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

Originally posted by soulforge
Let's think on this. I bet this guy was flown over red-eye from Iraq just to try to put some light on this stupid situation, thanks to obvious political ploys from CBS and the NYT(Ever wonder why their motto is 'all the news that's "fit" to print' ?) .

He wasn't just flown over.
According to what he said at the conference, he was at APG Maryland where he was an instructor.

Actually, I just read somewhere he has an office job in the Pentagon.

This is what he said in the conference:

"Currently I'm an instructor at US Army Ordinance School in APG Maryland"

"I teach advanced ammunition management to military officers going through the Captain's Career Course ."

It sounds about right, this guy screwed up in Iraq. So they bring him back and make him an instructor in a field he has failed in. That's the way it works, put him somewhere that he can't screw anything up. Then when you need a fall guy, whip him out. Seen it hundreds of times.




On April 13, Pearson's ordnance-disposal team arrived and took the 250 tons out in a day. That materiel was later destroyed by U.S. forces. His comments may suggest that some of it was still there when U.S. forces arrived.

On April 18, a Minnesota television crew traveling with the 101st Airborne shot a videotape of troops as they first opened the bunkers at the Al-Qaqaa that shows what appeared to be high explosives still in barrels and bearing the markings of the International Atomic Energy Agency.

www.cnn.com...

He moved it five days before a camera crew arrived and filmed locks being cut off. Too reveal explosives. Now he teaches explosives management for career officers What is wrong with this picture

TUT TUT

1. The Iraqi Interim Government notified IAEA of the missing material on October 10, 2004. The attributed the loss to �looting.�
   
   
   
2. The Pentagon at first says that the material was moved prior to the invasion of Baghdad, although the satellite photos used to support this claim are inconsistent with the known locations of the bunkers containing this material.
   
   
   
3. The latest information from the Pentagon is that some 250 tons of various explosive materials were removed from this area and destroyed on April 13, 2003. There is, however, no confirmation that any of this material was the same material that was under IAEA seal.
   
   
   
4. A video tape surfaces that indicates at least some of the now missing materials were present after the U.S. took control of the area. The size and types of containers appear to match the known sizes and types of the containers of the explosives in question. There is, however, a discrepancy in the weight listed on the side of the box with that listed in the IAEA report.
   
   
   
5. A portion of the video clearly shows a IAEA seal on the bunker door. Since the IAEA only sealed those bunkers containing this dual use material in question, and not the bunkers containing standard munitions, this, if nothing else, is adequate proof that this bunker contained some of the materials in question.
   
   
   
6. The Minnesota video was shot on April 18, 2003 after the pentagon claims that 250 tons of materials were removed.
   
   
   
   
   Conclusion: The disposition of the explosives in question is still unresolved. Even if a portion of the material was removed and disposed by the Army, a significant amount of explosives still remain unaccounted for. Furthermore, the latest information only leads to the logical follow up question: If they removed 250 tons and destroyed it, why didn�t they remove (and account for) the remaining materials?
   
   Like the non-existent WMD issues, the prisoner abuse scandal, and the festering insurrection, this incident once again highlights some serious problems in how we have approached and are handling this war.
   
   I originally supported the effort to remove Saddam Hussein, and I think that ultimately, the world will probably be better off without him in power.
   
   I say probably, because it is not clear that our efforts to develop a peaceful democracy will succeed. I suspect that this whole effort may backfire in our face. I do not sense any stability in the current interim government, and I am afraid we may ultimately wind up with an even more radicalized, anti- U.S. regime in Iraq.
   
   I keep seeing the fall of Saigon in my mind, and wonder if history will repeat itself. While I am not sure that in the long run it will make much difference who is in charge, Bush or Kerry, I am sure that the situation requires a drastic reassessment of our goals, strategies, and tactics, something that it is clear that Bush is unwilling to do.
   
   Just my $0.02.
   
   

Well, this is interesting. All the time we've been discussing this, and while I was reading through the IAEA reports and finding no evidence of RDX restrictions being placed on the Iraqis, I just kept being confused, because I couldn't understand why HMX would be sealed and then (apparently) the Iraqis be allowed to just keep producing RDX.

So I emailed my PhD contact in this area and I asked the following:

Hey, I�ve been keeping up with this whole HMX/RDX went missing in Iraq business. I�m trying to figure out why the difference in concern between RDX and HMX by the IAEA. Apparently the Iraqis were producing their own RDX at this Al Qa�qaa facility, but had imported all the HMX. Now, from what I�ve read (the IAEA inspections) they seemed to have been most concerned about the HMX because it could be used as a nuke detonator. But they didn�t seem to be too concerned with the RDX production or inventory really. They sealed and inventoried the HMX�but I never did read where they even cared too much about the RDX production.

Why is that? Does this make sense to you?

Excerpts of his response:

"RDX and HMX are kissin� cousins chemically speaking"...
"HMX is a by-product of RDX production, so I find some of the comments rather odd."
"HMX is more energetic than RDX and has found use in the explosive lenses used to implode the plutonium �pit� in a nuclear weapon. The collapsed �pit� is than flooded with heavy hydrogen to increase the yield." So HMX would be essential to a nuclear weapons program, although it would seem to me that RDX might work also."

Here's the interesting part:

"In any case, HMX or RDX are NOT used in construction blasting, mining or quarrying so if Saddam had the stuff squirreled away somewhere, he was up to no good."

Then I'll paraphrase the part about Blix, two hands, a flashlight and what he can't find.

Interesting, huh????

Here is what, Color Me Stupid,is Curious About,

We still have a missing 747, stolen out of Western Africa a couple years ago
and some 200/300 tons. of missing explosives, a series of video threats, and a controversial [world wide] election about to happen All I can say is if I were in a major U.S. City I would go camping in the woods this weekend with my family.

TUT

[edit on 29-10-2004 by tututkamen]

Originally posted by Valhall
.....................
Here's the interesting part:

"In any case, HMX or RDX are NOT used in construction blasting, mining or quarrying so if Saddam had the stuff squirreled away somewhere, he was up to no good."

Then I'll paraphrase the part about Blix, two hands, a flashlight and what he can't find.

Interesting, huh????

Yep, i figured as much, what people who keep saying Saddam/Iraq had no wmd and were not working on them don't seem to understand is that why in the heck would a person keep tonnes of documents dealing with wmd and how to revive these programes, and why would Saddam/Iraq be buying and hiding once more banned material, missiles, rockets, etc, which he was not supposed to have in the first place. Everything that Saddam did ever since before the war started suggested he was at least working on getting his wmd programes back on line once the sanctions stopped and once the coalition stopped looking. Saddam's regime was trained by the Russians on how to either destroy, and hide the wmd while still keeping all the documents necessary to restart these programs... This does not come only from the US government, but Russian officers who had defected to the US, and other countries, and knew about what was going on....

But of course....there are people that still want to say that it is the US who made up all of this for their own purpose no matter what information is brought up..

Now people once more are going to start bashing away and screaming their lungs out that all of this was made up by the government....

And about the seals, how do we know that the IAEA seals that the crew that went to Al Qaqaa saw, before the 18th of April, were the same seals from the bunkers that had the explosives? if according to the news crew "nothing was inspected by the soldiers in the 24 hour pit stop....."



[edit on 29-10-2004 by Muaddib]

Well if the IAEA only put seals on the bunkers that held the HMX, then the seals that were there were probably the same ones that they put on in January, when they last inspected the site.

I do not believe that any one else was putting seals on the bunkers.

Originally posted by HowardRoark
Well if the IAEA only put seals on the bunkers that held the HMX, then the seals that were there were probably the same ones that they put on in January, when they last inspected the site.

I do not believe that any one else was putting seals on the bunkers.

Do we know exactly what bunkers were locked?
Did the storage bunkers have only the explosives? what about boxes and material needed to mix these explosives? Could these have been in storage also? no?

It would be great if we knew exactly what bunkers the IAEA locked and whether or not there were other materials in the storage area needed to create these explosives. Were there perhaps dual use materials in these bunkers also, that when mixed would become explosives?

it would also be great if we knew the amount of bunkers that the "reporters" checked and what materials were locked in there.

We would need an expert in this field to tell us the process to store these explosives, and also someone from IAEA to tell us whether they locked other materials in the storage area that were relevant in the preparation of these explosives.

Do not jump to conclusions so early guys, quite a few people have caught their foot in their mouths, by making conclusions before all evidence was known.


Oh but of course....all this was made up right?...

---edited for errors---

[edit on 29-10-2004 by Muaddib]

The specific bunker by bunker inventory, plus maps to the bunker locations can be found here:

www.foxnews.com...

humm....as Valhall and I have been saying...this report also states that there were less explosives than what is being claimed. 194.741 tonnes, thats 194 tonnes and not 377 or 380 tonnes of the explosives.... The maximum that could have been in storage at Al Qaqaa according to the Iraqi report was 228 tonnes, but according to them they took 32 or 33 tonnes for "civilian use"....leaving around 194-196 tonnes....

So was Iraq making/buying more of these explosives?.... That first.. Second according to the US report, we took 250 tonnes from that place....the Iraqis must have lied if this is true, and it seems it is.

---edited to correct mistake in number of explosives taken by the US---

[edit on 29-10-2004 by Muaddib]

Originally posted by Muaddib
So was Iraq making/buying more of these explosives?.... That first.. Second according to the US report, we took 220 tonnes from that place....the Iraqis must have lied if this is true, and it seems it is

That 200+ tons wasn't all HMX and RDX.

It was TNT, plastic explosives and white phosphorous rounds as well as detonation cords and initiators and possibly more.

All of that added up to that 200+ tons.

The guy couldn't even give us a rough percentage as to what was plastic explosives and what wasn't.


[edit on 29-10-2004 by AceOfBase]

I also saw in CNN i think about one or two hours ago a map with the marked locations where the explosives were stored, and it is impossible that one or two reporters could have checked all the places where these explosives were located at. As you can see in that report given by Howard, they had other material stored and locked in some of the bunkers.

There were 4 lots of HMX and there were 9 bunkers that were sealed. This report also agrees and corroborates what ABC said yesterday, that even with the seals the bunkers were partially secure, since there are ventilation slats which could be removed to remove, or add..., explosives.

BTW, you can also see that IAEA only weighed 7 boxes of HMX and even they said "despite the poor weighing accuracy of the scale"....

Good job IAEA....Is this what they are getting paid for?....

[edit on 29-10-2004 by Muaddib]

The totals listed for Al QaQaa facility also include materials stored at a separate area not included in that action report. They are included in the total because the other storage areas are under the al qaqaa administration. The Action report only covers a specific set of bunkers.

I saw this somewhere, but I can't remember where. It is in one of the IAEA respones to a question from the New York Times, I think.

Originally posted by HowardRoark
The totals listed for Al QaQaa facility also include materials stored at a separate area not included in that action report. They are included in the total because the other storage areas are under the al qaqaa administration. The Action report only covers a specific set of bunkers.

The only reports given by IAEA about the amount of explosives found in the 2003 report says there were 194-196 tonnes. I have given links to every report they have given and their conclusions. Was IAEA lying then when they released the sumaries? Where did the figure of 377 or 380 tonnes of explosives came from?

It seems this amount was made up "by someone", because the actual reports do not corroborate the 377 or 380 tonnes story....


[edit on 29-10-2004 by Muaddib]

Has it been pointed out that Fox has footage of the supposed missing explosives, and is doing an investigation on this? The explosives may not be missing at all. If the containers marked "explosive" in the video are the missing munitions, the Bush administration has some 'splainin' to do. They weren't even in the same location, apparently. I saw a short excerpt on TV. I didn't catch the whole story, but it sounds like just another misleading story by the Bush cabal. Or, maybe this is another cover story? Sorry if this has already been pointed out, but I'm not reading 15 pages of BS to find out.

[edit on 16-11-2004 by Damned]