White House plays down loss of explosives in Iraq

[wicket]

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=1521&ncid=696&e=8&u=/afp/20041025/pl_afp/iraq_iaea_us_explosives

The White House played down the loss of 350 tonnes of high explosives in Iraq which Democratic presidential challenger John Kerry said was proof of the administration's "blunders."

President George W. Bush had known about the lost explosives for 10 days, said White House spokesman Scott McClellan.

International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) inspectors were informed because the munitions were considered dual-use materials and subject to monitoring, said McClellan, traveling on Bush's re-election campaign.

McClellan blamed the disappearance on "some looting that went on in Iraq toward the end of Operation Iraqi Freedom, or during and toward the end of Operation Iraqi Freedom."

Bush critics have long said too few troops were deployed to secure Iraq after the collapse of Saddam Hussein's regime. They blame poor planning and the mistaken assumption that Iraqis would welcome US-led forces with open arms.

[maddezmom]

1. "... end of Operation Iraqi Freedom, or during and toward the end of OIF"

starting to sound more and more like his boss everyday

[amber dog democrat]

2. OK they knew about it October but it

happened in March, April or May ?????

It does not matter, our troops are getting killed and maimed all the same.

Great defense !

It sure shuts me up.

[WLKjr]

3. They don' t know how to handle it

It caught them by SUPRISE! and it didn't happen on a Friday.

[wtmusic]

4. "Some looting" to "loss of 350 tonnes" is like...

______ to ________ ?

[truthisfreedom]

18. that's 760,000 pounds. one pound brought down pan am 103.

three quarters of a million terror attacks, at least.

[mom cat]

21. "Looting" is an over minimization. How about grand theft! OR

US absconds with 380 tons to fake future terrorists attacks?

[Kierkegaard]

26. Looting is some guys lugging TVs and VCRs down the street,

Several semis making off with 380 tons of high explosives is incompetence.

[reprobate]

32. It comes to ten forty foot semi trailer loads.

[sangh0]

29. "Lockbox" to "$400 billion deficits"

Hey, I like this game!!!

[wtmusic]

33. Perfect! That's what I was looking for!

:thumbsup:

[fdr_hst_fan]

5. That's my Smirk!

[whistle]

6. Hehhehehe, it is just one of the main justifications Shrub and all....

...of BushCo made for going to war in Iraq. Now, who the hell knows where all of HMX is and in whose hands this material resides. I'll make a bet that the private security forces know a lot more about the missing explosives than they are willing to admit to. The White House needs to have their feet held to the fire on this. Hey Mr President, tell us all you know about Al Qaqaa!

[oneighty]

7. CBS news this evening

shows "boxed explosives." If that is what is missing it is very bad. Raw explosives are very easy to work with as compared to the same explosives cast into munitions.

180

[LynnTheDem]

8. bush was told over a year ago, not "10 days ago"

Bloody lying criminals.

[leftchick]

15. Exactly Lynn...

god I wish we had Real News!... :grr:

[Beetwasher]

9. Cornered Rats

Dangerous animals...

[MissMarple]

10. George failed "to do the basics", he failed the test.

Do we promote failure? I don't think so. We don't just want adults in charge, we want competent adults in charge.

"Kerry blasted "the unbelievable blindness, stubbornness, arrogance of this administration to do the basics," which has allowed Bush "to once again fail the test of being commander in chief."

[skip fox]

11. PERFECT!!! Shows disconnect! Damn near demonstrates disconnect.

W. has opened himself up for the knock-out punch.

If Cheney's daughter is worth 4 news cycles, then this should play through next week.

"W.H. unconcerned? About missing tons and tons of high explosives which are now in the hands of an enemy which is attacking us and the new Iraqi regime with increasing ferocity? . . . Then just what ARE they concerned by? . . . Winning this election so that they can sink back into unconcern?"

Etc.

[Ronbrynaert]

12. Didn't Rumsfeld say...

Explosions are untidy, and free people are free to make mistakes and commit crimes and do bad things.

[ignatius 2]

17. He also said, after the looting, that bad stuff happens. Yeah, we know,

especially if you don't have plan B in place just in case the Iraqis don't hug us and throw flowers.

Incompetent bunch of arrogant assholes who take no personal responsibility for even one damned thing they do. Most of the experienced generals in the pentagon said at least 200,000 troops were needed to secure the borders and prevent chaos and lawlessness. But,per usual, Bush and Rumsfeld were too busy doing things on the cheap and preparing to be made godlike to Americans when they rolled over a country that never attacked us, had no wmds and no Al Qaida connections.

Much blood is on these bastards hands,I honestly do not know how they can look in the mirrir without vomiting.

[Tab]

13. Yeah, so..?

Just because they'd known about it for 10 days doesn't absolve them from anything. It just means they were sitting on it.

As far as it being the result of "some looting", well, sure. I agree with their assessment.

Compared to what the Bushies HAVE been looting, 3/4 million pounds of explosives is nothing. For them.

[cvoogt]

14. they're north, south, west, east of Tikrit

"the meagre supply 350 tonnes of high explosives were looted by evildoers who hate us for our freedoms and we have incontrovertible proof that these Weapons of Mere Destruction are located precisely randomly strewn about Tikrit. Iraqi troops were assigned to guard the cache and apparently did not believe in freedom being quite as on the march as we so fervently do. The evil-doers can stop bringing it on now, please."

[wtmusic]

22. ROTFL my favorite Rummy moment

*har* ouch my sides *har* :D

[Amigust]

16. Perpetual dodgeball: playing it down like playing down Osama.

If you can't prove it false or smear the source, then try to minimize it's importance.

[underpants]

19. ~"Oh yeah that is old news we knew about that 10 days ago"

well How the Hell did it happen?

[OutsourceBush]

20. White House plays down "insert major catastrophe here"

[grytpype]

23. "Why didn't they know about it sooner????"

How's that for a question?

This "we didn't know" defense is wearing pretty thin.

[trueblew]

24. How did 380 tons of ANYTHING get smuggled out of there?

[DulceDecorum]

37. In a white van,

by the same guys who looted one TRILLION dollars from the Pentagon.

[symbolman]

25. Wait a minute...

Didn't BUSH LIST this kind of stuff in his crappy lil State of the Union address?

That would mean that BUSH KNEW THEN..

Round house punch from the FLOOR to this Mr KErry!!

[Downtown Hound]

27. Play up the weapons that don't exist

Play down the weapons that do. Anybody else feeling safer yet?

[maddezmom]

28. me, me, me

NOT!!

[JerseygirlCT]

30. No, no, no! Don't you get it?

the new freeper line is that this PROVES there were stockpiles of dangerous weapons in Iraq and so, you see, we HAD to launch a pre-emptive attack...

Their ability to twist anything to suit their preconceived, ironclad, WRONG ideas is amazing!

[Carolab]

35. That's utter nonsense

If that were true they'd have been trumpeting it all up and down Pennsylvania Avenue.

Instead, they KNEW, and they said NOTHING. Proves a cover-up.

[JerseygirlCT]

38. Oh, believe me, I agree

Just was astounded at what I was hearing from some right-wingers. Suddenly another one of their boy's immense failures is being sold as proof that we were right to attack Iraq.

[wicket]

31. kick

:kick:

[sr_pacifica]

34. "Bush had known about the lost explosives for 10 days..."

Well, now, doesn't that tell you it can't be something to worry about, if Georgie has known this all this time? (sarcasm) I can just hear W peevishly say, "I know 350 tons of explosives are missing, I know that."

[barb162]

36. every terrorist expert I have seen said this is totally disastrous

but to Bush, hey folks, things are looking up in Iraq. More of the fantasy world Bush lives in.

[koopie57]

39. I thought I saw another headline

that said the WH said they were gone before we got into Iraq? This is like a multiple choice test .. the WH gives us three answers to each question and we pick the one we like the best.

[wicket]

40. they can't decide what to present as the truth

[maddezmom]

42. no fooling, here are some DU links.....all of them offer a different spin

Transcript from McClellan's press gaggle today. The missing explosives
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.ph...

Kerry demands answers about missing explosives
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.ph...

Huge Cache of Explosives Vanished From Site in Iraq -NYT, front page
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.ph...

Pentagon says its unclear if explosives disappeared after Iraq site fell uder US control
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.ph...

CNN - Report: Explosives already gone when U.S. troops arrived
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=102&topic_id=932531&mesg_id=932531

[GliderGuider]

41. As long as the UN inspectors were inspecting, the stuff stayed put.

Once the inspectors were ordered out by the US, the Americans effectively took on the responsibility fo securing all the stuff the inspectors had previously been looking after. The Americans failed to do this. No matter how they try to spin this, it comes under the heading of "you broke it, you bought it". They should have been guarding that stuff. Now it's gonna come back and bite the soldiers in the ass, a pound at a time.

The Lockerbie comparison is a bit overblown IMO. All you need to do to bring a jumbo down is to breach the integrity of the hull at a vulnerable point. It doesn't take much explosive to do that. I haven't heard any realistic estimate yet of how many pounds of RDX it takes to make an effective IED. Since most of their damage is from shrapnel it wouldn't take much, but certainly more than a pound - my guess is 5 to 10 lb. per boom. That means there is enough of this crap out there to make between 75,000 and 150,000 IEDs. No matter where you point the finger of blame that is a lot of messed-up lives.

And one more bit of context:

A Mk 83 1000 lb. dumb bomb contains 385 lb. of explosive. The amount stolen is the equivalent of 2000 of those bombs. And all the bombs that will be made from this stuff will be "smart" bombs - taken by human beings to the exact place where they are intended to detonate.

[Corgigal]

44. Very good GliderGuider

YOU get a cookie. If we couldn't move up there fast enough then we should have had the option to take out the bunker with a missle.
This adminstration was responsible for the site the second the security forces had to leave. They were forced to leave because we were coming and probably thought we would blow the place up.

Well they would have to, if they planned for war instead of pretending it was a sprint.

[Name removed]

46. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Rjnerd]

51. A hand grenade

Including the casing (most of the weight) is under a pound. And they (used to) use a less potent explosive than RDX/HMX. Claymore mines also have less than a pound of explosive in them. Either device can seriously spoil your afternoon.

So to be sure, they use a whole kilo of the stuff. Thats still 350,000 IED's. At slightly over the current rate (100 a day) they have enough to last a decade. And thats just the stuff from this one site. I am quite sure, that this isn't the only cache that was looted. Those RPG's have to come from somewhere...

[sonicx]

43. is Scott lying or the NBC reporter?

one has to be.

[young_at_heart]

45. I like this...."He blamed it on some looting"

I guess they'll NEVER take any blame for any thing!

[maddezmom]

47. right, it was the looters, but who allowed the looting???

pass the buck....

[Catfight]

48. LIARS LIARS LIARS LIARS LIARS LIARS LIARS LIARS!!!!! They

all are putting America in grave danger!

[skip fox]

49. Latest on Explosives . . . They WERE there.

(1000+ posts)
Tue Oct-26-04 04:04 PM
Original message
Kerry Camp: "Latest Bush Excuse on Weapons Dump Evaporates"

Edited on Tue Oct-26-04 04:37 PM by PeteNYC

George Bush's continuing efforts to avoid responsibility for failing to secure 380 tons of highly dangerous explosives
in Iraq just took another blow. The reporter who was actually traveling with the 101st Airborne in the report cited by
the Bush campaign has clarified that the unit was not there to secure the massive weapons complex and it was
merely a 'pit stop' on their way to Baghdad.

Try as it might, the Bush spin machine can not change the truth: the President is responsible for his catastrophic
failures in Iraq and needs to personally address this issue.

MSNBC, 10/26/04 (Transcript):

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. 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. 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 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.

LLJ: Thank you.

EDIT: Link added: http://blog.johnkerry.com/rapidresponse/archives/003664...


All the above from a fine post by PeteNYC:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=132x1174935

[Catfight]

50. Bush take responsibility? LOL..that's good, EXCUSE President! n/t

[Supersedeas]

52. just some..you know..just some trivial looting..350 tonnes of triviality