NYT: 4 Iraqis Tell of Looting at Munitions Site in '03

[truthpusher]

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

MISSING EXPLOSIVES

4 Iraqis Tell of Looting at Munitions Site in '03

By JAMES GLANZ and JIM DWYER

Published: October 28, 2004

AGHDAD, 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.

The accounts do not directly address the question of when 380 tons of powerful conventional explosives vanished from the site sometime after early March, the last time international inspectors checked the seals on the bunkers where the material was stored. It is possible that Iraqi forces removed some explosives before the invasion.

[democrat in Tallahassee]

1. it's in your court Mr. President

[huckleberry]

2. Russia did it sez Moonie Times...

http://washingtontimes.com/national/20041027-101153-4822r.htm

[maddezmom]

3. that scenerio is insane, wonder what Pooty will have to say.

:eyes:

[truthpusher]

5. Let's see if * will shit on Putin now, he already screwed Blair.

[debatepro]

6. Yes and there are lepercons.

lepercons and the easter bunny. What a joke.

[Poiuyt]

14. Let's invade russia!! YEEHAW!!!!

With Yosemite Sam as our president, we can do anything!

[maddezmom]

15. zactly...your either with us or against us, right??? time to invade Pooty

[truthpusher]

17. That would be cool..

[russiamommy]

36. Thanks for the chuckle

That was a great way to start the day. :)

Unfortunately, it's all too true...

[BUSHOUT]

29. That story is GONE now....or I'm buggin'. What did it say?? n/t

[speedoo]

4. Helps our side. No help to shrub.

And it keeps the story moving.

[msanthrope]

8. You got it......n/t

[bagnana]

7. Bush: These iraqis are jumping to conclusions!

They are making wild accusations without the facts! I have the facts! I have the facts! Waa waa waa!

[truthpusher]

26. What the F*ck are they doing with this Russian bit...

[Sinnerman]

35. Everything is Going Kerry's Way..... a little concerned......

I thought this was the perfect October Surprise and Reiterated Bush's failed policies. But If some of this explosive info is not accurate and is proven that the Shit wasn't even there. The new Commercial Just cut can be a problem and we can't let that happen.

[russiamommy]

37. Even if it was gone, it's still bad news for *

1.) Why didn't we know it had left? Wouldn't our satelites have picked up on the convoy?

2.) Why didn't we even attempt to take an inventory of this stuff? After all, WE KNEW IT WAS (at least supposed to be) THERE! Did we really go more than 18 months without trying to secure whatever weaponry we knew about?

3.) We know that the stuff was under the control of the IAEC before the war and had been for many years. If it was moved, it was done only because of the imminent invasion. Thus, when Bush argues that we had to go into Iraq to keep this stuff out of the hands of terrorists, what quite possibly happened is the * pushed this stuff into the hands of terrorists.

Thus, even if it was gone before the invasion, it still shows incredible incompetence.

[Maeve]

41. Who you gonna believe? the US pResident or your own lyin' eyes?

:eyes:

[George_S]

9. Iraqis are breaking the code of silence

They want Bush out. They know Bush is not the best one to promote democracy there.

[PBX9501]

10. It would be interesting to see if we have sat. imagery on this site.(nt)

[BUSHOUT]

21. Don't you think the Pentagon is feverishly looking for something? Or that

we might get another "Colin Powell at the UN" special??

[JohnnyCougar]

11. This should put to rest that nonsense from the Wash. Times

And that mysterious Fox story.

FACE IT FREEPS, YOU'VE BEEN HAD!!!

[Spiffarino]

12. Greta Van Elephantman just reported that "Russian Special Forces..."

...moved the material to Syria in March '03 sez the WashTimes. Hey aren't both "unimpeachable" news sources? :eyes:

[truthpusher]

18. The whores will stretch the Russia bull out like the Swifties...

[Spiffarino]

20. Oh yeah. You can bet this is Rove on UBER spin control - n/t

[BeyondGeography]

13. Here's the smoking gun:

<But the accounts make clear that what set off much if not all of the looting was the arrival and swift departure of American troops, who did not secure the site after inducing the Iraqi forces to abandon it.>

Adios, Chimpy.

[Zorra]

16. Sooo....did the Bu$h administration know that these explosives were

missing, and try to cover it up for over a year, or

Did they not even remember that they were there until UN nuclear watchdog agency discovered they were missing?:wow:
:scared:

[truthpusher]

22. No fly zones, UN oversight no problem. US invades problem...

...boy did we Fuck up.

[BUSHOUT]

19. Game's over. n/t

[BUSHOUT]

23. R We allowed to post more elsewhere? No subscription. n/t

[truthpusher]

25. easy to subscribe - no cost for NYT - worth the time (about a minute)

[BUSHOUT]

27. thanks, think I will n/t

[BUSHOUT]

28. Most telling and frightening testimony from the article:

"The looting started after the collapse of the regime,"
said Wathiq al-Dulaimi, a regional security chief, who was based nearby in Latifiya. But once it had begun, he said, the booty streamed toward Baghdad.

[Tempest]

43. Use bugmenot.com

You'll find registration IDs and passwords to all the news sources.

[Cha]

24. So where does that leave the

Russians? I guess I should go read the Russians taking the explosives story in the moonie times?

[BUSHOUT]

30. To me this looks like a Bush debunking. Turns the knife on Bush!!!! n/t

[BUSHOUT]

31. Why isn't this on the front page?

http://www.nytimes.com/pages/pageone/index.html

:wtf:

[Carolab]

32. NO, NYT it is NOT possible

"that Iraqi forces removed some explosives before the invasion"! IAEA and the Iraqis responsible for this site ALREADY SAID SO. CHECK YOUR FACTS, you shills:

To wit:

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

He said he and other officials had been ordered a month earlier to insure that "not even a shred of paper left the sites."

"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."

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story2&u=afp/us_vote_kerry

[Carolab]

33. Oh, yeah, and then there is this

Taken off the main DU page:

Now that the White House's defenders have given up on the April 10th NBC visit, they've fixed on April 3rd (stretching into the 4th) arrival of units from the 3rd ID.

Fox and Larry Di Rita (Don Rumsfeld's communications guy) are now arguing that since those units that were there on the 3rd and 4th of April didn't find a "huge quantity of munitions" that the stuff had already been taken away.

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/index-old.php

But as we know, Col. Robertson, commander of the 2nd brigade w 3rd ID said yesterday, they only did a very brief search. And lookie what they DID find in their brief search...

WaPo, April 5, 2003:

In the first of yesterday's discoveries, the 3rd Infantry Division entered the vast Qa Qaa chemical and explosives production plant and came across thousands of vials of white powder, packed three to a box. The engineers also found stocks of atropine and pralidoxime, also known as 2-PAM chloride, which can be used to treat exposure to nerve agents but is also used to treat poisoning by organic phosphorus pesticides. Alongside those materials were documents written in Arabic that, as interpreted at the scene, appeared to include discussions of chemical warfare.

This morning, however, investigators said initial tests indicated the white powder was not a component of a chemical weapon. "On first analysis it does not appear to be a chemical that could be used in a chemical weapons attack," Col. John Peabody, commander of the division's engineering brigade, told a Reuters reporter with his unit.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn?pagename=artic...

And what was the white powder? Here's what the Associated Press was told the same day ...

A senior U.S. official familiar with initial testing said the powder was believed to be explosives. The finding would be consistent with the plant's stated production capabilities in the field of basic raw materials for explosives and propellants.

http://www.globalsecurity.org/org/news/2003/030405-chem...

RDX and HMX are white powders.

http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/systems/munition...

So...in a QUICK SEARCH by the 3rd ID on April 3-4, 2003, they found THOUSANDS of boxes full of EXPLOSIVES.

[leftchick]

34. yes indeed. They found those thousands of boxes of explosives

and left them there unattended! Excellent work Carolab! Now if only the newswhores would attempt to do their job... :eyes:

[truthpusher]

39. Will this die before election day?

[symbolman]

38. According to Bush

these 4 Iraqis are not fit to be Commander in Chief because they are leaping to wild conclusions :)

I can see Bush now "Who are you going to believe, me, or your lying eyes?!"

Notice that the media is STILL covering for Bush, claiming the vase was broken when he got there..

it's always "the dog ate my homework" with this guy... sick of it..

this should be an impeachable offense... maybe better to just fire the guy and prosecute him later..

[LeftHander]

40. At Least the Oil Ministry building was safe....

Surrounded by 50 U.S. Tanks....

http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2003/04/16/1050172643895.html?oneclick=true


Save the oil....!!

[Soth]

42. Check the Daily Show for an interesting take on this...

Here's a link:

Daily Show!

Watch the Headline video.