LA TImes; explosives moved before invasion NOT CREDIBLE

[LynnTheDem]

U.S. officials say the explosives — which are powerful enough to detonate a nuclear bomb — may have been looted from one of Saddam Hussein's bomb-making plants when U.S. forces worked to pacify Baghdad and other restive cities.

Given the size of the missing cache, it would have been difficult to relocate undetected before the invasion, when U.S. spy satellites were monitoring activity at sites suspected of concealing nuclear and biological weapons. "You don't just move this stuff in the middle of the night," said a former U.S. intelligence official who worked in Baghdad.

Iraqi officials told the International Atomic Energy Agency — the U.N. monitoring group — earlier this month that the explosives were looted after April 9, 2003, when U.S. forces entered Baghdad. IAEA officials verified that the explosives were still at the site and under seal in January 2003, the last time the inspectors were there.

David Kay, the CIA's former chief weapons hunter in Iraq,(and hand-picked by BUSH) believes that the material was looted in the immediate aftermath of the war.

He said he saw the facility in May 2003, "and it was heavily looted at that time. Sometime between April and May, most of the stuff was carried off. The site was in total disarray, just like a lot of the Iraqi sites."

sked if U.S. troops were ever ordered to guard the facility, where Hussein built conventional warheads and the IAEA dismantled parts of his nuclear program after the Gulf War, a Defense official responded, "Not that I'm aware of."

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/iraq/la-fg-explosives26oct26,1,5204158.story?coll=la-home-headlines

[priapis]

1. debunking the upcoming WH Explosives spin- they were NOT gone B4 we landed

bottom line-- they were under seal & controlled when Bush ordered the inspectors out.

they are now gone.

spin spin spin; that fact doesnt change.

bush's actions responsible for putting all this firepower in the hands of terrorists.

either
1) gone between time bush ordered inspectors out and then didnt adequately surveil the compound, and time when when we took over, or
2) gone after we took over

bush's fault no matter what.

end of story.

more info & ammo
http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2004_10_24.php#003800

[JohnnyCougar]

3. Welcome to DU, priapis!!

You're right!

Cheers!:toast:

[priapis]

5. foolproof spinproof logic for dems on WH Explosives Spin

thanks.

i only hope dems use this logic line. clear & simple. no matter how the dems spin the timeline, it works.

i joined and posted here, because I figured it had the best chance of filtering up.

[aquart]

7. Welcome to DU, priapis.

[priapis]

11. peggy noonan is saying that these explosives were WMD

on lou dobbs-- peggy noonan is saying that these explosives were WMD so it justifies the war.

amazing.

[neomonkey]

2. The LA Times could never have been accused of being "conservative"

but I gotta say, in the past month or so, they have stepped front and center in this election and pointed out the folly of the Idiot King's mis-Administration time and time again.

Kudos to the LAT, my hometown paper. Keep up the good work.

[necso]

4. Any known target of this importance

should have been obliterated before the invasion (or at the moment of), or seized immediately -- and if it could not be held, obliterated.

But then, known nuclear (related) facilities and weapons caches of all kinds were left unseized and unprotected (or inadequately protected)... to say nothing of the national treasures and infrastructure.

Complete muck-up.

Maybe the same people who took all that nuclear equipment got (some of, anyway) this stuff too.

Much of the (important) looting appears pre-planned. And anybody who knows about these things would realize that there can be a lot of good stuff up for grabs when government control breaks down -- particularly in times of war -- and particularly where government control is not adequately replaced... and quickly.

Of course, we still don't have adequate control of the country -- and who knows what is being looted at this very minute.

[aquart]

8. You don't understand. They were supposed to be happy to see us.

Then they were going to cheerfully take order from us and do whatever we told them to do.

On account of their happiness.

It wasn't supposed to be necessary to guard all that stuff. Why would happy people want to blow us up?

But it all went so horribly wrong.

[necso]

10. While I can believe that

some of the neo-cons actually believed something along these lines, I cannot believe that certain wiser heads didn't see a splendid opportunity (to grab stuff) in the lack of order certain to result from the invasion of Iraq. (The military plan did not deal with the post-invasion adequately -- and the State Department plan was thrown out -- if any reference to it, or its trashing, can even be found these days.)

And with the planned troop levels, this lack of order could be expected to continue for a long time. After all, Iraq is divided along ethnic, religious and tribal lines, with numerous grievances (among these groups), repressed ruthlessly by Saddam -- so re-establishing order always promised to be difficult.

Reasons like this are why we didn't invade Iraq in the first Gulf War.

But the neo-cons didn't like it (not invading) then, and, well, they have their revenge now. Of course they plan to make up for their abject failure by invading some other country next -- with similar naivete (and grabbing with both hands) to be expected.

[high density]

6. THANK YOU Mark Mazzetti and Maggie Farley!

They're doing what CNN should be doing, but that's just not as easy as quoting Drudge or GOP press releases.

[kokomo]

9. Heard that it would have taken 17 tractor-trailers to move it.

I am sure with U.S. bombs raining all over Iraq (and I would have thought we would be bombing such KNOWN munitions dumps) that a truck rambling down the highway loaded with such high explosives would have been strafed resulting in one hell of an explosion.

The reason we didn't secure the munitions was that the Oil Ministry buildings and oil refineries were most important. To hell with the hospitals, museums, schools, libraries, banks, and small businesses.

[radfringe]

12. Peggy Noonan - talking head (Lou Dobbs 10/25)

looks like the spin is out there -- missing weapons cache PROVES Saddam had WMDs....

transcript:(snip)
http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0410/25/ldt.01.html

DOBBS: I am joined now by Peggy Noonan, former speechwriter for President Reagan. She's taken leave from writing her column in "The Wall Street Journal" to serve as an unpaid adviser to the Republican National Committee. Good to have you here.

PEGGY NOONAN, ADVISER TO RNC: Thank you, Lou.

DOBBS: You just heard Kiki. She sounds pretty confident. She says it's a time for change. She thinks it's a wrapped up deal.

NOONAN: Well, I guess she does. I disagree with her. I don't think the outcome is going to be the one she expects, but could I just jump in on one of the many issues she raised...

DOBBS: Of course you can.

NOONAN: ... which is the explosives and that horrible...

DOBBS: Oh, we're going to get to that one way or the other.

NOONAN: All right, well, let's start with it.

Look, war is hell. War is a mess. It looks like hundreds of tons of these horrible explosives, which can do many terrible things in many terrible ways, are missing. I've talked to people about it all day today. The first thought I had was, whoa! I thought there were no weapons of mass destruction. This sounds like a weapon of mass destruction to me.

DOBBS: Well, it certainly...

NOONAN: The sort of stuff that Saddam had could be used to do terrible things. Talked to Bernie Kerik today -- go ahead...

DOBBS: Can I insert here so everybody understands what you are really saying. That a number of these high explosives, 377 tons of them, a portion of them had been sealed in point of fact by the IAEA whose responsibility it is to look over nuclear materials because these types of explosives HM-AX are used to detonate nuclear weapons.

NOONAN: They can be. They can be. They can be used in a very small amount to take down an airliner.

DOBBS: Less than a pound?

NOONAN: Yes, they can take down buildings. They can do terrible things. Explosives like this, stuff like this was all over Iraq when the U.S. army went in. I talked to Bernie Kerik earlier today. He said we were finding them in the fields. Explosives, huge caches of them and destroying them. We were finding them in caves and in all sorts of places. Getting them exploded and taking care of them, getting rid of them. The point remains, it is good that Saddam is not now in charge of those things, and I think the point is underscored, these horrible explosives and damaging devices did exist and were there. It is also true that these explosives might have been used in the advancement of the creation of a nuclear program for Iraq down the road, in the past and down the road. It's not good that it's missing. We're going to have to find it. But it does illustrate I think some points that Mr. Bush has been trying to make, about the badness and evil of the Iraqi setup.

DOBBS: Yes.

NOONAN: And also about how dangerous it was there.

DOBBS: Yes. This is a confusing period of time for some people. Obviously, because, one, those who felt that Saddam Hussein deserved to be removed, whether as a matter of regime change or his possession of weapons of mass destruction, the fact is the way in which the administration has managed, post-May 1, that is the end of so-called major combat operations is the larger issue. This is an extraordinary, I think you would agree, a lapse of judgment, and oversight on the part of the...

NOONAN: The lapse of something. I am certain of that. I mean, you don't lose...

DOBBS: Let me assert my opinion on this one, Peggy.

NOONAN: Go ahead.

DOBBS: 377 tons of high explosive in one of the most unstable regions of the country, that is -- to put at its kindest, a lapse of judgment.

NOONAN: It's a lapse of something. Oversight or whatever. Who was involved? I think the reporting of it was also kind of late. Apparently it happened a while back, we're not sure exactly when it happened, and the reporting of it has just broken.

DOBBS: Can I interrupt you?

NOONAN: This is bad but a larger point ought to be made. I think about war and this is something I always talk about with my son. My son is always upset about the way the war going. Not with the invasion itself. Not with the victory in which we got Iraq from Saddam but decisions that have been made since. I say, look, war is hell and it's a mess. Every president knows this, that's why they don't like to fight them. It's a horrible thing. That's one.

Another thing is wars don't go well in the beginning as a rule. Henry Kissinger earlier today mentioned D-Day, you know? He said, would you have complained on D-Day that we had too many or too few troops on Omaha Beach?

My comparison is always the Civil War. Poor Abe Lincoln, a very great man, had nothing but 2 1/2, three years of terrible, hard news, and mistakes, and missteps and mess-ups. That's what war is like. That doesn't mean you say, OK, we're over, we're out of here. A mess has been made. We're going to have to clean it up.

DOBBS: I will remind you that President Lincoln did bring in Ulysses S. Grant because he got tired of it.

NOONAN: He did, it was about 2 1/2 years in.

DOBBS: There's nothing like the compression of time in modern America and the world. Peggy, I want to just take a moment here. We're going to go to Davenport, Iowa. President Bush has just started speaking there. I just want, if we may, just listen to him for just a few seconds.

[necso]

14. Interesting that this idiot

should make a Civil War reference.

When Richmond, the Confederate Capitol, finally fell to Union forces, it was looted by stragglers and elements of the remaining population.

"Richmond was evacuated on the 2nd of April, 1865. The fleeing Confederates set fire to several warehouses, and the fire got out of hand. In addition, a mob formed, looting and spreading the fire. The next day, the Federals received the city's surrender, and entered the city."

Simply no excuse.

Oh, and the Union forces restored order.

[NightOwwl]

13. Pushed, shoved, blackmailed or threatened?

"The Bush campaign pushed reporters to look into an NBC News report that the network had been embedded with troops who searched the site three weeks into the war but never found the powerful explosives that are now missing, suggesting they were already gone."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A60413-2004Oct25.html

[MattP]

15. Cnn

It just goes to show that cnn is in the bubble and they like it there.