So what's the big deal on the missing explosives?

[fishface]

We've known since May of 2003 that Bushs failure to have sites secured led to the looting of explosives and nuclear material.

This is old news.

Maybe it's time to remind all those idiots out there with short memories that this is just another example of Bushs incompetence.

---------
Published on Sunday, May 4, 2003 by the Washington Post
Iraqi Nuclear Site Is Found Looted
U.S. Team Unable to Determine Whether Deadly Materials Are Missing

by Barton Gellman

NEAR KUT, Iraq, May 3 -- A specially trained Defense Department team, dispatched after a month of official indecision to survey a major Iraqi radioactive waste repository, today found the site heavily looted and said it was impossible to tell whether nuclear materials were missing.

The discovery at the Baghdad Nuclear Research Facility was the second since the end of the war in which a known nuclear cache was plundered extensively enough that authorities could not rule out the possibility that deadly materials had been stolen. The survey, conducted by a U.S. Special Forces detachment and eight nuclear experts from a Pentagon office called the Direct Support Team, appeared to offer fresh evidence that the war has dispersed the country's most dangerous technologies beyond anyone's knowledge or control.

In all, seven sites associated with Iraq's nuclear program have been visited by the Pentagon's "special nuclear programs" teams since the war ended last month. None was found to be intact, though it remains unclear what materials -- if any -- had been removed.

Enclosed by a sand berm four miles around and 160 feet high, the Baghdad Nuclear Research Facility entombs what remains of reactors bombed by Israel in 1981 and the United States in 1991. It has stored industrial and medical wastes, along with spent reactor fuel. Though not suitable to produce a fission bomb, the highest-energy isotopes here, including cesium and cobalt, have been sought by terrorists interested in using conventional explosives to scatter radioactive dust.

http://www.commondreams.org/headlines03/0504-11.htm

and if you wish to purchase the original story:

http://pqasb.pqarchiver.com/washingtonpost/332205411.html?did=332205411&FMT=ABS&FMTS=FT&date=May+4%2C+2003&author=Barton+Gellman&desc=Iraqi+Nuclear+Site+Is+Found+Looted%3B+U.S.+Team+Unable+to+Determine+Whether+Deadly+Materials+Are+Missing

[papau]

1. Will US Media dare to report this AP Wire conjecture? Insurgents got 400T!

Will US Media dare to report this AP Wire conjecture? Insurgents got 400T!

Insurgents could possess up to 400 tons of the deadly materials often used in bombs

By William J. Kole, Associated Press

VIENNA, Austria -- The U.N. nuclear agency warned Monday that insurgents in Iraq may have obtained nearly 400 tons of missing explosives that can be used in the kind of car bomb attacks that have targeted U.S.-led coalition forces for months.
<snip>

The disappearance raised questions about why the United States didn't do more to secure the Al-Qaqaa facility 30 miles south of Baghdad and failed to allow full international inspections to resume after the March 2003 invasion.
<snip>

Al-Qaqaa is near Youssifiyah, an area rife with ambush attacks. An Associated Press Television News crew that drove past the compound Monday saw no visible security at the gates of the site, a jumble of low-slung, yellow-colored storage buildings that appeared deserted.
<snip>

Insurgents targeting coalition forces in Iraq have made widespread use of plastic explosives in a bloody spate of car bomb attacks. Officials were unable to link the missing explosives directly to the recent car bombings, but the revelations that they could have fallen into enemy hands caused a stir in the last week of the U.S. presidential campaign.
<snip>
http://www.trivalleyherald.com/Stories/0,1413,86~10669~2492592,00.html

[papau]

8. Josh Marshall posts interview NBC Producer embed - No Search

Josh Marshall posts interview NBC Producer embed - No Search


http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com /

Lai Ling Jew: When we went into the area, we were actually leaving Karbala and we were initially heading to Baghdad with the 101st Airborne, Second Brigade. The situation in Baghdad, the Third Infantry Division had taken over Baghdad and so they were trying to carve up the area that the 101st Airborne Division would be in charge of. Um, as a result, they had trouble figuring out who was going to take up what piece of Baghdad. They sent us over to this area in Iskanderia. We didn't know it as the Qaqaa facility at that point but when they did bring us over there we stayed there for quite a while. Almost, we stayed overnight, almost 24 hours. And we walked around, we saw the bunkers that had been bombed, and that exposed all of the ordinances that just lied dormant on the desert.

AR: Was there a search at all underway or was, did a search ensue for explosives once you got there during that 24-hour period?

LLJ: No. There wasn't a search. The mission that the brigade had was to get to Baghdad. That was more of a pit stop there for us. And, you know, the searching, I mean certainly some of the soldiers head off on their own, looked through the bunkers just to look at the vast amount of ordnance lying around. But as far as we could tell, there was no move to secure the weapons, nothing to keep looters away. But there was – at that point the roads were shut off. So it would have been very difficult, I believe, for the looters to get there.

AR: And there was no talk of securing the area after you left. There was no discussion of that?

LLJ: Not for the 101st Airborne, Second Brigade. They were -- once they were in Baghdad, it was all about Baghdad, you know, and then they ended up moving north to Mosul. Once we left the area, that was the last that the brigade had anything to do with the area.

AR: Well, Lai Ling Jew, thank you so much for shedding some light into that situation. We appreciate it.

[whistle]

2. The BIG DEAL is that Bush and his operatives have hidden.....

...or covered this up so the American voters would not know anything about it. The big deal is that 400 tons of HMX explosives are the equivalent of a 3% Hiroshima atomic bomb. The big deal is that Bush specifically justified going to Iraq to find and destroy WMDs. Yet he allowed 400 tons of high explosives get into the wrong hands and then tried to cover this up. So it is a big deal that this president is so inept and incompetent with his responsibilities that he does not deserve another four years in office and probably deserves to be impeached.

The Hiroshima Bomb
Size: length - 3 meters, diameter - 0.7 meters.
Weight: 4 tons.
Nuclear material: Uranium 235.
Energy released: equivalent to 12.5 kilotons of TNT.
Code name: "Little Boy".

[russiamommy]

4. Absolutely

Regardless of when these weapons disappeared, it shows the utter incompetance of this administration - if not a major coverup.

They can't deny that they knew the explosives were there. They can't deny that they've disappeared. If they knew they were missing when they invaded - why haven't they been looking for them and why didn't the WH know about it until 10 days ago? Did they never take an inventory of the stuff they knew about? This is beyond incompentant and may rise to the level of criminal negligence.

If they were taken on their watch, it just adds another level of incompetence. First, they failed to account for them, then they failed to guard them, and then they allowed them to be stolen.

This whole story is incredible. I think this is the one that finally turned my mom around. Hopefully it will turn a lot of others around in the next week too.

[NewJeffCT]

11. Welcome to DU Russiamommy

The good thing is that we've kept Bush on the defensive recently after he was attacking all of August & September.

[fishface]

5. Of course..but we've known it.

We just need to remind the dopes with memories like a sieve.

[whistle]

7. That's what I think is happening, and also remind those involved....

...in the cover-up that they have been exposed and are now accountable.

[NewYorkerfromMass]

3. Bush is incompetent

as is Rumsfeld. There is no other spin needed.

[Ganja Ninja]

6. The real truth is it's 400 tons from just one site.

Lord knows how much else was collected from other sites large and small. Plus, whatever Saddam and the Bathists hid away for their own use before the invasion

[tommcintyre]

9. Will they give him a pass one more time?

It doesn't seem to matter what Bush does, as far as his "true believers" are concerned. They will just rationalize this away like they do everything else he screws up and/or deceives us on. I have an article from 10-23-04 in my headline archive that has the following info:

... <"Please, don't confuse me with the facts"> The World According to a Bush Voter: A new survey reveals that Bush supporters choose to keep faith in their leader than face reality. 72 percent of Bush supporters believe either that Iraq had actual WMD (47 percent) or a major program for producing them (25 percent)

"The current election is unique in that Bush supporters and Kerry supporters have profoundly different perceptions of reality. In the face of a stream of high-level assessments about pre-war Iraq, Bush supporters cling to the refuted beliefs that Iraq had WMD or supported al Qaeda."

There is a lot more interesting facts like this in this story. Here's a link to it on my site:

http://www.independentmediasource.com/feature_archive.htm#102304_20

[novadem]

10. Before we arrived in Iraq

who was responsible for guarding these caches? Was it the UN?

Also, if HMX is missing, does this mean WMD could be missing?

We have to be careful here...

[LynnTheDem]

12. Before US invaded, the UN was responsible

But the explosives went missing AFTER BUSH INVADED so BUSH is responsible.

And NO tthere can't be missing 'WMD'; as both Dr. Kay and Dr. Duelfer's rpeorts say, Iraq DID NOT have WMD since 1991 and NO ABILITY TO PRODUCE OR PURCHASE WMD since 1994.

[novadem]

13. Okay, got it.

I wonder when they managed to sneak off with all those munitions right under our noses?

[exsoccermom]

14. The problem appears to be

that our noses did not stay on the scene to ensure that no one walked off with these super explosives.

[Ganja Ninja]

16. We were all over those oil wells though. n/t

[LynnTheDem]

15. Some time after April 4, 2003

We KNOW they were there then...after that we dunno. But the troops NEVER got orders to secure & guard the area, so there's been over a year for people to make off with the stuff.