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<p>Satellite pix show that three chemical facilities in Iraq - Fullujah I, II and III - wrecked in the 1991 Gulf War are back in business.</p> <p>August 19, 2002 -- WASHINGTON - These mysterious chemical factories northwest of Baghdad are a major reason the Bush administration thinks war with Iraq is inevitable.</p>

Just when did the IAEA last verify the presence of the stockpiles of RDX, HMX, and PETN? From the CNN Website: http://www.cnn.com/2004/WORLD/meast/10/28/iraq.explosives/index.html According to the Pentagon, IAEA inspectors last visited the complex on March 15, 2003, and they left the country two days later. On March 19, the invasion began. When a U.S. military team arrived to inspect the site on May 8, they did not find the explosives. U.S. troops who came through Al-Qaqaa in April also did not see the material, although Pentagon officials concede they were not asked to make a thorough search of the complex. Pentagon...

In a noontime press conference today at the Pentagon, Pentagon spokesman Larry Dirita and Army Maj. Austin Pearson, an ammunition management officer who was at the Iraqi ammunition depot Al Qaqaa in spring, 2003 with the Army 3rd Infantry Division, cast doubt on the New York Times/CBS News report alleging that 377 tons of Iraqi munitions had disappeared from the site, after it had come under American control in April, 2003. Maj. Austin estimated that his unit removed 200-250 tons of munitions, and Mr. Dirita emphasized that reports that 141 tons of RDX explosives were at the facility under IAEA...

Pentagon says U-S military likely destroyed some ammunition from al-Qaqaa Updated: 10-29-2004 12:13:38 PM PENTAGON (AP) - Pentagon officials say the U-S military destroyed "the types of ammunition" T-V reports suggest were looted from an Iraqi military site. A military officer who led a unit charged with disposing of dangerous ammunition says he took material from the al-Qaqaa (al-KAH'-kah) site. At a news conference, Pentagon spokesman Lawrence Di Rita said the material taken by the disposal team included "a lot of plastic explosives." Di Rita says the facts of the missing explosives are still unclear. But, he says "the types...

WASHINGTON — A U.S. soldier is coming forward Friday to say a team from the 3rd Infantry Division took about 200 tons of explosives from an Iraqi military facility soon after Saddam Hussein's regime fell last year. The soldier will appear before reporters at noon, EDT. The briefing will be shown on the FOX News Channel. The announcement is the latest twist in the mystery over what happened to 377 tons of explosives that the International Atomic Energy Agency said had disappeared. The soldier's story comes as new videotape has surfaced that supports the contention that tons of the explosives...

<p>Brit Baer on Fox News just announced. Coming up in 1 hour.</p>

Officials with the Iraqi agency cited by the New York Times earlier this week as the source for its claim that 380 tons of high explosives went missing from the Al Qaqaa weapons depot after the U.S. liberation said Friday that the report might be wrong. "How, where, when [the explosives were] taken, all these questions, we don't have answers," Dr. Rashad M. Omar, Iraq's Minister of Science and Technology, told the New York Times. Mohamed al-Sharaa, who heads up the national monitoring directorate at the ministry, backed Dr. Omar's account, telling the Times: "We don't say it's impossible" that...

I was getting my car serviced this morning, and CNN was on in the waiting area. They ran a report with the Minnesota reporter and his videotape. They stated that you could see a U.S. soldier cutting an IAEA seal off one of the barrels. They said the IAEA said that they only sealed/tagged the HMX and RHX. CNN concluded that this was definitive proof that the explosives in question were there on April 13, when the 101st was there. I had not heard this link of IAEA tag = HMX/RHX I thought they tagged other things, too. Can anyone...

The Bush administration, moving to buttress its claim that Saddam Hussein's government and not looters may have removed nearly 400 tons of explosives from a sprawling Iraqi weapons dump, released a satellite picture purporting to show prewar "loading activity" outside one of the bunkers where materials may have been stored. The Pentagon said the photograph, dated March 17, 2003, and posted last night on the Pentagon's Website, shows a portion of the 56-bunker al-Qaqaa munitions complex, which has been identified by the International Atomic Energy Agency as a storage site for a powdered explosive called HMX. The picture shows six...

Aaron Brown: We saw at the top of the program there is new information to factor in. Pretty conclusive to our eye. So we'll sort through this now. Take the politics out of it and try and deal with facts with former head UN weapons inspector, US weapons inspector, David Kay. David, it’s nice to see you. David Kay: Good to be with you, Aaron. AB: I don't know how better to do this than to show you some pictures have you explain to me what they are or are not. Okay? First what I’ll just call the seal. And...

WASHINGTON - Russian special forces may have moved many of Saddam Hussein's weapons and related goods out of Iraq and into Syria in the weeks before the U.S. invasion in 2003, The Washington Times reported today. John A. Shaw, deputy undersecretary of defense for international technology security, told The Times in an interview that he believes the Russian troops, working with Iraqi intelligence, "almost certainly" removed the 377 tons of heavy ordnance that has been reported missing from a site south of Baghdad. "The Russians brought in, just before the war got started, a whole series of military units," Shaw...

A 5 EYEWITNESS NEWS crew in Iraq shortly after the fall of Saddam Hussein was in the area where tons of explosives disappeared. The missing explosives are now an issue in the presidential debate. Democratic candidate John Kerry is accusing President Bush of not securing the site they allegedly disappeared from. President Bush says no one knows if the ammunition was taken before or after the fall of Baghdad on April 9, 2003 when coalition troops moved in to the area. Using GPS technology and talking with members of the 101st Airborne 5 EYEWITNESS NEWS determined our crew embedded with...

LESS THAN A POUND of the high explosive known as HMX was enough to destroy a Pan Am jumbo jet over Scotland in 1988 in one of the worst terrorist attacks against Americans before Sept. 11, 2001. So it can only be dismaying to learn that nearly 215 tons of the substance -- enough for hundreds of thousands of such bombs -- disappeared from an Iraqi weapons facility sometime after March 2003, when it was last seen by international inspectors. An additional 162 tons of the explosives RDX and PETN also are missing, according to a report to the International...

Senator John Kerry is once again making claims that he cannot substantiate. He charges that President Bush’s “misjudgments” led to the disappearance of 380 tons of explosives from the Iraqi al-Qaqaa facility, and that these explosives have been used against U.S. troops -- even though there is no proof for such accusations. While the Kerry campaign has already released a television ad making such allegations, they simultaneously have backed off from the same charges. Senator Kerry’s TV ad states: The obligation of a Commander in Chief is to keep our country safe. In Iraq, George Bush has overextended our troops...

Iraq Site: Mystery Trucks Eyed Oct. 28, 2004 The Pentagon is studying satellite photographs of the weapons storage facility in Iraq from which a massive amount of high explosives is missing, trying to determine the nature of unusual vehicle activity there before U.S. troops arrived, reports CBS News Correspondent David Martin. The U.N. nuclear watchdog this week alerted the Security Council that up to 377 tons of powerful explosives was missing from the Al-Qaqaa facility. The Iraqi government said the material was lost to looting due to poor security after the U.S. invasion. U.S. commanders acknowledged that when troops visited...

Thursday, October 28, 2004. 10:50pm (AEST) Documents cast doubt on amount of missing explosives The amount of heavy explosives allegedly missing from the Al-Qaqaa weapons depot south of Baghdad may be considerably less than the 377 tons reported by Iraqi authorities, the American Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) News reports. The news channel says it has obtained a confidential document from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) dated January 14, 2003. It says the document shows that IAEA inspectors reported a little more than three tons of RDX explosives at Al-Qaqaa. That is far below the 141 tons the Iraqi Science Ministry...

AS THE New York Times put it Wednesday, "The New York Times, working with the CBS News program '60 Minutes', reported that the (380 tons of powerful) explosives at al Qaqaa, mainly HMX and RDX, had disappeared since the invasion." There's one little problem: The Times doesn't know that the high-power explosives "disappeared" after the invasion. And it doesn't speak well for the Gray Lady that if fails to recognize, three days into this story, that it is reporting as fact assertions its reporters haven't nailed down. "I've never seen such a flagrant intervention from the media," Rep. Peter King,...

The chances that enemy forces moved 377 tons of heavy ordnance out of the Al Qaqaa arms facility after U.S. forces arrived in the area are nearly impossible, said Army Col. David Perkins, who commanded the American troops who took the area during major combat operations in Iraq in 2003. Perkins commanded 2nd Brigade of the 3rd Infantry Division. A unit under his command, the 3rd Battalion, 15th Infantry, entered the depot on April 3, 2003, and defeated the enemy forces there in a two-day battle. The U.N.'s International Atomic Energy Agency had tagged the explosives at the site and...

A senior Syrian journalist reports Iraq WMD located in three Syrian sites 06 January, 2004 AFP Nizar Nayuf (Nayyouf-Nayyuf), a Syrian journalist who recently defected from Syria to Western Europe and is known for bravely challenging the Syrian regime, said in a letter Monday, January 5, to Dutch newspaper “De Telegraaf,” that he knows the three sites where Iraq's Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD) are kept. The storage places are: click for images of Iraq's WMD location in Syria : http://www.2la.org/syria/wmd.html -1- Tunnels dug under the town of al-Baida near the city of Hama in northern Syria. These tunnels are...

October 27, 2004 Explosives: A Shocking New Russian Wrinkle (Flashback - That Russian Convoy) Where are the IAEA's missing explosives, along with other elements of Saddam's WMD program? It seems that the Russians might know: Russian special forces troops moved many of Saddam Hussein's weapons and related goods out of Iraq and into Syria in the weeks before the March 2003 U.S. military operation, The Washington Times has learned. John A. Shaw, the deputy undersecretary of defense for international technology security, said in an interview that he believes the Russian troops, working with Iraqi intelligence, "almost certainly" removed the high-explosive...

The Pentagon is examining evidence that could further discredit a report by the New York Times that hundreds of tons of high explosives were looted by terrorists from a major Iraqi weapons facility after the U.S. invaded in March 2003. "Senior Pentagon officials say they are analyzing some satellite images from the Al Qaqaa facility south of Baghdad from before the war," the Fox News Channel's Bret Baier reported late Wednesday. "Apparently, they show some large truck activity at that facility, [indicating] possibly that Saddam Hussein was moving the explosives out," Baier told Fox News host Greta Van Susteren. Photos...

Washington DC and Lancaster County, Pennsylvania – The controversy over Iraq’s missing explosives intensified on Wednesday as the Bush administration rejected charges of incompetence and a senior Pentagon official claimed the munitions may have been removed by Russians before the US-led invasion. Breaking his silence over an issue that has dominated headlines since Monday, President George W. Bush accused John Kerry, his Democratic challenger, of making “wild charges” over the 350 tonnes of explosives and weapons. The Pentagon is still investigating their disappearance. But Scott McClellan, White House press secretary, said there was a “very real possibility” the munitions were...

<p>Just saw on MSNBC Scarborough Country, Pat Buchanan said that the Wash Times is set to report that Russian Troops helped move the explosives and weapons to Syria before the invasion...</p>

NOTE: I phoned this morning to the Public Affairs office at Ft. Campbell, KY, home of the 101st Airborne. The following was sent to me via email after my discussion with Lt. Col. Wellman in the afternoon. =============================================== US Department of Defense Talking Points – Oct. 27, 2004 – Al-Qaqaa Weapons Facility Following are talking points on the 2003 timeline regarding U.S. and Iraqi military activities in the vicinity of the former Al-Qaqaa military facility. According to the Duelfer report, as of mid-September 2004 Coalition forces have reviewed and cleared more than 10,000 caches of weapons. - This includes 240,000...

Nothing further. Freaking Russians ...

October 27, 2004 Edition > Section: Foreign Printer-friendly version Email this article Urgent Warning on Iraqi Cache Issued in 1995 BY ELI LAKE - Staff Reporter of the Sun October 27, 2004 WASHINGTON - 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...

Copyright 2003 CanWest Interactive, a division of CanWest Global Communications Corp. All Rights Reserved The Gazette (Montreal, Quebec) January 10, 2003 Friday Final Edition SECTION: News; Pg. A4 LENGTH: 794 words HEADLINE: UN inspectors find no 'smoking gun': Diplomats back off on war deadline. Blix charges Iraq with violating sanctions against importation of missile engines SOURCE: Southam News; The Gazette contributed to this report BYLINE: JOE LAURIA, SEAN GORDON of The Gazette contributed to this report DATELINE: UNITED NATIONS [SNIP] Also, Mohammed ElBaradei, head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, said Iraq had not accounted for a quantity of HMX...

The IAEA was supposed to have made sure the HMX materials were transferred out of Al Qa Qaa years ago to a safer location. This is at bottom of page 5 into page 6 ........ " Two hundred fifty-five tons of high exploosive of the HMX type are stored under IAEA seal in six bunkers at the Al Qa Qaa site. As a typical dual-use material, HMX is listed in annex 3 to the plan. The present storage conditions of HMx at Al Qa Qaa are inconvenient for monitoring and cause some safety concerns. IAEA has requested that the Iraqi...

Saudi Arabia vowed not to rest until it has "cleaned up" the Kingdom of any remaining terror cells following the arrest of 16 suspected terrorists, thwarting attacks on key installations in the Kingdom. Interior Minister Prince Naif told Asharq Al-Awsat, the 16 detained men were "certainly" members of Al-Qaeda. "We will not stop until we are absolutely certain that the country has been cleaned of these people," Prince Naif Ibn Abdul Aziz vowed, adding that it was premature to call a halt to the crackdown on suspected militants. A large cache of arms and ammunitions was found in hideouts in...

Guys watch the video on the following link, US military punched a whole through the Al Qa Qaa southern containment wall and drove past the bunkers. Then look at the Satellite images of Al Qa Qaa There are bunkers to the left of the vehicle, that means they drove straight through the middle of the Storage area. http://www.dailyrecycler.com/blog/2004/10/nytrogate.html http://globalsecurity.org/wmd/world/iraq/al_qa_qaa-imagery.htm

Tuesday, October 26, 2004 · Last updated 11:36 a.m. PT Embedded reporter saw no explosives search THE ASSOCIATED PRESS NEW YORK -- An NBC News reporter embedded with a U.S. army unit that seized an Iraqi installation three weeks into the war said Tuesday that she saw no signs that the Americans searched for the powerful explosives that are now missing from the site. Reporter Lai Ling Jew, who was embedded with the Army's 101st Airborne, Second Brigade, said her news team stayed at the Al-Qaqaa base for about 24 hours. "There wasn't a search," she told MSNBC, an NBC...

Oct 25, 2004 — A glance at the destructive power of the nearly 380 tons of conventional explosives the International Atomic Energy Agency says have gone missing from a former military installation in Iraq: HMX: High melting explosives, as they are scientifically known, are among the most powerful in use by the world's militaries today. HMX, also known as octogen, is made from hexamine, ammonium nitrate, nitric acid and acetic acid. Because it detonates at high temperatures, it is used in various kinds of explosives, rocket fuels and burster chargers. RDX: Also referred to as cyclonite or hexogen, RDX is a...

<p>Weapon: An inspired team of scientists in Maryland rushed to build a device that could wipe out the mountain hideouts of Taliban and al-Qaida forces.</p> <p>Destruction of the cave's mouth was frighteningly complete. The bomb had skipped through the entrance and erupted in a violent spray of jagged steel, blasting the walls and floor into dust. Where there was wood, suddenly just ash and vapor.</p>