I call BS on Carafano (Heritage Foundation Clown) on WJ now...

[Skidmore]

"We couldn't possibly disarm Iraq...it's just too big..the size of California..and too weaponized."

We disarmed Hitler's war machine in WWII. It could have been done. The Iraq war, evil mistake that it was, was fought on the cheap and stupidly.

[acmavm]

1. The problem is total incompetence. The weaponry we sent for

the Iraqi 'army' and 'police' have been disappearing at an astounding rate. The C4 explosive dumps were raided at will by the so-called insurgency.

Incompetence.

[GreenZoneLT]

3. That C4 thing is a hoax

The Iraqis say it is, anyway. And it never made any sense; what would the Iraqis be doing with warehouses full of C4? All we give them is small-arms ammo. Appears to be insurgent propaganda.

It's true that you can't disarm Iraq. We had millions of troops in Germany. The Iranians and Syrians are shipping in stuff as fast as we confiscate it.

[peacebird]

4. Have you a link to proof for your statements on Iran and Syria?

[GreenZoneLT]

8. Not in English

It's a commonplace in the Iraqi media that stuff is being smuggled in by Iran and Hezbollah.

MG Caldwell mentioned at a press conference this fall that we've found munitions manufactured in Iran with production dates after 2003. We put out a release a few weeks ago about interdicting a mule train humping 50 anti-tank mines just on the Iraqi side of the Iranian border.

Why would you question it? Hezbollah is directly tied to Sadr, and Iran is hedging its bets between him and SCIRI. Would be silly of them not to be importing weapons to Iraq.

[leveymg]

6. I call BS on this post

"All we gave (Iraq) was small arms ammo" . . .?!?!?!?

What planet did you step off of? The U.S. shipped billions of dollars worth of advanced military equipment and technology, including plants to manufacture several varieties of high explosives, to Iraq during its nearly decade-long war with Iran.

Al Qa Qaa - Iraq Special Weapons FacilitiesAl Qa Qaa was responsible for the explosive filling of long-range missile ... contained dozens of state-of-the-art major manufacturing facilities such as ...
www.globalsecurity.org/wmd/world/iraq/al_qa_qaa.htm - 19k - Cached - Similar pages

Al Mamoun Factory - Iraq Special Weapons FacilitiesAN IAEA Record of Monitoring Inspection for Al Qa Qaa for 14 January 2003 ... of the disappearance of the explosives by Iraqi authorities October 10, 2004. ...
www.globalsecurity.org/wmd/world/iraq/al_qa_qaa-explosives.htm - 24k - Cached - Similar pages

Has Iraq come clean at last? | thebulletin.orgWith the embargo in place, Iraq stepped up its activity at Al Atheer. ... At Al Qa Qaa, high explosive manufacturing, experimental, and theoretical work was ...
www.thebulletin.org/article.php?art_ofn=nd95albright - 73k - Cached - Similar pages

Caspian Sea Persian Gulf 1 3 6 7 5 2 4File Format: PDF/Adobe Acrobat - View as HTML
Al Qa Qaa High Explosives and Propellant Facility. Military and nuclear weapons ... Component manufacturing facilities for the Iraqi EMIS program ...
www.ceip.org/Programs/npp/pdf/Ch15a.pdf - Similar pages

03-Deadly ArsenalsFile Format: PDF/Adobe Acrobat - View as HTML
Al Qa Qaa High Explosives and Propellant Facility Military and nuclear ... Rashdiya Central site of Iraq’s centrifuge research and development efforts. Al ...
www.ceip.org/files/projects/npp/resources/DeadlyArsenals/maps/Iraq.pdf - Similar pages


The Reagan-Bush Administration also facilitated Saddam's chemical and biological weapons program, and pretty much looked the other way when he pursued the components and materials for nuclear weapons.

Fortunately for Coalition forces, Saddam decided to scrap the WMD programs after 1991 and the UN Inspections regime found and destroyed the bulk of the remainder prior to the 2003 invasion.
http://www.fas.org/news/un/iraq/s/971203_sites.htm

Large stocks of conventional explosives were left unguarded and undemolished by U.S. forces in the headlong rush to reach Baghdad. They didn't bother to take the time to blow up these depots because their commanders had issued orders not to stop for any purpose, even to deny the Iraqi's access to large weapons caches.

It's only because of the stupidity of the Reagan-Bush and the Bush-Cheney administrations that U.S. soldiers are being blown up inside Iraq with explosives they helped Saddam ontain and manufacture.



Do you deny this?

[GreenZoneLT]

9. I'm talking about the current Iraqi government

There was a story last week in the Iraqi media that said 5 tons of C4 were stolen from Iraqi government warehouses. Apparently BS. We haven't supplied them with much more than Kalashnikovs and uniforms since we reconstituted the Iraqi army and police. The Danes just gave them a couple hundred Humvees, and you would have thought it was a Panzer corps by the Iraqis' reaction.

Now, sure, there's still plenty of go-boom stuff lying around from Saddam's regime. Most of which they bought from the Russians. IIRC, we mainly gave them some munitions-production equipment and some anti-aircraft missiles in the '80s. But the vast bulk of their stuff was Soviet-designed and built in Russia or China. None of which is currently in the hands of the Iraqi army or police; the insurgents looted pretty much everything we didn't destroy.

[leveymg]

12. Wish you had made that clear.

Thought you were repeating the myth that the Iranian and Syrian governments were providing the Iraqi insurgents with the bulk of their more potent IEDs.

When Gen. Pete Pace was asked last summer about accusations Bush and Rummy to that effect, Pace said he couldn't confirm it. Yet, that keeps popping up.

Also, you are correct that Russia and China were the source for most of Iraq's conventional weapons manufacturing facilities. The principal sources for Saddam's former nuclear program, however, was Western Europe and some U.S. blackmarket suppliers.

My apologies.

[Toots]

11. C4 is small arms

It is used in small anti personel mines and even to cook meals with..Every GI carries it with them...

[GreenZoneLT]

13. I'll take your word for it.

I'm a Navy LT, so no expert on GI stuff. The Iraqi army has awfully limited supplies, though. The ones I saw out doing neighborhood searches pretty had much a canteen, a Kalashnikov and a couple magazines. They don't even have grenades and RPGs.

Anyway, fwiw, the Iraqi government said the only thing in the warehouses they control is small and medium ammunition, basically meaning 7.62 X 39 and 7.62 X 54, and 12.7 mm heavy-machine gun ammo. They are godawful liars, but I tend to believe them on this one. Certainly, they're no more likely to make up BS than the insurgents are (those guys make Pravda circa 1960 look credible).

[Jackpine Radical]

15. Guys would keep stealing little bits of C-4 out of the Claymore mines

to heat their C-rats with. Eventually the Claymores tended to become useless. We also carried 1-lb blocks of C-4 around for the same purpose, when we could get it. It came in long little square blocks & had a consistency something like children's play clay. You'd break off a lump of the stuff & light it with a match or lighter & it would burn very hot, so you'd have to stir the contents of the C-rat can very aggressively to keep it from burning onto the bottom of the can.

[acmavm]

14. It was pre-war supplies. And I don't believe thing one that this

puppet government (in any of its past or present forms) says.

edit: I am rather sceptical about this thread of yours myself. You don't seem be reading the same articles and reports the rest of us are.

[leftchick]

2. Hitler did not have over 300 tons of High Explosives looted

and dispersed through out the country either.

[seabeyond]

5. it was fought always with eyes on greed, power and control

there will never be a win in war when the intent is greed and power,.... not the good of the whole

[devilgrrl]

7. but but but isn't it safer in Iraq than the streets of Los Angeles?

:sarcasm:

[Selatius]

10. It's the fucking Heritage Foundation, the same guys who helped sell the WMD argument

These guys are corporatists shills. Here's Bill Maher's take on them:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DTfvP9HkMsk

The next time you see AEI (American Enterprise Institute) or Heritage Foundation or some pro-business sounding or pro-family sounding name, just call bullshit. Don't sit there and watch. Just call bullshit.