UN loses Explosives in Iraq.
Kerry has been caught once again lying and blaming Bush for a something the UN has screwed up. The explosives that Kerry blames Bush for not protecting in Iraq was missing before the US invaded Iraq. Moreover, who was in charge of securing the explosives? Why the UN! More liberal lies! The Bush Administration did not cover up the missing explosives; Bush ordered an investigation. John Marshall at Talking Points Memo is spreading the conspiracy theory that the Department Of Defense was blocking the IAEA from participating with the investigation of the missing explosives. Like most Liberal conspiracy theories, there is some truth to the misrepresentation. The DOD probably does not want the IAEA to lead the investigation, because the IAEA is a suspect in the explosive’s disappearance. Why in the hell should the DOD let the organization that was supposed to be in charge of securing the explosives help with the investigation? The IAEA is one of the suspects of the investigation. That is like asking Scott Peterson to help investigate his wife’s disappearance.
A confidential document obtained by The New York Times that was sent by Iraq’s Ministry of Science & Technology to the IAEA claims that the explosives went missing after 9/4/2003. This video claims that the explosives were missing when the US checked the Al-qaqaa facility on April 10 2003. According to an inspection timeline on FoxNews.com, UN inspectors inspected the Al-qaqaa facility on March 15, 2003. Therefore, the explosives disappeared between March 15 to April 10, 2003. The New York Times reports (on page 3, 7th paragraph) that: (requires subscription)
I.A.E.A. experts say they assume that just before the invasion the Iraq’s followed their standard practice of moving crucial explosives out of buildings, so they would not tempting targets. If so, the experts say, the Iraqi must have broken seals from the arms agency on the bunker doors and moved most of the HMX to nearby fields, where it would have been lightly camouflaged - and ripe for looting.
More blogs about this story:
Michelle Malkin, Right On Red, Stones Cry Out, The Truth Laid Bear, Backcountry Conservative, No Pundit Intended, Six Meat Buffet, The Laughing Wolf, The Jawa Report, Wizbang, Captains Quarters, Slant Point, Opinion Times, Fingertoe.com, Kitty Litter, Midwest Pundits, The Spoons Experience
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Ghost Dansing
Oh no.. this is another Dubya failure, with Republicans trying to lay the blame elsewhere, like they always do.
October 26th, 2004 at 5:38 pmWild Bill
Sorry Ghost, it is another UN failure!
October 26th, 2004 at 6:03 pmGhost Dansing
Ok, have it your way.
Dubya found out, a few weeks after the bombing began, or later, that 400 tons of military grade explosives were missing from bunkers that the IAEA had previously identified as associated with Saddam’s Nuclear program. And, we are only now hearing about it.
Dubya and the Republican administration did not jump on this, in those early days of the war, as evidence to suggest that Saddam had WMD and was attempting to hide it.
And just because there were apparently tons and tons of military grade explosives just kinda floating around Iraq, there was no force protection issue or concerns about military grade explosives making it into the hands of terrorists.. just because we had gone into Iraq to prevent terrorists from things that make really big booms?
And, even now.. it’s not really a big deal.. heck its only tons and tons of military grade explosives that are the same kind used to build nuclear bombs.
Oh.. and just because the site was previously identified by the IAEA as a WMD-related site, there is no reason to believe that the United States would have detected large-scale activities in the run-up to the war, or that, having detected large scale activities in the run-up to the war, would not have used that evidence in its case to go to war?
As usual, the Republican propaganda requires a massive amount of naivete on the part of the the target audience.
October 26th, 2004 at 7:37 pmGhost Dansing
MSNBC interviewed one of the producers from their news crew that visited al Qaqaa as embeds with the 101st Airborne, Second brigade on April 10th, 2003.
This is the ’search’ that the White House and CNN are hanging their hats on (empahsis added)…
Amy Robach: And it’s still unclear exactly when those explosives disappeared. Here to help shed some light on that question is Lai Ling. She was part of an NBC news crew that traveled to that facility with the 101st Airborne Division back in April of 2003. Lai Ling, can you set the stage for us? What was the situation like when you went into the area?
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.
October 26th, 2004 at 7:48 pmRick Brady
AP: Lt. Gen. Boykin says Special Forces team inspected site on March 27, 2003. That means the timeline is even tighter!
http://stones-cry-out.blogspot.com/2004/10/ap-report-special-weapons-team.html
October 26th, 2004 at 9:25 pmRick Brady
I’m an idiot. Ignore previous comment. The article I link to says MAY 27, not March 27.
Need some sleep.
October 26th, 2004 at 10:45 pm