More info from TPM re explosives

[LynnTheDem]

On Monday, the Pentagon gave mixed signals about what the first troops on the scene found. Or rather, an official whom the AP describes as closely involved in the Iraq survey work says the explosives were there, while Pentagon spokesman Larry Di Rita says they weren't.

Di Rita's claim that the explosives were already gone was picked up this evening by NBC news which reported that one of its news crews embedded with the 101st Airborne visited the facility on April 10th and found no weapons. This was in turn trumpeted by a number of conservative news outlets like Drudge and the Washington Times.

First, military and non-proliferation analysts say that a detachment of soldiers not specifically trained in weapons inspections work and certainly an NBC news crew simply wouldn't be in a position to make such a determination. We're not talking about a storage unit with a few boxes in it, but a massive weapons complex made up of almost a hundred buildings and bunkers.

In any case, that visit wasn't the first time US troops went to the facility. That happened a week earlier, on April 4th, as was reported at the time. According to an AP account from the following day, the troops made spot visits to some of the buildings and found chemical warfare antidotes but no WMD.

The same report (April 5th, 2003) says they also found "thousands of five-centimetre by 12-centimetre boxes, each containing three vials of white powder" which were initially believed to be chemical agents but were later determined to be "explosives."

More:

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2004_10_24.php#003800

So we have a US Military report saying yes there were explosives, April 4th, 2003.

We have US military saying a news reporter (and soldiers not trained in NBC) wouldn't know if the stuff bit them on their arse.

We have a Pentagon official saying yes the HE were intact in April 2003.

We have the Iraqi Interim Government's report saying the explosives were intact until AFTER April 9, 2003.

We have the IAEA commercial satt photos.

Versus

Larry DiRita, entagon spokesman who said the SECOND US military team didn't find any explosives, (altho they were not trained in NBC) according to an embedded reporter.

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2004_10_24.php#003800

JFC.

[jezebel]

1. Maybe it is because I'm half asleep, but doesn't it all boil down to one

thing? Forgetting for a moment that we know troops were there April 4, let's go with the NBC date of April 10.
If we were in Iraq from March 19 is there any excuse for it taking that long to secure the site? Doesn't that prove poor planning or inadaquate troops?

[grytpype]

2. No matter what happened to the material...

... and when it was removed, there are two facts that everyone agrees on:

1) The IAEA warned the Administration about the Al QaQaa stockpile, and

2) The Administration didn't do shit to secure the stockpile or find out what happened to it. They claim they didn't even know about the situation until a couple of weeks ago. A COUPLE OF WEEKS AGO! AND THIS IS AFTER THE IAEA WARNED THEM!!!!

[sandnsea]

5. And they secured the oil fields

Since when are oil fields more important than explosives and possible WMD locations.

[high density]

3. This is so frustrating

I have the feeling that this story is going the way of those Killian memos because our media is so lazy. Some idiot at NBC News says "we didn't see them in April" gets mangled by Drudge/CNN/etc as "THEY WERE GONE BEFORE THE TROOPS GOT THERE!" These idiots need to take some sort of logic class.

November 2nd can't come fast enough. I'm going crazy. Time to go to bed.

[DELUSIONAL]

4. There's a whole lot of lying going on

TPM observations are very good --

How could this many trucks move around -- when the US was supposedly looking for WMD??

Very important lesson -- the military will always lie and deny.

Mike Webb is very good tonight!!! He's been hitting this topic -- hard.

[LynnTheDem]

6. It isn't the military lying & denying

The military reports say the HE were intact and sealed when they investigated, April 5, 2003.

ONE NBC REPORTER says the troops he was embedded with didn't find any explosives...altho neither he nor the troops were trained in NBC or explosives.

And the ONE NBC REPORTER's story isn't even on NBC's site; what IS on NBC's site is the Pentagon official saying the HE were still intact & sealed immediately after the invasion.

[DELUSIONAL]

7. Just an old habit of mine not to trust anything from the military

until whatever the military PR machine has been verified.

I'm a military brat -- and we learned this from a very early age -- the military lies and denies.

First word out -- the stuff wasn't there when the first troops checked. However -- these guys were not trained to know what they were looking at or looking for.

However I have been rethinking my early training -- it seems to me that the bush gang can out lie the military. It is hard to know who to believe -- the professional liars -- the bush crime family -- or the military?? The military often throws in the truth -- in between their lies. It is getting damned hard to be a cynic.

[kurt_cagle]

8. No, Not Delusional - Civil War

Larry DiRita is a Rumsfeld appointee, and very definitely sides with the NeoCons. The other reports from the Pentagon I suspect came from "leaks" coming from the regular military. Same thing is happening from the CIA. There's a battle going on in Washington right now, with the "old" Pentagon and the "old" CIA trying desperately to embarass the apparatus that's been set up to promote all the lies and disseminations of the administration. This battle has been pretty much lost at the FBI, most of the old guard were pretty much caught off guard and frankly weren't expecting things to get so political so quickly.

If Bush wins, most of the old guard know that they're toast - the dissenters will end up getting downsized in the face of the "reorganization" that is likely to occur, under the rubric of putting the FBI, the CIA, DHS, and parts of the DIA under one roof. The new "recruits" will likely come from places like Bob Jones University, and will definitely see themselves as soldiers with a mission from God. Valerie Plame was a warning.

[DELUSIONAL]

11. The military was very heavily culled when Rummy took over

There is abundant hatred for Rummy in the ranks -- it is my hope that Rummy couldn't get rid of all the good guys.

The lower ranks are more honest -- and they hate Rummy. I have reports from people who have been in heads (bathrooms for landlubbers) on Navy bases and have seen writing on bathroom stalls -- sort of like:

"Working hard to give birth to another bush".

According to my sources there was a massive purge -- and anyone who might question Rummy or bush was given early "retirement".

Yes a fight is going on in the military and CIA -- I believe we will be seeing a flood of leaks this week. Porter Goss as CIA head was a bad sign of things to come.

This is going to be an interesting week.

[NV1962]

12. Very, very, very acute point - and the very crux of national security

It's unconscionable -- or it should be, rather -- that a pack of cold-hearted, calculating and ruthlessly a-patriotic opportunists has been placed in the busom of government, where they tear the system aparty with deliberate politicking and slash-and-burn tactics.

The peers abroad of the agencies you mention are wincing and smarting in solidarity and commiseration. And rather than letting astonishing sneers of "old world" be for what they are, media have for way too long been mesmerized by the cruel spectacle that is perhaps best visualized in the Alien series: egg-type pods that incubate in an invaded warm body, only to rip it apart once they feel the moment for their "manifest destiny" has arrived.

Civil war was an excellent chosen characterization of that silent fratricide which, left untouched, may well yield several more previously undetected atrocious attacks in their wake, on U.S. soil.

And they have the effing gall to play the flag and patriot part... Sedition! Fifth column! Traitors!

Welcome abord, kurt_cagle - I hope to read more from you.

[SoCalDemocrat]

9. Hammer them on what troops did day #2

Bush didn't secure the explosives and nuclear materials and research papers in Iraq because the planning centered on protecting the oil resources. This site has an excellent historical breakdown of what happened starting with day 1 of the invasion. You'll witness in all its glory the description of our troops moving in with all haste to secure....

Iraq's Oil Ministry and Oil refineries.

Huh?

I thought we went there to secure the WMD's?

http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/ops/iraqi_freedom_d2.htm



At approximately 6 p.m. on March 21, the elements of the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force, specifically the 5th Regimental Combat Team secured the gas oil separation plants (GOSPs), crude oil export facilities and oil wells in the Rumaylah Oil Fields. U.S. Marines from the 1st Marine Division, and U.K. Royal Marines combined their efforts to secure the critical Iraqi infrastructure.

Four GOSPs, a key pumping station at Az Zubayr, a manifold and metering station on the Al Faw peninsula, and the offshore crude oil export facilities had been secured and were critical nodes of the larger oil infrastructure in Southern Iraq. These key facilities gave the Iraqi people the ability to preserve 85 percent of the function of those fields.

The Mina al Bakr export facility was captured intact and in working order. The Khor al Amaya export facility was destroyed during the war between Iran and Iraq in the 1980s, and is currently non-operating. Both facilities are capable of handling 1.6 million barrels per day when operational. After their capture, all six major GOSPs were being evaluated in order to determine what work is needed to make the areas safe to begin pumping oil again to support the people of Iraq.

Six major GOSPs, covering an area approximately 50 kilometers in length, included seven oil wells that have been sabotaged and were on fire. Oil fire fighting crews were to move into the areas at a designated time to snuff out the fires.

Some of the deserted plants were improperly shut down by Iraqis, causing oil pumping from the well to overfill the pumping station’s oil tanks. The oil was seeping around the area and posed a potential threat of explosion if the oil reaches the burning wells.

The 1st Marine Division and the UK's 7th Armoured Brigade engaged the 51st Mechanized Division outside Basra, a battle which raged for some hours. The engagement began with the Marines initiating 155mm artillery fire at 6:25 p.m. local time as multiple AH-1s began to stream ahead softening Iraqi forces. By late Friday afternoon Eastern Standard Time the 51st Mech had surrendered, marking the first time that the commander of an Iraqi division and his deputy had personnaly surrendered to the US. The roughly 8,000 soldiers that comprised the division were secured as enemey prisoners of war.

Although the oil infrastructure was confirmed to have been extensively booby-trapped, the installations were secured intact and US and British troops began clearing the demolition charges. The US V Corps secured bridges over the Euphrates in their rapid advance on Baghdad.

[SoCalDemocrat]

10. Check this out

[NV1962]

13. Just a little footnote here...

It sounds like Iraqis are already ahead of us here, seeing as they have a "Planning & Following Up Directorate" that is actually headed by General Director...