Iraq says 'impossible' explosives taken before regime fall

[leftchick]

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/afp/iraq_us_explosives


~snip~
The UN nuclear watchdog this week said about 350 tonnes of high explosives went missing from a weapons dump some time after Saddam Hussein (news - web sites)'s regime was toppled in April 2003 after the US-led invasion .


But as the issue of the missing explosives took centre stage in the final days of the US presidential campaign, some US officials have suggested they had gone before the US-led forces moved on Baghdad.


"It is impossible that these materials could have been taken from this site before the regime's fall," said Mohammed al-Sharaa, who heads the science ministry's site monitoring department and previously worked with UN weapons inspectors under Saddam.


"The officials that were inside this facility (Al-Qaqaa) beforehand confirm that not even a shred of paper left it before the fall and I spoke to them about it and they even issued certified statements to this effect which the US-led coalition was aware of.

... The Plot thickens... When is scotty's press conference today? Must see TV!

[maddezmom]

1. looks like some of the puppets aren't sticking with the meme

from the misadministration....

JK should work this in his stump speeches today.

[colonel odis]

2. sounds like the iraqis may be throwing knives into bush's back,

instead of roses.

[berner59]

3. October surprise...

Is from Iraqi's...they are sticking it to Bush fro ruining their country...it SO makes sense!! How can Bush now talk of freedom and liberty to the good Iraqi people when they are now sinking him??? hmmm...poor Georgie...

[colonel odis]

5. good point. never thought about that.

wasn't iraq the most secular and most westernized of the arab countries and didn't/doesn't it have the highest literacy rate?

i'd be pissed, too, if someone came in and bombed my country back to the stone age.

[RaleighNCDUer]

16. At the time of the invasion, yes.

Previously it had been Lebanon, with a world class university, jet set casinos, very secular society.

Then it was bombed into the stone age.

Of course Iran, under the Shaw, was strongly westernized until the people threw out the CIA stooge, at which point the CIA stooge in Iraq attacked Iran, dragging it into a ten year was which effectively plunged it into the stone age, or at least the dark ages.

It's interesting that whenever an arab nation begins to make some progress something happens, usually involving the CIA, to drag it back.

[Inland]

12. Well, if you think Bush is in trouble over bombings, imagine the Iraqi

government. They are suffering civilian casualties ten times over our military casualities. You think they are going to take a fall for Bush?

[BeyondGeography]

4. Amazing stuff

Mini Me Allawi should come right out and endorse Kerry now. Finish off the job.

[Barrett808]

6. Rate this: currently 4.75 with 56 votes n/t

[Cha]

7. Rated..it's now a 4.10..the

freeps are probably trying to sweep it under the rug with a "1".

But this is HUGE..no where to run no where to hide!

[lakeguy]

8. rated, 4.15

[skip fox]

9. Is this story making other media???

Let's try to find out and give links.

Washington Times shows Bush backing off story of early removal:

http://www.washtimes.com/upi-breaking/20041027-065108-7569r.htm

[skip fox]

10. Second page of this Boston Globe story provides some UN speculations:

http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2004/10/27/kerry_says_bush_sought_to_hide_loss_of_iraq_arms/


(Edited for right link and paper title.)

[grumpy old fart]

11. oops

Wrong link, it looks like....

[leftchick]

15. Same report made it to Australia...

http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200410/s1229343.htm

:eyes:

[juliagoolia]

29. ITS a MYSTERY?? WHY??

WHY is it a mystery 18 months after we arrive in IRAQ where these documented explosives are?

POOR PLANNING>> just like KERRY SAYS

and thats NO MYSTERY

[Sara Beverley]

13. We should not let this die! The Bush regime is trying to confuse

the public by repeating the lie that the explosives were removed before the invasion. This simply not true and it is time for Dems to just call the Bush spokespeople "liars" because they are.

[RaleighNCDUer]

18. Even if they had been removed before the war (which doesn't

look likely) they were certainly there until the inspectors were forced out by *. It was the war that allowed them to go missing.

[CAcyclist]

27. Also, it should have been a high priority for them to check

If in fact the explosives were removed before the war, which I agree is impossible (it would have needed to be trucked out in a large convoy of big trucks. One truck could carry 30,000 - 80,000 pounds depending on size - at least 95 big rigs by my estimations ) still the military's first obligation should be to secure known weapons caches. So this would have been discovered immediately. There would be no need for a coverup because if the explosives disappeared before the war, it wouldn't be the Bush admin's fault.

On second thought, maybe the Iraqis do have a secret weapon - maybe they have a cloaking device ;) Maybe that'll be Bush's next excuse.

[Zen Democrat]

14. This pulls the rug out from under Bush, Cheney and the Freepers

Now what excuse are they going to use??? They went out on a limb knowing the truth and now SMACK!!!!

[leftchick]

17. No Wonder no US News sources have touched this....

We Have: some in the pentagon, the UN/IEAE and an Iraqi who was THERE all saying the weapons were accounted for and SEALED until the US unleashed pandora's box! It is just cheney and idiotboy* chirping away that they were already gone! You can bet Karl's fax is working overtime to keep his newswhores in line!

[Eurobabe]

19. either way they are SCREWED

you can't have it both way folks, so there WEREN'T any WMDS? WTF?

[skip fox]

20. Fox & Repugs saying "No thorough examination of site." Army says NO SEARCH

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/27/politics/27bomb.html?oref=login

Hell, they were even told NOT to search. (What's with that?)

NY Times requires registration (free).

[truthisfreedom]

21. which merely demonstrates ANOTHER level of irresponsibility.

stupid schmucks.

[leftchick]

23. I saw a CNN report shortly after I posted this...

omg... the verbal gymnastcs they went through trying to play this chimps way was Stunning. No mention at all naturally of this report!
I hope someone in JKs campaign brings it up for the newswhores since they can't seem to be able to themselves.

[milkyway]

22. Great find, leftchick! Unfortunately, a lot of people won't believe an

Iraqi over bush, even one of "our" Iraqis. The story says al-Sharaa worked with Saddam, so he won't be seen as credible.

This missing explosives issue will end up being the IAEA, UN, Iraqi government, the U.S. military, and the CIA vs. the bush administration. I'd like to see Sy Hersh and his sources speak up on this.

[CAcyclist]

32. The current leader is also a ex-Saddam official

So if the credibility angle is raised, that could be pointed out.

http://www.countercurrents.org/iraq-hassan190604.htm
Mr. Allawi is a secular of prominent Moslem merchant family. He was a former member of the Baath Party underground movement, and was in Saddam's regime unti1 1979

http://www.newyorker.com/fact/content/?040628fa_fact
PLAN B
by SEYMOUR M. HERSH
As June 30th approaches, Israel looks to the Kurds.
<snip>
The White House has yet to deal with Allawi’s past. His credentials as a neurologist, and his involvement during the past two decades in anti-Saddam activities, as the founder of the British-based Iraqi National Accord, have been widely reported. But his role as a Baath Party operative while Saddam struggled for control in the nineteen-sixties and seventies—Saddam became President in 1979—is much less well known. “Allawi helped Saddam get to power,” an American intelligence officer told me. “He was a very effective operator and a true believer.” Reuel Marc Gerecht, a former C.I.A. case officer who served in the Middle East, added, “Two facts stand out about Allawi. One, he likes to think of himself as a man of ideas; and, two, his strongest virtue is that he’s a thug.”

edit:I added this interesting side note in same article:

Ehud Barak, the former Israeli Prime Minister, who supported the Bush Administration’s invasion of Iraq, took it upon himself at this point to privately warn Vice-President Dick Cheney that America had lost in Iraq; according to an American close to Barak, he said that Israel “had learned that there’s no way to win an occupation.” The only issue, Barak told Cheney, “was choosing the size of your humiliation.” Cheney did not respond to Barak’s assessment. (Cheney’s office declined to comment.)

[young_at_heart]

24. Don't forget....Bush didn't know!

He was just told about this 10 days ago, so he's innocent.

[saigon68]

37. kick

[skip fox]

25. Let's say the explosives were gone. What then?

The Army didn't know that.
No one sought to find out and guard the site if not.
The reason no one did so was because of poor planning an insufficient troop strength.

We needn't back off our arguments one bit!

[ProfessorGAC]

30. Nobody Bothered To Train A Sattelite On It Either?

Even if we couldn't get there soon enough (and that's a very big "if", which i don't buy), we couldn't have used spy sattelites to watch for any movement around the area and stopped anyone hauling away stuff with air power?

These guys are in full CYA mode, and it's not working. They screwed up and just won't admit it.
The Professor

[CAcyclist]

26. The military forthrightly admits this cache wasn't guarded.

I've been wondering how the stuff was moved. "and looters were seen there as recently as Sunday" in Today's NYT article implies that this stuff has been moved in small amounts frequently by small groups of looters. That's my take on this, any way.

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/27/politics/27bomb.html?oref=login
But the unit's commander said in an interview yesterday that his troops had not searched the site and had merely stopped there overnight.

The commander, Col. Joseph Anderson, of the Second Brigade of the Army's 101st Airborne Division, said he did not learn until this week that the site, Al Qaqaa, was considered sensitive, or that international inspectors had visited it before the war began in 2003 to inspect explosives that they had tagged during a decade of monitoring.

<snip>
Earlier this month, officials of the interim Iraqi government informed the United Nations International Atomic Energy Agency that the explosives disappeared sometime after the fall of Mr. Hussein on April 9, 2003. Al Qaqaa, which has been unguarded since the American invasion, was looted in the spring of 2003, and looters were seen there as recently as Sunday.

[skip fox]

28. Another Boston Globe posting:

http://www.boston.com/news/world/articles/2004/10/26/explosives_were_looted_after_iraq_invasion?mode=PF

[JP Belgium]

31. Its current average rating is 4.29 with 445 vote(s). (n/t)

[indie_voter]

33. Release the hounds...uh.. I mean certificates! n/t

[AKing]

34. How long before they start trying to blame Chalabi for this?

[skip fox]

35. You mean Clinton, don't you? Or, maybe, Chalabi AND Clinton.

Yes! That's it. Clinton was going to give Monica's blue dress to Chalabi but then Ken Starr found it and it was locked up as evidence. Chalabi never forgave him so desired to take his hatred out on "our freedoms." He made a secret pact with Saddam to move all the explosives the night before the invasion and deliver them to Cheney's undisclosed location: the Hooters in Newark. And there they set, safe and sound. No problem . . . And even if there was, well, it's the fault of Clinton and Chalabi.

[leftchick]

36. chimpy* "We don't know yet when they were taken" !!!

This is driving me crazy... The newswhores are avoiding this like the plague... WE DO KNOW WHEN THEY WERE TAKEN!!!

<"The military is now investigating a number of possible scenarios including that the explosives may have been moved before our troops even arrived at the site," Bush said in his first remarks on the subject. >

http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=topNews&storyID=6631109