Report: U.S. troops say they were outnumbered by looters who took explosiv

[Mr_Spock]

explosives from Iraqi facility"

http://www.boston.com/dailynews/309/nation/Report_U_S_troops_say_they_wer:.shtml

LOS ANGELES (AP) Explosives were looted from the Al-Qaqaa ammunitions site in Iraq while outnumbered U.S. soldiers assigned to guard the materials watched helplessly, soldiers told the Los Angeles Times.

About a dozen U.S. troops were guarding the sprawling facility in the weeks after the April 2003 fall of Baghdad when Iraqi looters raided the site, the newspaper quoted a group of unidentified soldiers as saying. U.S. Army reservists and National Guardsmen witnessed the looting and some soldiers sent messages to commanders in Baghdad requesting help, but received no reply, they said.

''It was complete chaos. It was looting like L.A. during the Rodney King riots,'' one officer said.
-snip-

[MrTriumph]

1. Hard work

Hey, cartin' off all those heavy boxes is 'hard work'.

[Massacure]

2. Outnumbered? WTF, you shoot one box of explosives and they all go BOOM!

Besides, I thought the United States has a pretty high kill loss ratio compared to the Iraqis.

[Voice_of_Europe]

3. Looting while guarded by army?

Cool...!
Come all! Lets loot Camp David or NORAD or something... apparently they dont use their guns... so there's no danger to it!

[TahitiNut]

4. They were there to catch the roses thrown by grateful Iraqis

:shrug:

[ezekiel333]

5. They were busy...

[0007]

9. Good one!

[burrowowl]

14. Very good!

[ilovenicepeople]

19. It's good to see the troops putting back the jewels

that the "Iraqi" looters had stolen.

[yellowcanine]

6. November FOURTH, 2004. Interesting timing for this story, AP

Why didn't this story come out last week? Hmmm?

[KC21304]

7. These are just " EXAGGERATIONS" don't you know ?

[The Backlash Cometh]

8. Are these THE explosives that we've been hearing about?

[Bluebear]

24. YES. Al Qaqaa

[The_Casual_Observer]

10. This doesn't jibe with the pre "election" lies chimp spit out

and that motherfucker army man who didn't know anything. But that is to be expected, I'm surprised this story wasn't released yesterday. They must have quite a backlog of these little tidbits.

[monobrau]

11. Thanks for nothing corporate media

-nt

[wellst0nev0ter]

12. Don't Blame Me, I Voted 4 Kerry

[savistocate]

13. Widely reported Bush--"this has been debunked"!

for his base.

[rocktivity]

15. Candidate for this month's "You Call This NEWS?" award

...Soldiers who belong to two different units described how Iraqis snatched explosives from unsecured bunkers and drove off with them in pickup trucks...

..."It was complete chaos. It was looting like L.A. during the Rodney King riots," one officer said...


And exactly how many THOUSANDS of trips did those pickup trucks have to make in order to make off with 350 TONS worth of stuff? Well, it didn't take long for Bush to put me back into full aggravation mode, LOL!

:eyes:
rocknation

[noonriser]

16. I thought "we own the skies"?

Wouldn't this have been seen or captured on film given we own the skies?!

[derbstyron]

17. Fuck You Bastards. I voted for Kerry. That's MY new MANDATE

[Roland99]

18. Here's the LA Times Article: Soldiers Describe Looting of Explosives

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/iraq/la-fg-explosives4nov04,0,3712958.story?coll=la-home-headlines

WASHINGTON — In the weeks after the fall of Baghdad, Iraqi looters loaded powerful explosives into pickup trucks and drove the material away from the Al Qaqaa ammunition site, according to a group of U.S. Army reservists and National Guardsmen who said they witnessed the looting.

The soldiers said about a dozen U.S. troops guarding the sprawling facility could not prevent the theft because they were outnumbered by looters. Soldiers with one unit — the 317th Support Center based in Wiesbaden, Germany — said they sent a message to commanders in Baghdad requesting help to secure the site but received no reply.

The witnesses' accounts of the looting, the first provided by U.S. soldiers, support claims that the American military failed to safeguard the munitions. Last month, the International Atomic Energy Agency — the U.N. nuclear watchdog — and the interim Iraqi government reported that about 380 tons of high-grade explosives had been taken from the Al Qaqaa facility after the fall of Baghdad on April 9, 2003. The explosives are powerful enough to detonate a nuclear weapon.

During the last week, when revelations of the missing explosives became an issue in the presidential campaign, the Bush administration suggested that the munitions could have been carted off by Saddam Hussein's forces before the war began. Pentagon officials later said that U.S. troops systematically destroyed hundreds of tons of explosives at Al Qaqaa after Baghdad fell.

[DrZeeLit]

20. Bush: Hey! We're finding those explosives....

...one car bomb at a time.

This is my next bumper sticker.

[BiggJawn]

21. Uh, boys? It don't matter anymore...

Your Beloved Fuhrer got slid back into place again. you can drop the fucking "But the DOG ate my homework" bullshit.

Please have a hot, steamy canteen cup of STFU on me, OK?

[xxqqqzme]

22. how many more cliches

must we endure 2 Xplain our mafubb Iraq policy - 1st its 'the pottery barn rule', now its the dog ate my homework.

[donkeyotay]

23. too bad they couldn't get this out before the election

I think the looters carried out our free press, too.