WAR: Discrepancy Over Quantity of Explosives Missing From Al Qaqaa.

Found a great analogy : It seems that we have secured most of them, so whats the story of 1%? I think this is getting more fishy by the day.

That can't happen now, however. Under President Bush's leadership, over 99 percent of that 400,000 tons is now in American hands. Under a President Kerry, 100 percent of them would have been in the hands of a free Saddam who, having bought off the allies with whom Kerry longs to summit, would be thisclose to ending the sanctions and regenerating his ambitious WMD programs � with Abu Musab al Zarqawi happily ensconced in Northern Iraq and Osama bin Laden perhaps cashing in on Saddam's long pending offer of safe harbor.

www.nationalreview.com...

[edit on 28-10-2004 by edsinger]

Muaddib - Summary please, your research has caught my interest, but I have to admit that I am confused with regard to amount, actual product and physical checks. What do we know for sure?

-Was the 377 tons actually 3.77 tons (decimal error)?
-Are the UNs own records flawed?
-Did anyone actually do a physical inventory after the initial inspection or were they just checking to see if the seals were tampered with?
-Do we have a timeline of events of who was where and when?

B-

Originally posted by Bleys
Muaddib - Summary please, your research has caught my interest, but I have to admit that I am confused with regard to amount, actual product and physical checks. What do we know for sure?

-Was the 377 tons actually 3.77 tons (decimal error)?
-Are the UNs own records flawed?
-Did anyone actually do a physical inventory after the initial inspection or were they just checking to see if the seals were tampered with?
-Do we have a timeline of events of who was where and when?

B-

Valhall posted some good info in another thread before i posted this. i am not going to speak for her but what I found is that the reports released by the IAEA only say that in 2002 they counted and sealed 196 tonnes of HMX, and that it seems according to the inspectors that these seals were really worthless since there are ventilation slats that can be removed to remove the explosives without breaking the seals. The IAEA report was released in 2003.

So...the Iraqi document which claimed that 377-380 tonnes of explosives were stolen, could have been exagerated for whatever reason....

Or, Iraq produced/ bought the remaining 181 tonnes in 2003 and placed them in the site without breaking the seals. What better way to run, while keeping it a secret, your own wmd destruction program than to hide whatever you are working on at those places that are "supposedly" secured and "monitored" by the UN/IAEA/UNMOVIC?...

The possibilities could be endless, and I believe that with the information we have right now we can't determine exactly who is making a mistake/lying/exagerating.

As for the timeline, I am not sure if someone did it already, so I am going to check and put a link here, or I will work on a timeline and post it if none was already made.

I am going to get some sleep, I was working on another story so wasn't able to put my full attention on this. Perhaps by tomorrow someonw else will post a timeline, if not I'll look into it.

Fox News is now saying that a soldier is scheduled to appear on TV and say that US troops took 200 tons of the explosives from Al Qaqaa. He is a major from the 3rd ID. Interview to start momentarily..