NYTIMES: 4 Iraqis Tell of Looting at Munitions Site in '03

[jezebel]

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/28/international/middleeast/28bomb.html
BAGHDAD, Iraq, Oct. 27 - Looters stormed the weapons site at Al Qaqaa in the days after American troops swept through the area in early April 2003 on their way to Baghdad, gutting office buildings, carrying off munitions and even dismantling heavy machinery, three Iraqi witnesses and a regional security chief said Wednesday.

The Iraqis described an orgy of theft so extensive that enterprising residents rented their trucks to looters. But some looting was clearly indiscriminate, with people grabbing anything they could find and later heaving unwanted items off the trucks.

Two witnesses were employees of Al Qaqaa - one a chemical engineer and the other a mechanic - and the third was a former employee, a chemist, who had come back to retrieve his records, determined to keep them out of American hands. The mechanic, Ahmed Saleh Mezher, said employees asked the Americans to protect the site but were told this was not the soldiers' responsibility.

The accounts do not directly address the question of when 380 tons of powerful conventional explosives vanished from the site sometime after early March, the last time international inspectors checked the seals on the bunkers where the material was stored. It is possible that Iraqi forces removed some explosives before the invasion.....

[steve2470]

1. you need a new link nt

[jezebel]

4. sorry about that, fixed now NT

nt

[Fluffdaddy]

2. BAD

[Sporadicus]

3. Wrong Link to Article

The link you have is to a Financial Times article suggesting that the Russians actually moved the explosives before the Iraqis could get to them. Sounds like a Rovian snow job.

[jezebel]

5. It's getting crazy, It was Saddam, no wait it was the Russians. Now we are

back to the looters. :)