Posted on 10/26/2004 12:31:01 PM PDT by Prince Charles
Copyright 2003 Valley Daily Bulletin
Inland Valley Daily Bulletin (Ontario, CA)
April 4, 2003 Friday
LENGTH: 813 words
[SNIP]
Troops encounter unknown chemical items
As the military advances closer to Baghdad, signs of Iraqichemical preparedness are multiplying, although there is still no conclusive evidence Saddam Hussein's regime possesses weapons of mass destruction.
On Friday, troops at a training facility in the westernIraqi desert came across a bottle labeled "tabun" a nerve gas and chemical weapon Iraq is banned from possessing.
Closer to Baghdad, troops at Iraq's largest militaryindustrial complex found nerve agent antidotes, documents describing chemical warfare and a white powder that appeared to be used for explosives.
Col. John Peabody, engineer brigade commander of the 3rdInfantry 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.
[SNIP]
Go Kevin. Patton paraphrased: Don't kill the enemy. Wound him, then shoot the ones coming to carry him away....
Let me be clear. I believe the UN inspectors, on March 8, saw the HMX and RDX in its place as they had left it and the "nothing" in the article they found was evidence of WMD.
Between that March 8 visit and our troops arriving the HMX and RDX clearly had been moved.
That is what my posts were saying.
Clearly the boxes with white powder that others are referring to (and has DU all in a dither) were not the sealed caches of HMX and RDX.
ACTIVITIES RELATED TO THE PLANNED HMX RELOCATION
25. The planned transfer to Muthanna of the HMX explosive material, currently in sealed storage at Al QaQaa, was postponed because the work in progress by UNSCOM 68 had required the imposition of stringent safety precautions at the Muthanna site. Not only would the requirement to wear full protective clothing, including respiratory protection, have greatly complicated the task but the handling of explosive material in a an area potentially contaminated with toxic agents would have involved unnecessary risks. The bunker area of the Muthanna site will be visited, as conditions permit, in order to confirm that the modifications required to ensure secure storage have been made, following which the arrangements for the relocation of the HMX material will be rescheduled.
http://www.iraqwatch.org/un/IAEA/IAEA-23.htm
Now, did UNSCOM ever move it? Is it possible that it did get moved before the UN was tossed out in '94 or '95 and in the mess of the UN, the move didn't get documented?
The IAEA clearly considered this stuff dangerous as it was suspected of being contaminated by WMD, that makes it a WMD waste. It should have been destroyed by UNSCOM and wasn't.
This is smelling more of the offensive rank of a UN cover-up. IMHO. And the US is going to take the blame for the UN failings.
ACTIVITIES RELATED TO THE PLANNED HMX RELOCATION
25. The planned transfer to Muthanna of the HMX explosive material, currently in sealed storage at Al QaQaa, was postponed because the work in progress by UNSCOM 68 had required the imposition of stringent safety precautions at the Muthanna site. Not only would the requirement to wear full protective clothing, including respiratory protection, have greatly complicated the task but the handling of explosive material in a an area potentially contaminated with toxic agents would have involved unnecessary risks. The bunker area of the Muthanna site will be visited, as conditions permit, in order to confirm that the modifications required to ensure secure storage have been made, following which the arrangements for the relocation of the HMX material will be rescheduled.
http://www.iraqwatch.org/un/IAEA/IAEA-23.htm
Now, did UNSCOM ever move it? Is it possible that it did get moved before the UN was tossed out in '94 or '95 and in the mess of the UN, the move didn't get documented?
The IAEA clearly considered this stuff dangerous as it was suspected of being contaminated by WMD, that makes it a WMD waste. It should have been destroyed by UNSCOM and wasn't.
This is smelling more of the offensive rank of a UN cover-up. IMHO. And the US is going to take the blame for the UN failings.
You bet the U.N.is involved and guilty as charged.
How can we believe anything the UN is saying?
This is unbelievable. They say they saw the "seals" on the HMX and RDX intact but did not mention to report 380 tons of that stuff? That's huge!!!!
Then they leisurely declare to have found "nothing" whatever that might be...
"Between that March 8 visit and our troops arriving the HMX and RDX clearly had been moved."
How do we even know that for sure?
I agree. There is no evidence that after taking the site we neglected to take care of the items that we did find.
And this is what you said would be "unbelievable":
"At the Pentagon, an official who monitors developments in Iraq said US-led coalition troops had searched Al-Qaqaa in the immediate aftermath of the March 2003 invasion and confirmed that the explosives, which had been under IAEA seal since 1991, were intact. Thereafter the site was not secured by U.S. forces, the official said, also speaking on condition of anonymity."
It doesn't.
Nor does it prove it were still there April 10.
That's the point. Given the context of this article (what you believe I was right about?), it adds nothing to the discussion about the tons of disappeared conventional explosives.
Excellent news. Go, Big Time!
How about proof of a positive instead of a negative? Is there any evidence that we DID take care of the items we did find?
I agree.
I don't trust the UN, either, but this story was not saying they "discovered" the sealed 380 tons of HMX and RDX were missing on March 8. And that's the point insofar as this article is concerned.
To smuggle the stuff out after the US got there, they
would have had to have 30 or 40 big trucks and get them
through checkpoints which were set up on the roads.
Anyone trying to come through checkpoints with a load of
explosives would have been shot as a suicide bomber, or at
the least arrested and stuff seized.
But some locals have shown their contempt in more tangible ways. On May 24, a rocket-propelled grenade exploded just short of the police station, sending members of the 1165th scrambling for cover.
Soldiers of the 1st Armored Division searching for the guerrillas who fired it discovered instead a 250-kilogram aerial bomb buried in the roadway just around the corner from the station. More explosives had been packed around it, and the whole device weighed between 400 and 500 pounds.
Iraqis Exercise Their Freedom to Sneer
Town = YOUSEFIYA, Iraq = Home of Al Qaqaa storage facility
You're quoting this source that is supposedly an anonimous Pentagon official or is it just an ice-cream vendor in Central Parc?
Who knows???
Brit is going to have Dana Lewis on in the next hour. Dana was the NBC imbedded reporter at that point in time, and he says these explosives were not found during a search. They were not there.
Ladies and Gentlemen, hot off the Kerry spot from a soldier who was there...............YET ANOTHER SERVICEMAN REFUTES THE TIMES ACCOUNT [10/26 05:23 PM]
From yet another Kerry Spot reader with a ".mil" e-mail address:
You are correct in your bottom line conclusion. Here is a second follow up.
I was serving as a [identifying information removed by the Kerry Spot] staff member during the time in question. The Commander on the site had complete real time intelligence on what to expect and possibly find at the Al-QaQaa depot. The ordinance in question was not found when teams were sent in to inspect and secure the area. When this information was relayed, Operational plans were adjusted and the unit moved forward. Had the ordinance in question been discovered, a security team would have been left in place.
this should put a rest to this piece of NYT trash and UN interference in our electoral process
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