760,000 lbs of high explosives missing?

[ed4tide4u2]

380 tons of high explosives used to facilitate massive explosions and bring down buildings are missing in Iraq. The International Atomic Energy Agency warned the Bush administration that these weapons must be secured after the invasion. They were not. We did not have enough troops to stop looting and secure sensitive facilities when we invaded Iraq. Now these explosives are in the hands of insurgents it is believed. The administration says it is important to keep them in power to ensure that America is safe. What about the troops facing this onslaught of explosions in Iraq? It is now believed that the death of 50 Iraqi National Guardsmen who were unarmed and on leave was caused by insurgents who have infiltrated the Guard. American military sources are concerned about the trustworthiness of Iraqi troops with insurgent collaboration. How can you have democratic elections in a land where the army is not trustworthy and the U.N. that is to administer the elections, says that it is still too dangerous to send personnel to set up elections in January 2005. GWB and DC say that things are improving in Iraq and we should stay the course. Who gets the blame for this serious mistake that will lead to more deaths among Americans, foreigners and Iraqis? Kerry?

 

[Queasy1]

I was waiting for someone to mention this.

Do you realize that nobody knows when they went missing? They could have been moved to another location before the war, during, or after.

The Qaqaa stockpile went unmonitored from late 1998, when United Nations inspectors left Iraq, to late 2002, when they came back. Upon their return, the inspectors discovered that about 35 tons of HMX were missing.

A senior Bush administration official said that during the initial race to Baghdad, American forces "went through the bunkers, but saw no materials bearing the I.A.E.A. seal."

Not to mention that Iraq was teeming with explosives

To date, 110,000 tons have been destroyed. An additional 138,000 tons are stored behind protective barriers. Saddam seemed to hoard this cornucopia of death aimlessly. “There are no aisles to walk down. It’s just heaped,” he said. “It just blows your mind to see this stuff.”

That's 248,000 tons of explosives that have been found and secured or destroyed....back in June. There's no telling how many more tons have been destroyed or secured since.

But, I guess John Kerry feels we were safer when the material was in the hands of Saddam Hussein, because after all ... Saddam was no threat, even though ... he had hundreds of tons of high explosives that could be used to manufacture nuclear weapons, but ... he had no plans for WMD ... uh ... but ...

 

[Mamacalled]

Thank you Queasy for the truth. I had posted this about two weeks ago and according to the UN and Duelfer, these items went missing prior to and up to the invasion. Also missing was high precision weapons and nuclear fuel. I thought that there wasn't any of these things. Now the Dems want to say there were but BUsh misled us. Which is it? There have been several left wing web sites that have tried to state that it happenned afterwards with one going so far to say that a whole building was dismantled by insurgents right before our troops very eyes. How absurd.

 

[bamabake]

Ques, Mama, you are the truth patrol.


rep points for the both of ya

 

[Pachydermatous]

"How can you have democratic elections in a land where the army is not trustworthy and the U.N. that is to administer the elections, says that it is still too dangerous to send personnel to set up elections in January 2005."

ed --- just one ore reason not to lean on the UN for anything. At the first whiff of trouble they cut and run. By the by, ed, are you majoring in hysteria this year?

 

[ed4tide4u2]

:smile: That's a good one Pachy! No, I am not into hysteria. It is a fact that the only building guarded after the invasion of Iraq was the Oil Ministry. Now why was this building so important? The U.S. was warned about these explosives. At the time of the invasion this base where they were stored was in Iraqi hands. They had no reason to dispose of them prior to use. These were not nuclear weapons but rather high explosives. The type of explosives used to make IED's and car bombs. It is also a fact that the weapons are believed by U.S. authorities to be in the hands of the insurgents now. With Sadaam in power, there were no insurgents. Why would the weapons go missing then? These weapons were at this base when we invaded Iraq and they were taken during the looting that Don Rumsfeld said was not an important concern at the time. Once again, rather than admit an mistake and own up to it, the response being received is; "don't blame us. They could have been gone when we got there". That is not sufficient in the face of the daily explosions going on in Iraq. These weapons should have been secured while we were guarding the Oil Ministry. They were not and once again, this administration has not made any mistakes so they say. I think that is getting rather tired as the evidence is blowing up in their face every day regardless of the spin they put on it. They apparently have many believers who will trust and march in lockstep to anything they say.

We did not secure the weapons, we did not guard any facility other than the Oil Ministry, we did not secure the base where the weapons were stored, we did not halt the looting, we did not and still do not, have enough troops to win the peace, we cannot trust the Iraqi Army, there will be no secure vote in January and the buck stops at the top. Every word said here is the truth. The spin is getting old when the casualties continue to rise and the country becomes even more dangerous. At least this administration did admit one thing: they said at first that the insurgents were just a few deadends who were dissatisfied along with a few Baath loyalist. They now admit that is has more than 20,000 members and appears to be growing. That is a clear and present danger even to those with their heads stuck in the sand. When is the madness going to end? Will it take as long as Vietnam to realize our mistake. I was a part of that and it saddens me to see it happening again. We now 'HAVE' to win a failed mission that was doomed from the start by a lack of preparation and arrogance. Some call it hysteria and some call it the truth.

 

[Queasy1]

Roundup of the last two week's worth of good news in Iraq
While everything you see on the news about car bombs and murders in Iraq is true, it is only part of the story. There's a whole other part of the story about good deeds being done, people learning what it is like to be free, and much much more. The violence in Iraq is a direct result of those who do not wish to see a democratic Iraq and those who want to cause as much trouble as possible prior to the U.S. election to oust Bush. Please don't depend solely on the mainstream media. They, unfortunately, have an agenda of reporting only the sensational and anything to hurt Bush.

The only thing that will cause us to lose Iraq like we lost Vietnam is a loss of will here at home. Just as in Vietnam, the media and other leftists seem intent on facilitating that loss of will. Try not to watch too much Michael Moore, ok? It hurts the kittens.

 

[ed4tide4u2]

Roundup of the last two week's worth of good news in Iraq
While everything you see on the news about car bombs and murders in Iraq is true, it is only part of the story. There's a whole other part of the story about good deeds being done, people learning what it is like to be free, and much much more. The violence in Iraq is a direct result of those who do not wish to see a democratic Iraq and those who want to cause as much trouble as possible prior to the U.S. election to oust Bush. Please don't depend solely on the mainstream media. They, unfortunately, have an agenda of reporting only the sensational and anything to hurt Bush.

Good deeds? Every time a police staion is built it is blown down, every time a public official is identified he becomes a target for assasination. Young children are standing around in the street laughing and celebrating the deaths of American G.I.'s while the adults loot the burning vehicles. The majority of the population lives in fear and never knows when a loved one will be blown to bits along with the Americans targeted. The Army is infected with insurgents and rife with corruption. Weapons given to Iraqi forces are being given to insurgents. American forces raid an Iraqi National Guard Base and confiscate the weapons that were being improperly held and distributed to insurgents. In the face of this and the continuing carnage, any good deed is destroyed by the insurgents. We have billions budgeted but unspent for reconstruction. Good deeds? I think not.

 

[Queasy1]

Just read my link and try to edumacate yourself beyond what you hear from the likes of Michael Moore and other looney leftists.

 

[Stephen323]

Score one for NBC for reporting that the explosives were not there when US troops arrived. Most "news" agencies don't let the facts stand in the way of a chance to "report" something damaging to GWB.

http://www.drudgereport.com/nbcw.htm

 

[Queasy1]

Gotta love this quote from Stephen's link:

It is not clear why the NYTIMES failed to inform readers how the cache had been missing for 18 months -- and was reportedly missing when troops first arrived.

Hmmmmm....I wonder why.

 

[Mamacalled]

Here you go ed, again, these weapons are believed to have been removed prior to and during the invasion. And yes there were nuclear material or the IAEA would not have been involved. Here are links.
http://www.worldtribune.com/worldtr...breaking_8.html
And the article that states that there were nuclear materail missing from Iraq per the UN http://www.boston.com/news/world/ar...el_concerned_about_missing_nuclear_equipment/
Again, why is this an issue anyway when you say that these items never existed? Did the or did they not?

 

[REALtide]

this has to be a lie.....remember ? Iraq had no weapons......

Ain't that what Sen. Kerry said ?

hmmmm......

 

[Vertical]

Here's yet another article (From CNN):

Report: Explosives already gone when US troops arrived

These explosives went from the control of Saddam into the hands of insurgents. Neither is good. While I can easily concede that these weapons being in the hands of insurgents isn't good at all, there was simply no way to prevent this from happening, if it happened before we arrived.

And surely you can't be serious when you wonder why we were guarding the Oil Ministry? I mean, you do know that that's basically the entire economy for Iraq, and it supports their infrastructure, right? We had to guard it as best we could for the sake of their economy and their future.

As for your claim that we only guarded the Oil Ministry, would you care to provide some proof of that claim?

 

[Queasy1]

380 tons out of a total of an estimated 600,0000 tons of explosives and munitions. That's like 0.063% of the total munitions Saddam had. There is no guarantee that these explosives ended up in the hands of insurgents. The 6 months we spent jerking around with the UN gave Saddam plenty of time to move around his weapons. But, perhaps we would have been able to better secure Iraq if members of the UN (France, Germany) hadn't coerced Turkey into denying us permission to place the 4th ID there to invade from the north. Instead, the 4th ID was left sitting at sea as they made their way to Kuwait after the battle started.

 

[Pachydermatous]

ed ---

Take it easy or your radiator might overheat. Too much lefty propaganda can be deleterious to one's heath. As far as the elections go, let's wait and see. As for guarding of the Oil Ministery Building, that was top priority --- oil is the lifeblood of Iraq's economy and everything was done from the git-go to resume pumping.

Trouble with propaganda is that frequently its devotees actually begin believing it --- thus the Salem witch hunts and other quaint human activities. It is not surprising that if one is immersed solely in socialist ambiance for a given time that he takes on a pronounced pinkish tinge. Ditto for Democrat propaganda. Dr. Goebbels was so good at his trade that good little Nazis actually believed Jews were rats in human form. The Kerry campaign is being run, if not in that substance, at least in that form.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"Cricket is a game invented by the English who, not being a spiritual people, needed something to give them the concept of eternity."

Peter Ustinov

 

[Queasy1]

Well, what do you know. Apparently, CBS's 60 Minutes was planning on running with this story on election eve as Drudge reports.

News of missing explosives in Iraq -- first reported in April 2003 -- was being resurrected for a 60 MINUTES election eve broadcast designed to knock the Bush administration into a crises mode...

What media bias?

For all the B&M about Fox News, the actions of CBS and ABC have truly been deplorable this election cycle.

 

[RobK]

I see the whole deal as yet another Kerry flip-flop. He says the administration was incompetent for not securing these weapons (which we now know had disappeared BEFORE U.S. Troops were in Iraq), so basically we should have gone to war SOONER than we did. Is that what he means by "wrong war, wrong place, wrong time"?

 

[Queasy1]

And another twist in this story.

Sent to me by a source in the government: “The Iraqi explosives story is a fraud. These weapons were not there when US troops went to this site in 2003. The IAEA and its head, the anti-American Mohammed El Baradei, leaked a false letter on this issue to the media to embarrass the Bush administration. The US is trying to deny El Baradei a second term and we have been on his case for missing the Libyan nuclear weapons program and for weakness on the Iranian nuclear weapons program.”

 

[ed4tide4u2]

Take the blinders off guys. Read on:

AP report 10-26-04: IAEA inspectors last saw the explosives in January 2003 when they took an inventory and placed fresh seals on the bunkers. Inspectors visited the site again in March 2003, but didn't view the explosives because the seals were not broken. Elbaredi said the IAEA had been trying to give the U.S. Led multinational force and Iraq"s 'interim' government time to recover the explosives before this matter was put into the public domain. The disappearance raised questions about why the U.S. didn't do more to secure the Al-Qaqaa faciility 30 miles south of Baghdad and failed to allow full international inspections to resume after the March 2003 invasion. (end)

Sounds to me like the IAEA was trying to help Bush by not revealing it until later. The only reason they spoke up now is because the story made the press. Just who is flip-flopping here? Sounds like the administration to me.


So the weapons were not there huh? Wake up and smell the coffee guys. You are being hoodwinked by professionals again. This was a failure on the part of the administration and you may as well admit it because the facts don't lie.