Vast amounts of weapons-related material missing, official says

[muriel_volestrangler]

http://www.kentucky.com/mld/kentucky/news/politics/10040891.htm

The more than 320 tons of missing Iraqi high explosives at center stage in the U.S. presidential election are only a fraction of the weapons-related material that's disappeared in Iraq since the U.S.-led invasion last year.

Huge amounts of arms and ammunition were stolen from military sites, and there's "ample evidence" that Iraqi insurgents are firing looted weapons at U.S. troops and using some of them in car bombs and improvised explosive devices, said a senior U.S. intelligence official, speaking on condition of anonymity.
...
In a new disclosure, the senior U.S. military officer and another U.S. official, who also spoke on condition he not be identified because of the sensitivity of the matter, said that an Iraqi working for U.S. intelligence alerted U.S. troops stationed near the al Qaqaa weapons facility that the installation was being looted shortly after the fall of Baghdad on April 9, 2003.

But, they said, the troops took no apparent action to halt the pillaging.

"That was one of numerous times when Iraqis warned us that ammo dumps and other places were being looted and we weren't able to respond because we didn't have anyone to send," said a senior U.S. military officer who served in Iraq.

[yardwork]

1. The worm turns

with a vengeance.

[maddezmom]

2. the lastest flap is just the tip of the iceberg :(

[beniciodeltoro]

3. That's how I feel :(

[maddezmom]

4. earlier thread by NNNHOLI

Thanks to NNNHOLI and hope it's okay to post. :hugs:

(New York, October 29, 2004) - Human Rights Watch repeatedly gave U.S.-led coalition forces in Iraq detailed information about massive stockpiles of unsecured explosives and munitions located throughout the country, but coalition forces took little or no action to secure the stockpiles. In May 2003, Human Rights Watch provided U.S. and British forces with specific data, including precise GPS coordinates, on unsecured weapons stockpiles around Baghdad and in Basra. "Immediately after the fall of Baghdad, our researchers were finding massive stockpiles of weapons and explosives throughout Iraq," said Kenneth Roth, executive director of Human Rights Watch. "But when we informed coalition forces, they told us they just didn't have enough troops to secure these sites."

On May 9, 2003, a Human Rights Watch researcher encountered a massive stockpile of warheads, anti-tank mines, anti-personnel mines, and other weaponry at the unsecured Second Military College, located on the main road between Baghdad and Baquba. Among the weaponry were hundreds of high-explosive surface-to-surface warheads for the ASTROS multiple rocket launcher system, packing 26 kilograms of high explosives each. The weapon stocks were in the process of being looted.

Concerned about the safety of the displaced persons at the military college, the researcher immediately went to the Coalition Provisional Authority in Baghdad and reported the weapons stockpile, showing U.S. military officials photographs of the weaponry, giving the exact GPS coordinates of the site, and showing the location of the site on a military map. The researcher repeatedly returned to the "Green Zone" over the next days to report continuing looting at the site, but U.S. coalition forces did not move to secure the site. The road between Baghdad and Baquba is now one of the main locations for attacks using "improvised explosive devices" (IEDs) against passing coalition troops and Iraqi security forces. Typically, suicide bombers and IEDs involve between 25 to 200 kilograms of high explosives.

U.S. troops were not the only ones who failed to secure weapon dumps. Also in May 2003, a Human Rights Watch research team located 20 trucking containers packed with anti-aircraft shells, mortar rounds, rocket-propelled grenades and Katyusha rockets near the old airport in Basra. The team approached the British troop contingent stationed nearby and asked them to secure the site, as civilians were looting the site and being injured. Even though the site was less than one kilometer away from the headquarters of the British First Fusilliers Battle Group, the British forces failed to secure the site.

more


http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x940680

[yardwork]

5. kick

[Eloriel]

11. There were also plenty of reports about this --

as the war unfolded. But of course, these stories weren't "worthy" of attention back then, because the press all had its war on.

I'm glad it's finally coming out. What a colossal clusterfuck this war has been from inception on. Where will it end?

[Whoa_Nelly]

6. Just a fraction??????

Just a fraction of the vast amounts of missing explosives? This is among the most heinous crime yet by the Bush administration. This is not poor planning, nor even qualifies as an oversight. It was deliberate, and has been known by this administration and its members from before the invasion (knowing about the caches/storehouses), and afterward when the places were looted. Omission is the same thing as lying, and Bush has made us less safe than ever before in the history of the US, not to mention how unsafe and even more unstable he has allowed the Middle East to become. Bush absolutely does not deserve to remain as POTUS, as if he ever deserved it, that bastard. Should this election for some UNGODLY reason keep him in that position, we are all screwed...not just the US, but the world at large.

[mediaman007]

7. Does that make the Bush* regime terrorists for unleashing all of this

shit on the World?

This is truly incompetance. And they bragged "the adults are in charge now" in 2001.

[krkaufman]

8. "we didn't have anyone to send"

The bottom line... "we didn't have anyone to send"

[TacticalPeek]

9. And fail not to note this:

Al Qaqaa was on a classified list of Iraqi weapons facilities that the CIA provided to Pentagon and military officials before the invasion, said the U.S. intelligence official.

But when the Pentagon and U.S. Central Command produced their own list of sites that a limited number of U.S. "exploitation teams" should search, priority was given to those identified by exiled Iraqi opposition groups, he said. Al Qaqaa wasn't one of them.

"The top of the list was dominated by nuclear facilities and places where we expected to find chemical and biological weapons," he said. "Iraqi exiles had a very heavy hand in determining which places got looked at first."

[Olden Slow]

10. The media SHOULD be asking...

If *you* were planning a war and you knew EXACTLY where the enemy's munitions dumps were ahead of time, wouldn't you send a missile or two in the *first thing* to destroy the enemy's fighting capabilities?

The proper question ISN'T if there were munitions OR when they disappeared, the question is WHY weren't they (and all other supply areas) marked for destruction before our troops started moving up the road toward them? I always thought disrupting the enemy's supply chain -*especially their weaponry* - was a basic strategy of offense.

Tim Coney
Medford, OR

[Bridget Burke]

12. So, is Osama's latest tape a "thank you" note?

Waiting for a full translation...