NEWS: 380 Tons of Explosives Vanished From Site in Iraq - (UPDATE: TIMING QUESTIONED)

Originally posted by soulforge
Umm.... You don't think that perhaps the Iraqis could have maybe forged the seals? I mean, the U.N. didn't even check the bunkers, just the seals? right?

It's probably a little hard to move 760,000 pounds of high explosive in a city like baghdad, full of U.S. troops. That is, unless they now let BLIND PEOPLE IN THE FRIGGIN ARMY!!!!

The stuff was long gone before we got there. Perhaps THIS is what is buried in the Bekkah Valley, Syria

Even though they didn't reenter those buildings in March because they were still sealed, the UN was still searching buildings in that area up until just days before the war.

You can not say it was long gone before the troops went in there.
Even the people who went there in April are unable to say that.
David Kay has said that the 75th Exploitation Task Force visited the site on May 26, 2003 but even at that point he couldn't say whether the most dangerous explosives were gone.

This is interesting:

Meanwhile, some US media reports have queried if the theft happened before US troops arrived at the base at al-Qaqaa.

NBC television reported that one of its correspondents was embedded with the 101st Airborne Division which temporarily took control of the base on 10 April 2003 but did not find any of the explosives.

news.bbc.co.uk...

Originally posted by mattpryor
This is interesting:
news.bbc.co.uk...

Old story.

MSNBC did an interview with Lai Ling Jew, one of the NBC reporters who was there.
Fox News did an interview with Dana Lewis, another NBC reporter who was there.

Both say that a search of the location was not ordered and that the troops were at that location for less than 24 hours.
Dana said that locks were still on many of the bunkers and that there was no sign of looting when he was there.

Recap of Dana Lewis interview

Interview with Lai Ling Jew

Bret Baier from Fox News just reported that a full search was conducted on May 8th 2003, which gives a 28 day timeline in which the explosives could have been moved if they were still there on April 10 2003.

I guess more details will come.

My questions are these:

Even though these explosive materials are not technically a WMD, they nevertheless are a key component in the manufacture of nuclear weapons. In fact, that is exactly why Iraq had them in the first place. They were intended to be used to manufacture the explosive �lenses� used to initiate the chain reaction and subsequent nuclear detonation. I don�t know whether any lenses that had been made were stored there as part of the stockpile. I rather hope not. However, it is my understanding that the manufacture of these lenses is rather straightforward, a CNC industrial machining process. Expensive, yes, but not technically very difficult.

Given that the whole point of the war is to deal with Iraqi WMD, and that these materials were a known part of the WMD program,

Why didn�t we investigate these materials and secure them?

That is what we were there for, right?

Is it possible that if a terrorist organization were to obtain some fissionable material, that they could use this looted explosive to build a crude trigger?

Great conversation by all here on this topic.

Just a couple question's though, if this type explosive is of the caliber that it can be utilized to detonate a nuke, pray tell, why Saddam had the stuff in the first place? Would this not be considered a nuclear weapons component?



seekerof

[edit on 27-10-2004 by Seekerof]

This is an IAEA seal??


IAEA inspectors check a seal on a bunker with high explosives.
(Credit: Pavlicek/IAEA)


I expected something bigger.

Dana Lewis said he certainly saw wires and locks, but he doesn't recall ever seeing any IAEA seals (although he may have only had them desribed to him).
Perhaps, if that picture is what was on those bunkers, the wires and locks he saw might have been the seals?

I don't know for sure.

Picture taken from here:
IAEA.org

EDIT: I may have jumped the gun on that one.

I think this is what's on that wire in the picture:

link

I guess that might be easy to spot, assuming he went right up to them and he knew what he was looking for.
I still doubt they looked through all the 1,000+ buildings, especially as no search was ordered and that's not what they were there to do.

[edit on 27-10-2004 by AceOfBase]

Originally posted by AceOfBase

Dana said that locks were still on many of the bunkers and that there was no sign of looting when he was there.

Didn't someone say there are/were 1,000 bunkers there? Did the reporters check all the bunkers?... i highly doubt it. I do want to know how is it that both the news source and the US officials did say the explosives were not there.

However, this does not say either that the looting was after or before the coalition got there. I just still want to know first, what type of trucks are the insurgents able to get, i don't think they have semis, the terrain wont allow for that.

Second, how can 10+ trucks, 90-100 men and two weeks of insurgents, or twice the trucks and men for a week of work, loading and unloading trucks can go unnoticed after the coalition got there and the roads were secured.




[edit on 27-10-2004 by Muaddib]

Unless you had a specific inventory of which bunkers were sealed and which ones were not, you would not necessarily know if all of the material that was supposed to be there, was or was not.

Obviously if you found the wires cut and lying on the ground, that would be a clear indication that the seals had been broken.

Originally posted by Seekerof
Great conversation by all here on this topic.

Just a couple question's though, if this type explosive is of the caliber that it can be utilized to detonate a nuke, pray tell, why Saddam had the stuff in the first place? Would this not be considered a nuclear weapons component?

seekerof

[edit on 27-10-2004 by Seekerof]

The problem is they are considered a "dual purpose" item. The HMX shaped charges are used to detonate the nuclear bomb (high energy, extremely localized high-order explosive jet). BUT, they can also be used for building demolition, quarrying etc.

There in lies one of the inherent traps that lead to ineffectiveness in inspections...

[edit on 10-27-2004 by Valhall]

Originally posted by Valhall

The problem is they are considered a "dual purpose" item. The HMX shaped charges are used to detonate the nuclear bomb (high energy, extremely localized high-order explosive jet). BUT, they can also be used for building demolition, quarrying etc.

There in lies one of the inherent traps that lead to ineffectiveness in inspections...

[edit on 10-27-2004 by Valhall]

Couple that with the fact that the UN, and some say Baradei, were involved in the oil for food scandal, it's plausible that the IAEA readily accepted the second purpose as valid.

An Iraqi scientist says it was impossible the explosives were moved before the fall of the regime.

yahoo.com
"It is impossible that these materials could have been taken from this site before the regime's fall," said Mohammed al-Sharaa, who heads the science ministry's site monitoring department and previously worked with UN weapons inspectors under Saddam.

"The officials that were inside this facility (Al-Qaqaa) beforehand confirm that not even a shred of paper left it before the fall and I spoke to them about it and they even issued certified statements to this effect which the US-led coalition was aware of."

All right folks. I can understand Bush fans running to his aid, and I well know how these same fans love Fox. Despite all the denials, I would still like to know how this Fox story of April, 04, 2003 (already posted but invisible it seems) is explained.

Friday, April 04, 2003

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.

U.N. weapons inspectors went repeatedly to the vast al Qa Qaa complex -- most recently on March 8 -- but found nothing during spot visits to some of the 1,100 buildings at the site 25 miles south of Baghdad.

Col. John Peabody, engineer brigade commander of the 3rd Infantry Division, said troops found thousands of 2-by-5-inch boxes, each containing three vials of white powder, together with documents written in Arabic that dealt with how to engage in chemical warfare.

Initial reports suggest the powder is an explosive, but tests are still being done, a senior U.S. official said. If confirmed, it would be consistent with what the Iraqis say is the plant's purpose, producing explosives and propellants.

Peabody told an Associated Press reporter that troops at al Qa Qaa also discovered atropine, used to counter the effects of nerve agents, and 2-PAM chloride, which is used in combination with atropine in case of chemical attack.

Is this colonel lying? did his troops or did they not discover these munitions? Has the Bush admiistration and those who rushed to support his war now been caught in lies? Understandably that at the outset of the war, it was very important to prove to the American people that Saddam was building his wmd, and so this could have been a propaganda piece to say: See! he was a liar! If it was, that backfired, as all things do to those who deceive. On the other hand, were these explosives at this site?

In either case, it does not bode well for Bush, for either he is surrounded with a corrupt lot, or he and they are all inept.

Posted this in another post, but also seems relevant here.

Scenario?

Here is an interesting hypothetical scenario. Hypothetically say something happened in the USA, a major city. Large blasts and explosions. Most of us on here are aware of 380 tons of missing explosives in Iraq. Would it ever be possible for the US to indicate, after these terror attacts, that the explosives used were in fact from this cache? And would it be possible to blame on Iran or Iran/Syrian terrorists? The US wouldn't allow something like that to happen would they?

Tomorrow, "The Washington Times" will post an article that will provide evidence that Russian Special Forces removed the explosives in question to Syria prior to the Iraq invasion.

As I posted in the other thread about the possible Russian connection, if this turns out to be the case, then as far as I am concerned, it is worse

Think about it. If the stuff was simply looted that means that we simply did not have the manpower in place to guard it properly. Iraq is a big country. such a failure is inexcusable, but at least it is understandable.

If, on the otherhand, the Russians took it to Syria and we are just know finding out about it, not only is that an inexcusable inteligence failure, but one that is totaly incomprehesnable.

With all of the technology focused on Iraq in the preinvasion build up, how is it thatthey missed this?

How is it that the Russians were able to enter the country and move about so freely without the U.S. knowing about it?

If this is true, then Putin has played Bush for a total fool.

[edit on 27-10-2004 by HowardRoark]

Originally posted by GradyPhilpott
Tomorrow, "The Washington Times" will post an article that will provide evidence that Russian Special Forces removed the explosives in question to Syria prior to the Iraq invasion.

I'm sure World Net Daily, News Max, and CNNS, CNSS, whatever you call it, will have articles too. Heck, I'll write up a news article right now if you want, and I don't even work for Rev. Moon!

Originally posted by AceOfBase
An Iraqi scientist says it was impossible the explosives were moved before the fall of the regime.

It is not impossible, it could have been those loyal to Saddam who moved and hid these things. They did bury and hid a lot of stuff. For example a MiG-25R Foxbat-B, and several MiG-25s and Su-25 which they buried at the Al-Taqqadum airfield.

news.bbc.co.uk...

Knowing that many countries which are part of the UN made illegal deals in spite of the sanctions, and sold banned materials and banned technologies to Saddam, and knowing that the UNMOVIC commission was being paid off with money from OFF,(Oil-For-Food Program) how can we be sure that these people did not give or sell new IAEA seals to Saddam so he could break the old seals hide as many of these materials as possible and then put new seals?

Is this out of the question?



[edit on 27-10-2004 by Muaddib]

Originally posted by HowardRoark
As I posted in the other thread about the possible Russian connection, if this turns out to be the case, then as far as I am concerned, it is worse

Well, Phoenix and I have presented this case months ago, and we also have the interviews of former Russian spies, and former Russian military officers who said the Russians trained Saddam's forces on how to hide, or destroy these the wmd and how to keep all the wmd documents, so when the Americans got out of Iraq, Saddam could restart his wmd programs.

I mean if Saddam/Iraq had no wmd programs, why in the world would they bury tons of wmd documents instead of destroying them as was agreed as part of the sanctions?....


[edit on 27-10-2004 by Muaddib]

Here's a satellite photo of the Al Qa Qaa complex, its pretty huge.


Global Security

That would be tough to search through all of that in a short time.