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
The proof is that when our troops find caches of weapons and/or explosives, they secure them and/or destroy them. There is nothing to indicate that was not done in this case.
Inquiry Launched Over Missing Explosives in Iraq
excerpt:
However, coalition forces found no evidence of the weapons in question when they first arrived at the sprawling Al-Quaqaa facility, 30 miles south of Baghdad, about April 10, 2003, according to a defense official.
The troops searched 32 bunkers and 87 other buildings, finding some weapons and explosive material, but nothing close to the quantity reported missing by the Iraqi government, and none with IAEA seals, he said.
~snip~
Since Operation Iraqi Freedom began in March 2003, coalition forces have discovered that Saddam Hussein's regime stored weapons in countless locations, including schools, mosques and hospitals, the official said. In addition, he said, the former regime forced many Iraqi citizens to hide weapons in their homes and neighborhoods
~snip~
The report, released earlier this month, notes that since mid-September alone, coalition forces have reviewed and cleared more than 10,000 weapons caches and destroyed more than 240,000 tons of weapons and munitions. Another 162,000 tons of munitions await destruction.
~snip~
1st, you are assuming that such security existed in the days and weeks after April 2. 2nd, for them to take it out between March 8 and April 2 would have required the same type of convoy, and at the time we were actively monitoring this site with aircraft and satellite surveillance, as it was a suspected WMD site. Doubt they would've been running 18 wheelers out of their without us knowing about it.
But it is at least as credible as what you consider to be believable or not.
Do you seriously believe that this high profile site would have been left totally unattended with explosives lying around and the equipment to make more explosives etc all still intact?
We know now that HMX and RDX was not found when the troops got there first. So it was removed before, maybe years ago. From this point on everything else is speculation and partisan media fabrication.
For all we know those boxes of white powder could have been compounds that are used to make explosives. By itself it could have been totally safe.
The boxes with vials of white powder (3 to a box, I believe) were a low-grade explosive and did not have the UN seals. They were not the missing RDX. Or HMX for that matter. And nowhere close to 380 tons.
I was going to send it to NBC, but I forgot how to spell Ding-a-Ling's name.
This is what we KNOW. The material was removed between March 8 and May 27. Either while we had the site under serious surveillance, or after the 3rd ID made initial contact with the site. While the latter is worse, neither of those scenarios makes a particularly favorable statement about our capabilities and our actions.
As far as what I believe - lots of caches have been left unattended. We know, for example, that the primary nuke material site (Al Tuwaitha sp?)was looted AFTER we 1st got there. Why would this one get better treatment than that one?
It is simply not possible that the explosives were moved after the Army had been there. To move 380 tons of anything requires large trucks, and we were stopping anything with wheels for months after the fall of Saddam. If it was on the road, we stopped and searched it.
So it isn't possible that the explosives were there when the war began. They had to have been moved prior to the official start of hostilities, but after the UN had been to the site.
Ain't Hans Blix a sweet-heart.
So you are calling the Iraqi interim government LIARS? Do you work for the Kerry campaign? ;-)
I just don't take the UN's account as fact anymore. You apparently do. The UN gave wrong intel back to us and lied in order to protect Saddam. Try and prove me wrong when 'oil for food' has been reported as fact and France vetoed at the Sec. Council after being bribed by Saddam.
Whose side are you on lugsoul?
Brett Baier on Fox just said it would take 38 truck loads (semi trucks) and citing your point---the roads heavily guarded.
Fox highlighting Kerry's attacks on the matter. He is clearly unfit.
LOL!
The interim government didn't exist when the outbreak of hostilities occured, so they would have no freakin' clue as to what was or wasn't at Al Qa Qaa when all was said and done. They only know what was supposed to be there, not what actually was there.
But the LSM can't seem to wrap their brains around that concept.
How about the explosives remaining somewhere in the town (YOUSEFIYA) where Al Qaqaa is located. See my post #117.
As of May of this year, the people of the town are reported to be hostile toward our troops. 400 to 500 lb bomb found there.
Here's the UN Report! The whole story is a fabrication and exaggeration! Somebody's covering up! The original amount was only 228 tons, but 380 tons are missing? If you go by the report only 196 tons were sealed? It's not adding up when you look at the UN's own documents. HMX and RDX were under the control of the UN. There is no mention of the RDX in their reports, only the HMX. So, when did the RDX go missing?
2. HMX
53. The relocation and consumption of HMX (a high explosive of potential use in nuclear weapons), as described in Iraq's backlog of semi-annual declarations, has been investigated by the IAEA. In those declarations, Iraq stated that, between 1998 and 2002, it had transferred 32 of the 228 tonnes of HMX which had been under IAEA seal as of December 1998 to other locations. In addition, Iraq stated that a very small quantity (46 kg) of HMX had been used at munitions factories for research and development. At the request of the IAEA, Iraq has provided further clarification on the movement and use of the HMX. In that clarification, Iraq indicated that the 32 tonnes of HMX had been blended with sulphur to produce industrial explosives and provided mainly to cement plants for quarrying, and that the research and development using the small quantity of HMX had been in the areas of personnel mines, explosives in civilian use, missile warhead filling and research on tanks.
54. IAEA inspectors have been able to verify and re-seal the remaining balance of approximately 196 tonnes of HMX, most of which has remained at the original storage location. The movement of the blended HMX and the other small quantity of HMX has also been documented by Iraq. However, it has not been possible to verify the use of those materials, as all of it is said to have been consumed through explosions and there are no immediately available technical means for verifying such uses. The IAEA will continue to investigate means of verifying the Iraqi statements about the use of the HMX and blended HMX."
http://www.iraqwatch.org/un/iaea/iaea-updatereport-012703.html
Saddam may well have "moved it out" while we were
giving the U.N. weapons inspectors plenty of time to
play games with him. In the case of having plenty of
time, guess it *could* have been moved out a small
vehicle load at a time under the cover of darkness.
That's the point.
It just doesn't add up!
Nothing adds up about this.
What adds up is this:
Democrats + Kerry + UN + CBS/NYT = the biggest conspiracy to overthrow an incumbent president ever!
you mean it would have been difficult for Saddam's troops to move this around on Saddam's completely controlled infrastructure in Saddam-Iraq? A truck is a truck. If it took 38 to 40 trucks to move the stuff, our surveillance wouldn't necessarily pick that up. The trucks could have been painted white with a big red cross or blue with a peace bird or rainbow coloured. To suggest that our surveillance would have picked up every darn moving truck in Iraq prior to the invasion is ludicrous.
Great news, was this in a radio interview or was he speaking at a rally somewhere?
Someone should tell this to NBC. They just shot down their report from last night on tonight's NBC Nightly News. Evidently Rick Kaplan runs the show over there, too.
Possible, but not probable. Thats a lot of stuff to hide, and would require a large area to hide it in.
We prolly have already run across this stuff without the UN seals attached and didn't know it. And likely have already made it go boom in a big way. The engineers have been getting lots of practice in munitions destruction.
If you doubt the story because you don't believe the UN, just say so. But your arguments have been to try to cram the reported facts into your construct, and it doesn't work with the reported facts. If you want to cherry pick those, you can make anything "true."
REPORT ON THE FOURTEENTH IAEA ON-SITE INSPECTION IN IRAQ UNDER SECURITY COUNCIL RESOLUTION 687 (1991)
31 August - 7 September 1992
7. The Al Qa Qaa site has been visited many times by IAEA teams investigating links to the nuclear program. In preparation of the long-term monitoring plan at Al Qa Qaa the team visited machine shops, testing areas, and high-explosives synthesis facilities. No nuclear-related activities were observed. The Iraqi capability to produce RDX was destroyed in the war. The relevant building has been rebuilt but the equipment has not been replaced because of the embargo. Only ordinary machine tools were found in the machine shops. Activities in the high explosive test area were found to be ordinary munitions tests.
It could have been moved by tractor-trailer trucks. In that case they would only have needed 10 trucks to do so. The 38-40 "truck" figure is if they used little ten-ton panel trucks...they are the everyday delivery trucks you see everywhere.
seems like you are connecting too many dots
(humor)
Paging Brit Hume and the FNC crew...
So, there was no RDX. Media fabrications!
Now that leaves 196 tonnes that "went missing." How many tractor trailer trucks is that for Saddam? So, we're down to 5 trucks. Yes, that could have been easily done.
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