Looting witnessed at Al Qaqaa in November 2003, 6 months after Saddam fell

[jfern]

A French journalist who visited the Qaqaa munitions depot south of Baghdad in November last year said she witnessed Islamic insurgents looting vast supplies of explosives more than six months after the demise of Saddam Hussein's regime.

http://www.iht.com/bin/print_ipub.php?file=/articles/2004/10/29/news/explode.html

[Carolab]

1. HOLY SHIITE

Alert the media--oh, wait--they don't care

[indie_voter]

2. She's French. Nobody will listen. n/t

[burrowowl]

3. We are not surprised

Rummy et al are comptrollers, don't know a damn thing about war.
Meanwhile Iraqis and Americans are paying a very HIGH PRICE! Their life, limbs, brain injuries, etc.
May Bu$h and Co be brought up before the ICC and rot in prison; however, ICC prison will be too good for them.

[Gloria]

4. If I'm not mistaken, the The Int't Trib is now connected to the NYTimes...

so I would imagine it would be picked up by the Times, I hope!

[kokomo]

5. Yes, it's the NY Times European edition mostly for American expats.

[UL_Approved]

6. The next Watergate??

Could this be the one? Will this stuff start pouring out now? I want to see how many more bunkers, storage facilities, looting insurgents, and other good times with Orwellian exuberance get brought up in the coming weeks. I think that resignation is a bigger possibility than a smooth election for removing the shrub.

[0007]

7. The main object of the U.S. was to protect the oil fields from

bing sabotaged upon the invasion of Iraq.

Nothing else mattered as it was poorly planned. It drips with avariciousness without regards to life or limb of the U.S. soldier or the lives of the Iraqis, and the antiquity of Iraq.

We have wallowed in cover up after cover up and lies that insult our intelligence and discard the truth as fantasy. This is beyond the pale.

[Lorien]

8. Horrible.

How can anyone NOT be enraged that this was allowed? Think of all the troops and innocents who have-and will- lose their lives because BushCo never had a real plan...:grr:

[Cocoa]

9. impossible

first of all, the Russians moved it all before the war.

Second, 377 tons isn't very much, when you think about it.

Finally, 377 tons is such a huge amount, how could the Iraqis move it all?

[Nancy Waterman]

11. This story continues to have legs

It will continue after the bin Laden tape quiets. Send it to the media and demand they carry the story.

[Cocoa]

12. the bin laden tape is a bust

the only news value is that it shows he's alive. Since when do we have to pay so much attention to terrorist propaganda?

[Demeter]

10. If Not For The World Wide Web....

we wouldn't know any of this. The media admitted that they ran with the story when it started "leaking out" on the Internet. God only knows how long they would have sat on it until they finally suppressed it otherwise; we certainly wouldn't have heard in time for the elections. It's taken 50 years for the dirt about World War II to start to leak out (again, probably due to the Internet). I'm surprised we knew as much about the Holocaust as we did.

[starroute]

13. Running a goddamn Wal-Mart for insurgents

From the article:

A man who identified himself as Abu Abdallah and led the group Daniel was with, told her that his men and numerous other insurgent groups had rushed to Qaqaa after U.S.-led troops captured Baghdad on April 9 last year. The groups stole truck-loads of material from what used to be the biggest explosive factory in the Middle East in the expectation that coalition forces would move quickly to seal it off, Daniel was told.

<snip>

But much to the insurgents' surprise, Qaqaa was not sealed off by U.S. soldiers, leading many groups to stop hoarding and instead going for regular refills of explosive materials, according to Abu Abdullah.

[damntexdem]

14. Ooh, now that's a smoking ...

explosive? Too bad it's a French journalist -- we all know the spin that will come out about that. On the other hand, had it been an American journalist: (1) the journalist wouldn't have been there getting the story, and (2) the story might not have ever been reported.

[stevietheman]

15. Because the reporter is French...

we had better not push this one. The Bushies will tear this down.

I think there are plenty other legs to this story besides this one.