here:
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/28/international/middleeast/28bomb.html?oref=login&oref=login


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