SwiftVets.com

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'Missing Explosives' Story Has Kerry Campaign on the Defensive

By Susan Jones
CNSNews.com Morning Editor
October 27, 2004

http://www.cnsnews.com//ViewNation.asp?Page=\Nation\archive\200410\NAT20041027a.html

(CNSNews.com) - NBC News reported Tuesday night that it's not clear who removed 380 tons of high explosives from Iraq's al-Qaqaa military installation (it could have been looters running through an unsecured facility; or it could have been Saddam Hussein's men before the war started).

Nor is it clear exactly when the HMX and RDX explosives disappeared, NBC said Tuesday night. (Weapons inspectors confirm that both the HMX and RDX were there in January 2003 -- but gone in May 2003.)

The New York Times and CBS News -- which broke the "October surprise" story on Monday, eight days before the election -- are standing by their reporting amid accusations that the story was deliberately timed to boost Sen. John F. Kerry's campaign in its final days.

And the Kerry campaign continues to use the story to blast the Bush administration's "stunning incompetence" in securing post-war Iraq.

But by Wednesday, the story that was intended to put the Bush campaign on the defensive in its final days also had the Kerry campaign and its liberal media allies on the defensive.

In a statement issued early Wednesday morning, Kerry campaign senior advisor Joe Lockhart suggested the Bush administration failed by not ordering U.S. troops to search the al-Qaqaa complex when they arrived there in April 2003.

"George Bush has staked his re-election on his credentials as a war president; but that record is a failed litany of one catastrophic mistake after another," Lockhart said in the Wednesday statement -- which continued as follows:

"In an effort to cover up its latest display of incompetence, the White House desperately suggests that the missing explosives were removed by Saddam before the U.S. military passed through the Al Qaqaa site, arguing that the soldiers moving through the facility had not found any of the explosives. Like so many other White House excuses, this assertion has now been turned on its head," Lockhart insisted.

"Now we know that the commander of these troops made very clear that his unit's sole mission was to rush to Baghdad despite specific warnings about this facility. The fact that White House officials, including the vice president, continue to manipulate the truth about what happened with regard to these explosives is cause for grave concern.

"For the second day in a row, the President has refused to address these issues, hiding instead behind his vice president and his political surrogates. His responsibility to the American people as commander-in-chief demands that he directly answer the questions about this disastrous failure of leadership," Lockhart concluded.

...cont.

[neverforget]

Yeah, looters ran through the complex 24 hours a day picking up a pound each and putting it on 38 or so large trucks that forced US forces off the road so they could take it to...
_________________
US Army Security Agency
1965-1971

[noc]

More info:

October 27, 2004

http://instapundit.com/archives/018682.php

AL QA QAA THOROUGHLY SEARCHED: On April 4, 2003, CBS (of all places) reported that the al Qa Qaa industrial site was thoroughly searched by the 3rd Infantry Division. Suspicious material was found. (Hat tip: Captains Quarters.)

The senior U.S. official, based in Washington and speaking on condition of anonymity, said the material was under further study. The site is enormous and U.S. troops are still investigating it for potential weapons of mass destruction, the official said.

"Initial reports are that the material is probably just explosives, but we're still going through the place," the official said.

Peabody said troops found thousands of boxes, each of which contained three vials of white powder, together with documents written in Arabic that dealt with how to engage in chemical warfare.

Captain Ed notes:
From this description, it sounds as if the material left at Al Qaqaa would have only been samples or starter materials, as storing 380 tons of powdered explosive in vials would have taken most of Baghdad to store…The idea that various Army units showed up at the weapons facility and strolled around a few minutes before moving up the road to Baghdad, leaving the lights on and the front door unlocked, looks more and more ridiculous. The Army knew very well what it had found, and it searched the bunkers carefully looking for the most dangerous and high-priority items.
Indeed.

The CBS piece continues:

The senior U.S. official, based in Washington and speaking on condition of anonymity, said the material was under further study. The site is enormous and U.S. troops are still investigating it for potential weapons of mass destruction, the official said.
There is no mention of 380 tons of HDX and RDX that disappeared at some point. It appears increasingly likely that it went missing not only before the 101st Airborne arrived on April 10, but also before the 3rd ID showed up on April 3.

UPDATE: The Belmont Club makes an excellent point.

The contemporaneous CBS report, written before anyone knew al Qa Qaa would be a big deal, establishes two important things. The first is that 3ID knew it was looking through an IAEA inspection site. The second was that the site had shown unmistakable signs of tampering before the arrival of US troops. "Peabody said troops found thousands of boxes, each of which contained three vials of white powder, together with documents written in Arabic that dealt with how to engage in chemical warfare." Now presumably those thousands of boxes were not all packaged and labeled with chemical warfare instructions under IAEA supervision, so the inescapable conclusion is that a fairly large and organized type of activity had been under way in Al Qa Qaa for some time.

[BuffaloJack]

I'm sure they hadn't planned on being on the defense.
Awwwww !

[Anker-Klanker]

Know what has flabber-gasted me since the start of this whole charade? Where did the quantity - the center of the whole story - "380 tons" come from? Has anyone questioned it, much less authenticated it? No! Insofar as I can tell the sole source for this number is the UN rep who wrote that letter.

What if he can't prove there's a single ton missing? Be kind of hard to locate it, wouldn't it?

[jataylor11]

This is interesting

BIG NEWS IN THE NEW YORK SUN [10/27 11:49 AM]

Eli Lake gives the world an example of why the United States can't rely on the IAEA for its security:

Nine years ago, U.N. weapons inspectors urgently called on the International Atomic Energy Agency to demolish powerful plastic explosives in a facility that Iraq's interim government said this month was looted due to poor security.
The chief American weapons inspector, Charles Duelfer, told The New York Sun yesterday that in 1995, when he was a member of the U.N. inspections team in Iraq, he urged the United Nations' atomic watchdog to remove tons of explosives that have since been declared missing.

Mr. Duelfer said he was rebuffed at the time by the Vienna-based agency because its officials were not convinced the presence of the HMX, RDX, and PETN explosives was directly related to Saddam Hussein's programs to amass weapons of mass destruction.

Instead of accepting recommendations to destroy the stocks, Mr. Duelfer said, the atomic-energy agency opted to continue to monitor them.

By e-mail, Mr. Duelfer wrote the Sun, "The policy was if acquired for the WMD program and used for it, it should be subject for destruction. The HMX was just that. Nevertheless the IAEA decided to let Iraq keep the stuff, like they needed more explosives." ...

After a behind-the-scenes battle inside the State Department this summer, the Bush administration opted to reject Mr. ElBaradei's bid for a third term as director general of the atomic energy agency.

At the time, Washington was collecting intelligence - disputed by some agencies - that Mr. ElBaradei was providing advice to Iran on how to avoid sanction from his organization for its previously undisclosed uranium enrichment programs.

Mr. al-Baradei has publicly urged the Iranians to heed an earlier pledge to suspend enrichment, but he has also opposed America's policy of taking Iranian violations to the U.N. Security Council. Mr. al-Baradei has announced he will nonetheless seek a third term.


We know which side al-Baradei is on.

http://www.nationalreview.com/kerry/kerryspot.asp

Looks like the Bush Administration is recognizing the enemy when they see it. --- and Kerry must be promising the enemy they can keep their job.

[FF1047]

The UN's own final report showed something like 230 "tonnes" ...

assuming metric tonnes that still only comes out to 253 tons (US) ... where did the extra 130 come from ?
_________________
JJC
USNA class of 1980

[Anker-Klanker]

If the information reported in this thread:

http://www2.swiftvets.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=14787

is correct, then everything about this story is nothing but a big bag of wind.

[noc]

[Mary Ann Parker]

Too tired to edit for emphasis.
Read carefully.
Wrong is wrong.
Media alsmost as criminal as Kerry!
Here you go.
Map
************************8

With Carl Limbacher and NewsMax.com Staff
For the story behind the story...
Wednesday, Oct. 27, 2004 11:15 a.m. EDT

http://www.newsmax.com/archives/ic/2004/10/27/112045.shtml

NY Times Flashback: Paper Reported Saddam Transferred High Explosives

The New York Times claimed this week that hundreds of tons
of high explosives had been removed from the Al-Qaqaa weapons
depot while the facility was under U.S. control.

But Times reporters knew way back in Feb. 2003 that the removal process was instigated -
not by looters or insurgents after the U.S. liberation - but instead by the government of Saddam Hussein.

On Feb. 15, 2003, the Times reported

on an address to the United Nations Security Council by Mohamed ElBaradei, the UN's chief nuclear watchdog.

In quotes covered extensively by the paper, ElBaradei shared his concern about the removal of high explosives from facilities like Al Qaqaa:
"We have also continued to investigate the relocation and consumption of the high explosive HMX," ElBaradei explained a month before the U.S. invasion.


"As I reported earlier, Iraq has declared that 32 tons of the HMX, previously under I.A.E.A. seals, had been transferred for use in the production of industrial explosives, primarily to cement plants as a booster for explosives used in quarrying."

Baradei noted that Saddam's government had even confirmed the movement of the HMX,
in quotes also picked up by the Times 21 months ago:

"Iraq has provided us with additional information,
including documentation on the movement and use of this material, and inspections have been conducted at locations where the material is said to have been used.

"However, given the nature of the use of high explosives,"
ElBaradei said, "it may well be that the I.A.E.A. will be
unable to reach a final conclusion on the end use of this material.


While we have no indication that this material was used
for any application other than that declared by Iraq,
we have no technical method of verifying
quantitatively the declared use of the material in explosions. . . . "


While the Times, CBS News and the presidential campaign of Sen. John Kerry
continue to insist that the removal of HMX and other high
explosives took place sometime after the liberation of Iraq began on March 19, 2003,


they have yet to address ElBaradei's Security Council
report clearly indicating those claims are not true.

[Darkhorse18]

This whole explosives thing has put kerry on the offensive. Its clear that he doesn’t care what the truth is. Why should this time be any different from the past 35 years! What do we do to put him on the defensive?

[Nomorelies]

John Forbes Kerry: The useful idiot

John Kerry is either incredibly evil or incredibly naive. Either way, he is Unfit to Command.

[dcornutt]

I'm looking into something on a hunch but it's going to take a while.

I've read the "entire" duelfer report...*HUGE*

I seem to recall him, in interviews with former regime people, talking about the "trucks" seen leaving Iraq..a seen by satellite..heading into Syria. (ie..the ones Powell showed in his UN testimony..of truck activity in and out). If I recall..it was about 30 -50 large trucks heading into syria that were picked up on satellite? And as well, truck activity at a previoiusly known "complex" that used to be used for WMD. hmmm. How many truckloads of explosive did they say went missing?

He questioned the Republican Gaurd people who were sent to replace the border gaurds when they were hauling stuff out. If I remember right...the gaurd said there was no WMD on those trucks (and that was the end of the story for most folks) BUT..conventional stuff..ie.. explosives.

Now, I may not be remembering right...it's a LONG report...full of stuff..but I believe some answers or at least evidence is contained in that report that's pertinent to this story. I've got to run to NASDAQ (work), but I'll be back in a few hours. I'll see if I can locate that part..about what was in those trucks going across the border..and if I'm remembering right or not.

In the meantime..anybody who has broadband..can download the entire report and start looking. I think each section is about 40 megs or so (3 sections total). The summary report doesn't have the info in it. You have to get the full report.

I'll report back later this evening after work...on what I can find.

[helpmycountry]

Is this with the weapons the last lie we see before the election? I doubt it because these pople with Kerry have no Morals. The radio station came into my house yesterday and I was amazed that our troops were calling in all day long on this missing weapons article. Our troops said they wouls walk off id John Kerry is voted in. I do not blame them Who would support this man?? you do not hear the news today because the newspapers have lied and Cbs is now right in the middle of this new scam with the explosives. We have to get the New York Times to get out of this election and our lives. They are the head ring liars. Our troops aid that 14,000 called home yesterday in one form or another such as by internet to say vote George Bush or we will walk off. They did not like the fact taht John Kerry lied about these explosions. We as Americans are sick of him also and i am at the point I wish Kerry would sit on the explosions.
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Swift Boat Veterans called back to war on Kerry
Linda McREA