Al Qaqaa: where the roadside bombs come from

[Atticus_Finch]

Terrible coding, let’s try that again:

@Brutus

Man, if it wasn’t for bad luck, the Lefty attack machine would have no luck. I wonder what their spin on this will be? Should have attacked sooner? Should have employed teleporters and/or time-travel to secure the site? And they were sooo gleeful in trying to pin this on Dubya…Ah well

I think NBC has their story garbled. Scott McClellan, the Bush Administration press secretary (and noted member of the Lefty attack machine), in the most recent briefing (as cited by the White House website):

MR. McCLELLAN: You’re trying – I think you’re taking this out of context of what was going on. This was reported missing after – when the interim government informed that these munitions went missing some time after April 9th of 2003, remember, that was when we were still involved in major military action at that point. And there were a number of important priorities at that point.

[Squink]

This also bears repeating:

At the Pentagon, an official who monitors developments in Iraq said U.S.-led coalition troops had searched Al Qaqaa in the immediate aftermath of the March 2003 invasion and confirmed that the explosives were intact. Thereafter the site was not secured by U.S. forces, the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

[flickster]

I would assume that NBC is using their own embedded news crew as a source that the explosives were missing upon arrival April 10, 2003

[PatriotX]

If the troops hadn’t captured the area of Iraq yet, then they can’t be expected to’ve secured it.

Apparently, some of the stuff has other uses. So these’re not quiite as special as I had previously thought.

Does show that someone was planning ahead for after the fall of Baghdad. Even though it’s not as special as I had thought, it’s still the good stuff.

[Atticus_Finch]

Taking the NBC news story as true (I think they’ve got it wrong, but let’s run with it) - If the stuff was gone when US forces arrived, then the administration has known about the missing explosives for some 18 months. This would make their claims that they only found out about this in the last week or so a lie.

[Magiver]

@Evil Captor

Brutus, why do you hate America?

He slammed the people hammering President Bush with incorrect information. How is that an attack on America?

I remember this story when it happened. My thought at the time was that our intelligence agency was total shit. We all know who defunded it.

Not only is this old news it was old news deliberately thrown out by every major news organization in the United States. Every politician who was briefed on it would also know this, including and especially Kerry. That makes his speech what?

Maybe when the UN solves the Sudanese genocide problem and finishes investigating themselves over the Iraqi oil-for-weapons scam they can stop by and advise Kerry on how to solve the worldwide terrorism/prostitution problem.

[Squink]

A nice little timeline:

• January 2003: IAEA inspectors viewed the explosives at Al-Qaqaa for the last time. The inspectors took an inventory and again placed storage bunkers at Al-Qaqaa under agency seal.

• February 2003: IAEA chief Mohamed ElBaradei told the United Nations that Iraq had declared that “HMX previously under IAEA seal had been transferred for use in the production of industrial explosives.” This apparently did not include the HMX that remained under seal at Al-Qaqaa.

• March 2003: Nuclear agency inspectors visited Al-Qaqaa for the last time but did not examine the explosives because the seals were not broken. The inspectors then pulled out of the country.

here
I have not gone to the trouble of verifying this through online IAEA documents.
Have no fear Atticus. McClellan says that the Iraq survey group will get to the bottom of this. They’ll tell us whether they found out last week, or 18 months ago. Or maybe find some marvelous way that both scenarios could be true.

[Squink]

The Pentagon speaks (in the Turkish press of all places):

A Pentagon spokesman said Monday it was unclear whether 380 tons of high explosives reported missing from a weapons facility in Iraq disappeared before or after it fell under control of US forces.
…
“This is a first report. We do not know when – if those weapons did exist at that facility – they were last seen, and under whose control they were last in,” Pentagon spokesman Larry DiRita said.
…
“I’m told they (US forces) made several visits to that facility looking for WMD related (material), and obviously we need to learn more about exactly what it is they saw there,” he said.

[Atticus_Finch]

Josh Marshall’s Talking Points Memo is a good place to keep track of the spin. They’ve got the McClellan, DiRita, anonymous Pentagon spokesman and Iraqi sources on this topic.

[RTFirefly]

@Atticus Finch

Josh Marshall’s Talking Points Memo is a good place to keep track of the spin. They’ve got the McClellan, DiRita, anonymous Pentagon spokesman and Iraqi sources on this topic.

And Josh also has this link to the 4/5/2003 story about US troops’ initial visit to Al Qaqaa:

Closer to Baghdad, troops at Iraq’s largest military industrial complex found nerve agent antidotes, documents describing chemical warfare and a white powder that appeared to be used for explosives.

UN weapons inspectors went repeatedly to the vast al Qa Qaa complex, most recently on March 8. But they found nothing during spot visits to some of the 1,100 buildings at the site 40 kilometres south of Baghdad.

So there’s a 27–day window (the story seems to be recounting the events of April 4) between the last visit by UN inspectors, and the arrival of US troops. After that point, we had the ability to control that facility; exercising that ability was a matter of choice.

It’s clearly an enormous facility - 1100 buildings is a bit more than an NBC camera crew can check in a day. Hell, I’d imagine a team of trained arms inspectors might take several days, minimum, to ascertain what was and wasn’t there.

And this link trashes the argument that the invasion planners somehow overlooked this facility:

For years, the al Qa Qaa site has raised the suspicions of weapons inspectors who believed the facilities could be converted for the production of missiles and chemical and nuclear weapons. It was visited repeatedly during the 1990s and during the last cycle of inspections between Nov. 27 and March 17, when UN experts went to the complex more than 10 times.

According to a British dossier on Iraq published in September 2002, parts of al Qa Qaa’s chemical complex, destroyed in 1991, were repaired and are now operational, including a production plant for the chemical weapon phosgene.

Nuclear inspectors believe an area of the complex was involved in designing an atomic bomb before Iraq’s nuclear program was destroyed by UN teams after the 1991 Gulf War. The facility also made lenses and other components that can be used to trigger nuclear explosions.

In March 1990, customs officers at Heathrow Airport in London seized a case of capacitors – components for triggers in nuclear weapons – bound for al Qa Qaa that were especially designed for detonating nuclear warheads.

Inspectors had installed cameras and sensors all around the complex after the Gulf War but the Iraqis dismantled the equipment when inspectors left in 1998. The new inspections regime, which returned in November, had planned to install new monitoring equipment but ran out of time.

There it was, right in the middle of the matter of whether Saddam had a WMD program, which was a very big deal back then, when even many of us lefties still figured he had one - and were only starting to figure out that we were the ones who were had.

So, reviewing the bidding:

1. Our invasion planners knew about this site. It was on the IAEA’s list; it was on their lists. You remember how they had those lists of the sites they especially wanted to check for WMDs? It’s hard to believe that Al Qaqaa wasn’t on some of the shorter lists.

2. Despite what they knew what was there, and what they suspected was there, they failed to secure it, just the way they failed to secure suspected WMD sites in general during the invasion. As SimonX has already said, many of these sites were looted to the ground. (WaPo story, 5/11/03; I’ll try to dig out the link later.)

3. Given the size of this particular site, there’s really no way the inspection on April 4/5 could ascertain whether or not the explosives were still there.

4. If they were swiped after that, it was out fault.

5. The Bush Administration is still playing as if they didn’t know diddly about this site. What does that tell you about them?

[mks57]

People have been making improvised explosive devices from unexploded bombs, mortar shells, artillery shells, land mines and anything else that contains high explosives for many years. Considering the vast quantities of unsecured ordnance in Iraq, does one site make much of a difference in the big picture?

[jayjay]

@mks57

People have been making improvised explosive devices from unexploded bombs, mortar shells, artillery shells, land mines and anything else that contains high explosives for many years. Considering the vast quantities of unsecured ordnance in Iraq, does one site make much of a difference in the big picture?

Rufus Xavier, tell me what tomorrow’s lottery numbers will be!

[Evil_Captor]

@Brutus

It was almost witty when you guys started with that schtick. Almost. Now? It just sounds amazingly stupid.

It always was amazingly stupid, from the first time it oozed out of some conservative ideologue’s mouth. But it’s really hard to resist playing with a line like that.

[Brutus]

@Evil Captor

It always was amazingly stupid, from the first time it oozed out of some conservative ideologue’s mouth. But it’s really hard to resist playing with a line like that.

Obviously. The literary equivalent of a bright and shiny object for you, huh?

[jshore]

@Atticus Finch

Taking the NBC news story as true (I think they’ve got it wrong, but let’s run with it)

Well, there seems to be some dispute about when the explosive went missing. As this AP Wire story says, it seems it was the new Iraqi government itself that told the IAEA that it had happened after the end of major combat operations:

But since the disappearance was reported in the media, he said he wanted the Security Council to have the letter dated, Oct. 10, that he received from Mohammed J. Abbas, a senior official at Iraq’s Ministry of Science and Technology, reporting the theft of the explosives.

The materials were lost through “the theft and looting of the governmental installations due to lack of security,” the letter said.

The letter informed the IAEA that since Sept. 4, 2003, looting at the Al-Qaqaa installation south of Baghdad had resulted in the loss of 214.67 tons of HMX, 155.68 tons of RDX and 6.39 tons of PETN explosives.

…

ElBaradei’s cover letter to the council said that the HMX had been under IAEA seal and that the RDX and PETN were “both subject to regular monitoring of stock levels.”

“The presence of these amounts was verified by the IAEA in January 2003,” he said.

So, apparently it is the new Iraqi government that told the IAEA that the explosives had gone missing and they gave a date of “since September 4, 2003” although it is not clear how they determined this date and the last IAEA inspection of the site had been in January.

Understanding where the Iraqi Ministry got its date might help to unravel when in fact the explosives disappeared.

[Rune]

Is this the October Surprise you’ve all been waiting for? Seems to surface suspiciously close to the election for a story that has over a year on its back. Guess it must be Karl Rove.

@Evil Captor

Suggestion for thread title

Bush Administration GAVE Terrorists Explosives They Use To Kill U.S. Soldiers

That wrenching enough for ya?

No, we need something with a little more bite. How about “Bush: The dark lord, prince of hell, destroyer or worlds” or “Bush: The Black Enemy of the World (Morgoth)”

Even if all the facts were as presented in the OP, it’s ridiculous to claim that the Bush administration deliberately handed over the explosives. You can accuse them of incompetence, hardly malice. And saying Bush should be held personally responsible is pretty lame. Surely you do not want to hold your president responsible for the day to day operations of war or even the planning thereof?! Having politicians playing generals and you’ve soon have generals playing politicians.

@SimonX

The counter spin is that te stuff was already gone by the time we made it to Baghdad.

Lets just classify all information that doesn’t fit the story as spin shall we

@jayjay

Rufus Xavier, tell me what tomorrow’s lottery numbers will be!

aw. He asks an honest question and this is how you attempt to reply. Apparently we’re talking of 380 tons, which is about 0.06% of the total amount of explosives dispersed throughout Iraq before the war. On the face of it that doesn’t seem to be such gigantic problem as it’s made out to be, but apparently this is a type of explosive that is particular potent and suitable for terrorist purposes, and of course any error need to be dealt with.
Can any of the attacks in Iraq after the disappearance of the explosives be traced back to this source? Anyone know if there have been instances of attacks that have used this kind of explosive?

Now there’s some doubt as to when the explosives actually went missing. Some were apparently destroyed during the early bombing campaign. And some embedded NBC journalists claim the explosives were already missing when the American forces first arrived.

Drudge. http://www.drudgereport.com/nbcw.htm
CNN. CNN.com - Disappearance of explosives in question - Oct 27, 2004
Belmont Club. Belmont Club

[Left_Hand_of_Dorkness]

@Rune

And saying Bush should be held personally responsible is pretty lame. Surely you do not want to hold your president responsible for the day to day operations of war or even the planning thereof?! Having politicians playing generals and you’ve soon have generals playing politicians.

We Americans used to have a president with a sign on his desk saying, “The buck stops here.” We kinda liked that.

Daniel

[jshore]

@Magiver

I remember this story when it happened. My thought at the time was that our intelligence agency was total shit. We all know who defunded it.

Not only is this old news it was old news deliberately thrown out by every major news organization in the United States. Every politician who was briefed on it would also know this, including and especially Kerry. That makes his speech what?

Interesting that you seem to be remembering stuff that manifestly hadn’t happened yet:

ElBaradei told the council the IAEA had been trying to give the U.S.-led multinational force and Iraq’s interim government “an opportunity to attempt to recover the explosives before this matter was put into the public domain.”

But since the disappearance was reported in the media, he said he wanted the Security Council to have the letter dated, Oct. 10, that he received from Mohammed J. Abbas, a senior official at Iraq’s Ministry of Science and Technology, reporting the theft of the explosives.

And, here:

MCINTYRE: The U.S. says it was only notified of the loss of the explosives ten days ago and it’s ordered the Iraqi survey group, which spearheaded the hunt for weapons of mass destruction, to provide a comprehensive response to what happened but what’s not clear, Wolf, is whether the Pentagon wouldn’t have already known that the munitions were missing, the explosives were missing since they would have been well aware of the IAEA inventory well before they arrived at the site back in April of 2003 – Wolf.

[jshore]

The L.A. Times has a good account of the controversy over the timeline:

The timing of the theft was in dispute Monday. One Pentagon official said that when U.S. forces advancing toward Baghdad reached the Al Qaqaa military facility in early April 2003, the weapons cache was already gone. He suggested that the Americans had no chance to safeguard the material, which had been labeled and was being monitored by United Nations weapons inspectors.

“It had already been looted by the time U.S. forces went through there,” the senior Defense official said. “When the troops went in, they never saw anything that was tagged.”

Some cast doubt on the Pentagon’s claim. Given the size of the missing cache, it would have been difficult to relocate undetected before the invasion, when U.S. spy satellites were monitoring activity at sites suspected of concealing nuclear and biological weapons.

“You don’t just move this stuff in the middle of the night,” said a former U.S. intelligence official who worked in Baghdad.

Iraqi officials told the International Atomic Energy Agency — the U.N. monitoring group — earlier this month that the explosives were looted after April 9, 2003, when U.S. forces entered Baghdad. IAEA officials verified that the explosives were still at the site and under seal in January 2003, the last time the inspectors were there.

The IAEA had been monitoring the material — known as HMX and RDX — as part of the U.N. inspection program after the 1991 Persian Gulf War.

The agency had issued numerous warnings about the explosives falling into the wrong hands before and after the U.S. invasion.

Pentagon officials said that although U.S. troops searched the facility on several occasions during and after the invasion, the facility was not high on U.S. commanders’ list of sites to guard because survey teams found no nuclear or biological materials at Al Qaqaa, a collection of 87 buildings and underground bunkers less than 30 miles south of Baghdad.

Asked if U.S. troops were ever ordered to guard the facility, where Hussein built conventional warheads and the IAEA dismantled parts of his nuclear program after the Gulf War, a Defense official responded, “Not that I’m aware of.”

David Kay, the CIA’s former chief weapons hunter in Iraq, believes that the material was looted in the immediate aftermath of the war.

He said he saw the facility in May 2003, “and it was heavily looted at that time. Sometime between April and May, most of the stuff was carried off. The site was in total disarray, just like a lot of the Iraqi sites.”

…

The U.S. failure to guard hundreds of ammunition depots after the invasion has been well documented. Top military officials in Iraq believe that weapons taken from these sites have armed an insurgency that is taking American lives almost daily. More than 1,100 U.S. troops have been killed since the invasion began.

[Mal_Adroit]

@Brutus

Man, if it wasn’t for bad luck, the Lefty attack machine would have no luck. I wonder what their spin on this will be?

No spin required.

Even if

1.) The one NBC report that conflicts with versions from both Pentagon and Iraqi officials stands up under scrutiny in the next few days, and

2.) It turns out that the explosives went missing after the last U.N. inspection but before troops entered Baghdad

It means that this administration had advance knowledge of these missing explosives a looong time before the lying sacks o’ shit are now claiming they did. And they did nothing to prepare themselves for the possible ramifications. (Not that that doesn’t fit their pattern of brainless, arrogant denial.) They did nothing by way of providing troops with additional protection in the wake of these discoveries. They continued with Donald Rumsfeld’s morally repugnant plan of running their war on the cheap, even in the face of increased danger for our troops.

“Hey. . . aren’t there supposed to be a whole lotta high-level explosives here? Ah well, fuck it.
On to the welcoming Iraqi masses!”