US EMBASSY SITE CONFIRMS APRIL, 5TH/ US TROOPS AT AL QAA'QAA

[Carni]

Here's a link to a US embassy site page, dated April 5, 2003 that confirms the news article dailykos has linked about Al Qaa Qaa and the troops being there on April 5th.

(Point being KOS says this proves our troops were at al Qa Qaa prior to the "embedded" NBC reporter who claims the weapons were already gone)

The complex is actually known as the Latifiyah Explosives and Ammunition Plant al Qa Qaa

(but it's keeps being referred to in media just as "al Qa Qaa which makes finding articles more difficult)

Anyway! Here's the link and I have copied and pasted as much as I am allowed to in the excerpts below! (It's worth reading the whole thing at the embassy site without it being chopped up!)

http://usembassy.state.gov/islamabad/wwwh03040505.html

U.S. FORCES FIND IRAQI CHEMICAL WARFARE TRAINING CENTER

(Central Command Report, April 4: Iraq Operational Update)

April 05, 2003


"Washington -- U.S. forces have discovered a complex that may have been used by the Iraqi regime of Saddam Hussein to develop and construct chemical weapons, and another complex that is believed to be a nuclear, biological and chemical warfare training school, a U.S. Central Command briefing officer says."

"U.S. Army Special Forces found a site in western Iraq near Mudaysis that probably was used as a nuclear, biological, and chemical (NBC) warfare training center for the Iraqi Army, Brigadier General Vincent Brooks said April 4 at the daily CENTCOM briefing at Camp As Sayliyah in Qatar. During the briefing Brooks showed an image of an array of brown-tinted bottles with yellow labels that are similar to the containers in which chemicals are customarily stored, and one was clearly marked "Tabun," a known chemical warfare agent."

"Some of these were taken away and testing is ongoing. But we think that there may have been an explanation for this as an NBC training school, not an operational facility," Brooks said. "We believe that was the only sample. That's why we believe it was a training site."

"U.S. troops also found thousands of boxes of an unspecified white powder substance, small vials of unidentified liquids, atropine nerve agent antidote autoinjectors, and an array of Arabic documents detailing how to engage in chemical warfare at the Latifiyah industrial complex 25 miles (40 kilometers) southwest of the Iraqi capital and east of the Euphrates River, he said. This site, part of a larger complex known as the Latifiyah Explosives and Ammunition Plant, was already identified by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) as a suspected NBC weapons site, and had been inspected a number of times."

[Ivote]

1. Someone Mirror it before it's scrubbed

I don't know how
:kick:

[Carni]

3. I don't either!

Yes! Someone please do!

[aden_nak]

5. I am utterly out of bandwidth this month. But I do have it all saved.

[myrna minx]

2. Great find.

I'm printing this out. Try to spin THIS Hannity!

[myrna minx]

4. This warrants a nomination.

:kick:

[Carni]

7. Thanks!

I cannot believe they are continuing to spin this thing (or that they weren't smart enough to scrub the embassy site!)

[AndrewJacksonFaction]

6. This is worthy of a media blast!!! So I believe

[myrna minx]

8. Soo.. what confuses me about this report..

is that the contents of this storage facility was thought to contain WMD? So, when it was found NOT to contain WMD, it was just abandoned? All of those explosives were just abandoned? What am I missing here? :shrug:

[AndrewJacksonFaction]

10. I think you are right.......

They only had so many troops to search for the justification of this war. So when it was found out that there was NO WMD they moved onto the next site. The other troops were busy marching to Baghdad.

Just my thoughts

[Carni]

11. I know...It doesn't make any sense

Unless you take into account the Iraqi insurgent group now claiming that US intelligence officials sold (or gave them) the explosives.

Also the nuclear waste facility had just been looted a couple of days before--I mean what the hell?

What kind of orders were being given over there anyway?

Just guard the oil and the hell with the rest?

[xultar]

9. Where does it say that they saw the explosives...that's the key, sorry

folks

[AndrewJacksonFaction]

13. The white powder is the goods.

[xultar]

16. I know that and you know that is the HDMX but we are intelligent

thoughtful humans not dumb ass rethugs

[AndrewJacksonFaction]

17. LOL.

[AndrewJacksonFaction]

20. I just made another post. See #19. Hope this helps.

[Carni]

18. The white powder boxes/faux news article confirms powder=explosives

Here's a link to an article (by FOX no less lol) about the same incident that attributes the white powder as being explosive material.

EXCERPT:

"Closer to Baghdad, troops at Iraq's largest military industrial complex found nerve agent antidotes, documents describing chemical warfare and a white powder that appeared to be used for explosives."

CACHED URL:
http://64.233.161.104/search?q=cache:Cqm6E7RZOfkJ:www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,83252,00.html+white+powder+al+qa+qaa&hl=en&ie=UTF-8

[blm]

36. odd....

????

[Village Idiot]

12. "U.S. troops also found thousands of boxes of an unspecified white powder

This is the explosives they are now missing...

[Carni]

29. I wonder what each box weighed?

And how many tons they would have weighed combined?

[ArkDem]

14. THIS IS BIGGG!!!

[AndrewJacksonFaction]

15. Massive?

[AndrewJacksonFaction]

19. Yet another link. April 4th

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/news/archive/2003/04/04/international0703EST0539.DTL

U.S. troops found thousands of boxes of suspicious white powder, nerve agent antidote and Arabic documents on how to engage in chemical warfare south of Baghdad. But a senior U.S. official familiar with initial testing said the materials were believed to be explosives.

Col. John Peabody, engineer brigade commander of the 3rd Infantry Division, said the materials were found Friday at the Latifiyah industrial complex 25 miles south of Baghdad.

"It is clearly a suspicious site," Peabody said.

[Carni]

21. I wonder if there is still a report from CENTCOM up online?

I haven't checked but it might be worth doing searches for one!

They are not exactly the brightest people about covering their tracks!

[AndrewJacksonFaction]

23. I'm looking.

[Carni]

26. Great!

Unfortunately I have to get offline until later (damned REAL life LOL)

Maybe we'll all get lucky and find more goodies on this topic!

[maddezmom]

22. nominated and going to cross reference to a LBN story!!

Great Work!!

[Carni]

25. Thanks!

I actually remember when this BS was being floated around the media as a WMD find but I didn't put two and two together until today!

[AndrewJacksonFaction]

24. Should we send this to Crossfire to get the ball rolling?

[Lone_Star_Dem]

27. I'll see your April 5th report, and raise one April 4th

<http://www.pbs.org/newshour/updates/chemical_04-04-03.html>

April 4, 2003, 9:50 am EST
U.S. TROOPS DISCOVER “SUSPICIOUS” POWDER, NERVE AGENT ANTIDOTE

U.S. troops uncovered two sites near Baghdad containing unidentified liquid and white powder, an officer told reporters Friday, however, an official in Washington said initial testing suggested explosive materials rather than chemical weapons.

Online NewsHour Special Report:
The War in Iraq

At the first site, troops reportedly found thousands of boxes of full vials, along with manuals on chemical warfare. They also found atropine, used to counter the effects of nerve agents.

According to Col. John Peabody, engineer brigade commander of the 3rd Infantry Division, the materials were discovered at the Latifiya Explosives and Ammunition Plant al Qa Qaa, about 25 miles south of Baghdad.

The plant was on the International Atomic Energy Agency’s list of suspected sites for WMD production, and U.N. inspectors had visited the facility as recently as February 18. U.S. jets bombed the plant during the 1991 Gulf War.

Captain Kevin Jackson told Reuters, "It's unclear at this point what the vials contain and we're sending a team of experts to examine them."

EDITED BY ADMIN: COPYRIGHT

[Carni]

28. UNREAL! "But we're still going over the place"

"Initial reports are that the material is probably just explosives, but we're still going through the place,'' the official said.

So wait a minute...if the thousands of boxes full of powder were the explosives and they were "testing them" then how did they disappear?

BTW how many pounds are in a ton? (dumb question but I don't know!)

[Lone_Star_Dem]

34. 2000 I think

[myrna minx]

30. Interesting quote...

"Initial reports are that the material is probably just explosives, but we're still going through the place,'' the official said.

OK- JUST EXPLOSIVES??? Well, this just blows the lid off of their whole story. SOMEONE in the Whitehouse knew of this installation, if indeed they believed this place held WMD. This is just incredible. Just incredible!

[starroute]

31. This puts it back on April 3

http://www.globalsecurity.org/wmd/world/iraq/al_qa_qaa.htm

In 1989 Al Qaqa was ripped by a large explosion that was later determined to be a crude effort to build an atomic bomb using HMX and RDX. After the Persian Gulf War in 1991, the United Nations put the IAEA in charge where weapons inspectors discovered that the explosives had been bought from France, China and Yugoslavia.

<snip>

Accordring to the British Dossier Iraq’s Weapons of Mass Destruction released in September 2002, parts of the al-Qa’qa’ chemical complex damaged in the Gulf War had been repaired and were operational. Of particular concern were elements of the phosgene production plant at al-Qa’qa’. These were severely damaged during the Gulf War, and dismantled under UNSCOM supervision,but have since been rebuilt. While phosgene does have industrial uses it can also be used by itself as a chemical agent or as a precursor for nerve agent.

<snip>

In response to the controversy, the White House initially asserted that the materials were already gone by the time the troops from 2nd Brigade, 101st Airborne Division arrived on 10 April 2003. However, that unit's commander at the time was quoted in a 27 October 2004 New York Times article in response to the the White House claims, saying, "I didn't know what the place was supposed to be. We did not get involved in any of the bunkers. It was not our mission. It was not our focus. We were just stopping there on our way to Baghdad." He added that he was not aware the site was considered sensitive until the news story broke. A current spokesman for the unit said that when troops arrived on the 10th, there were already looters present. And the Associated Press reported on Oct. 27 that the unit secured the area upon arrival and looked into a limited number of bunkers.

Troops from the Army's 3rd Infantry Division arrived at the site on 3 April 2003, a week earlier than the 101st, but they did not execute a thorough search of the site either, and departed two days later. By the time the 75th Exploitation Task Force inspected the site on 27 May 2003, the site had been looted.

[Moderator]

37. TexasDem4Kerry

Per DU copyright rules
please post only four
paragraphs from the
copyrighted news source.


Thank you.

DU Moderator

[myrna minx]

32. kick

:kick:

[starroute]

33. Robert Novak column of the time makes their priorities very clear

First priority -- overthrow Saddam.
Second priority -- find WMD.
Anything else -- forget it.


http://www.townhall.com/columnists/robertnovak/rn20030407.shtml

Where are the WMD?
Robert Novak

April 7, 2003

Last Friday <April 4>, U.S. authorities told reporters that they may have discovered the smoking gun at the Latifiyah industrial complex, 25 miles south of Baghdad. A U.S. Army engineer brigade found boxes of white powder, nerve agent antidote and Arabic documents on chemical warfare. This looked more like a chemical-biological training unit than a real command post, and early testing of the suspicious powder showed it to be explosives.

"If we end this war with Iraq WMD-free, we're in trouble internationally," a State Department official told me Friday. "But I cannot believe that is going to happen. This isn't over yet, and you cannot make such a judgment over just two weeks."

There is, therefore, a double mission for U.S. forces. The primary mission is to destroy an evil regime, for the benefit of the Iraqi people and the peace of the region. The secondary mission is to come up with substantiation of the avowed reason by President Bush for asking the world to remove Saddam Hussein from power. At stake may be the ruptured international relations of the United States.

[AndrewJacksonFaction]

35. Looks like the freepers found it.

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/1260455/posts?page=1