380 tons of high explosives missing in Iraq, for over a year. - Page 2 - Tilted Forum Project Discussion Community

athletics · 10-25-2004, 08:10 PM

The NY Times proves their bias by not reporting the timeframe of the weapons. These explosives were gone when our troops arrived.

Kerry and Edwards jumped all over this today aligning them on the wrong side of a false argument. Poor political move, it amplifies the Bush administration's foresight when it removes a dangerous dictator.

cthulu23 · 10-25-2004, 08:14 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by athletics

The NY Times proves their bias by not reporting the timeframe of the weapons. These explosives were gone when our troops arrived.

Kerry and Edwards jumped all over this today aligning them on the wrong side of a false argument. Poor political move, it amplifies the Bush administration's foresight when it removes a dangerous dictator.

Ummm, the NY Times did post a timeline, one different than the timeline presented in the Drudge story. We have competing stories here.

Ustwo · 10-25-2004, 08:16 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by daswig

I wonder why.

How many more times does he have to betray them before they realize he is just looking out for their best interests???

5

You know one thing they don't talk about much is that the military tends to be filled with more Republicans than Democrats. If Kerry wins we may damn well need a draft as less men would be willing to sign up to serve under Kerry (you remember how they loved Clinton). Clinton kept me from joining in 93 (I was told by friends that things were getting bad, and they got worse, but I still regret that I didn't join up).

athletics · 10-25-2004, 08:21 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by cthulu23

Ummm, the NY Times did post a timeline, one different than the timeline presented in the Drudge story. We have competing stories here.

Let's see which one wins. I suppose they are both right...since they were missing a few days ago...just as missing as they were 18 months ago. They are just as missing as they used to be.

daswig · 10-25-2004, 08:28 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by athletics

Let's see which one wins. I suppose they are both right...since they were missing a few days ago...just as missing as they were 18 months ago. They are just as missing as they used to be.

Hey, you never know, they could have returned them just yesterday....

Ustwo · 10-25-2004, 08:38 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by daswig

Hey, you never know, they could have returned them just yesterday....

Reminds me of kids looking for something and one of says 'THERE IT ....................isn't'.

Superbelt · 10-25-2004, 10:06 PM

Again you are just ignoring everything that is in the thread before you post. Including that:
The Interim Iraqi Government already said the materials went missing AFTER Baghdad fell
link
And that makes it our responsibility, as we were holding the potato.

Boo · 10-25-2004, 11:03 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mr Mephisto

Well jconnolly, I think you bring up a very valid point.

This was a military fuck up, not an Administration fuck-up.

Having said that, where does the buck stop again?

Mr Mephisto

Yes, the Bush administration is ultimately responsible.

This is a military fuck up. Generals are delegated authority to manage their troops to fulfill the current doctrine as described by the Commander-In-Chief. If they fail to guard a huge stockpile of explosives, then they have failed their mission.

IMO - If Kerry cannot seperate the difference, he does not need to be my Commander-In-Chief.

Quote:

Jumping on the TIMES exclusive, Dem presidential candidate John Kerry blasted the Bush administration for its failure to "guard those stockpiles."

"This is one of the great blunders of Iraq, one of the great blunders of this administration,"

Holding President Bush personally responsible for this military fuck-up is only done at a very shallow level.

Prediction, If he wins, Kerry will eat these ill thought out words.

OpieCunningham · 10-25-2004, 11:25 PM

Boo -

Assuming it is accurate that the explosives were looted post-April 9th, it is HIGHLY likely that this is a Department of Defense fuckup, which makes it a Bush administration fuckup. Not a military fuckup.

Scott McCellan has gone on record stating that there was a priority to protect the oil fields and as such there were not enough troops to protect other areas. This type of decision comes from civilian commanders, not military officers. No military officer in their right mind is going to leave an unsecured explosives depot in order to protect an oil field, particularly during combat operations, without having been issued a directive from the DoD which overrode their common sense.

daswig · 10-25-2004, 11:39 PM

For those saying "why didn't they post guards over this stuff?", I'd like to point out that the CIA WMD report says there's more than six hundred thousand TONS of ordnance over there. Let's say we detailed one soldier to guard each ton of ordinance. That's 600,000 soldiers, more than we invaded with in Desert Storm, and around 4 times the number of soldiers we invaded with this time.

OpieCunningham · 10-25-2004, 11:53 PM

And yet, no other explosives of this type or severity are known to be missing. This site was "well known", according to the reports.

Additionally, there is a significant difference between ordnance and explosives. You, of all people, would assuredly know that.

DJ Happy · 10-26-2004, 12:06 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by daswig

For those saying "why didn't they post guards over this stuff?", I'd like to point out that the CIA WMD report says there's more than six hundred thousand TONS of ordnance over there. Let's say we detailed one soldier to guard each ton of ordinance. That's 600,000 soldiers, more than we invaded with in Desert Storm, and around 4 times the number of soldiers we invaded with this time.

So you're saying that you didn't have enough troops because Bush didn't plan the invasion well enough in advance? For once, we agree.

daswig · 10-26-2004, 12:08 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by OpieCunningham

Additionally, there is a significant difference between ordnance and explosives. You, of all people, would assuredly know that.

Ordnance=shells filled with explosives.

Not to get into splitting semantic hairs here, but from my perspective, ordnance, munitions, and explosives are generally seen as interchangeable terms. It's like the difference between "clip" and "magazine". If you want to split hairs, you can differentiate between them, but generally it's not necessary to do so.

daswig · 10-26-2004, 12:09 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by DJ Happy

So you're saying that you didn't have enough troops because Bush didn't plan the invasion well enough in advance? For once, we agree.

Nope, what I'm saying is that it would have been a practical impossibility (and a wasted effort) to place all of the stuff there under armed guard.

DJ Happy · 10-26-2004, 12:18 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by daswig

Nope, what I'm saying is that it would have been a practical impossibility (and a wasted effort) to place all of the stuff there under armed guard.

Why is it a waste of effort to make sure that high explosives are secure and are not going to be used against your own troops? I don't see that as a waste of effort at all.

OpieCunningham · 10-26-2004, 12:22 AM

Ordnance = all ammunition, explosives, pyro-technics, flares, smoke flares, et. al.

So, when you state that there is/was 600,000 tons of ordnance - they (whoever "they" are) are not referring to explosives specifically.

Regardless, Al Qa Qaa was a high profile site with highly important explosives that could be used for nuclear triggering. Under (essentially) no circumstances would anyone suggest that it would be acceptable to leave this site unguarded.

Superbelt · 10-26-2004, 12:37 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by daswig

Nope, what I'm saying is that it would have been a practical impossibility (and a wasted effort) to place all of the stuff there under armed guard.

Why invade then? If you can't do the JOB then stay the hell home. This particular, very large, stash of explosives was deemed so important the IAEA was constantly monitoring it. You'd think that would qualify it for immediate attention.

But no, the immediate attention was given to the oil fields.

Like I posted on page one, from the official WH website.

Quote:

Q But after Iraqi Freedom, there were those caches all around, wasn't the multinational force -- who was responsible for keeping track --

MR. McCLELLAN: At the end of Operation Iraqi Freedom there were a number of priorities. It was a priority to make sure that the oil fields were secure, so that there wasn't massive destruction of the oil fields, which we thought would occur. It was a priority to get the reconstruction office up and running. It was a priority to secure the various ministries, so that we could get those ministries working on their priorities, whether it was -

Q So it was the multinational force's responsibility --

MR. McCLELLAN: There were a number of -- well, the coalition forces, there were a number of priorities at the end of Operation Iraqi Freedom.

MAYBE if we had put the priority on securing all the weapons rather then securing oil fields those explosives would be still in our possession.

host · 10-26-2004, 02:43 AM

On April 4, 2003 an AP embedded reporter with the U.S. 3rd ID, filed this report:

Quote:

<a href="http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/world/iraq/20030404-1742-war-chemicalfinds.html">http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/world/iraq/20030404-1742-war-chemicalfinds.html</a>
<a href="http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,83252,00.html"> http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,83252,00.html</a>
By Dafna Linzer
ASSOCIATED PRESS

5:42 p.m., April 4, 2003

As the military advances closer to Baghdad, signs of Iraqi chemical 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 western Iraqi 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 military industrial complex found nerve agent antidotes, documents describing chemical warfare and a white powder that appeared to be used for explosives.

U.N. weapons inspectors went repeatedly to the vast al Qa Qaa complex – most recently on March 8 – but found nothing during spot visits to some of the 1,100 buildings at the site 25 miles south of Baghdad.

Col. John Peabody, engineer brigade commander of the 3rd Infantry 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.

Initial reports suggest the powder is an explosive, but tests are still being done, a senior U.S. official said. If confirmed, it would be consistent with what the Iraqis say is the plant's purpose, producing explosives and propellants...........
.........Associated Press Writer Kimberly Hefling, traveling with the 3rd Brigade of the 101st Airborne, contributed to this report from Iraq.

This is the same site....it will be difficult for Bushco to contradict a April 4, 2003 Centcom update published on the State Department's own website:
This report confirms that U.S. troops controlled the area before the explosives were looted!

Quote:

<a href="http://usembassy-australia.state.gov/hyper/2003/0404/epf504.htm">http://usembassy-australia.state.gov/hyper/2003/0404/epf504.htm</a>
*EPF504 04/04/2003
U.S. Forces Find Iraqi Chemical Warfare Training Center
(Central Command Report, April 4: Iraq Operational Update) (850)

Washington -- U.S. forces have discovered a complex that may have been used by the Iraqi regime of Saddam Hussein to develop and construct chemical weapons, and another complex that is believed to be a nuclear, biological and chemical warfare training school, a U.S. Central Command briefing officer says.

U.S. Army Special Forces found a site in western Iraq near Mudaysis that probably was used as a nuclear, biological, and chemical (NBC) warfare training center for the Iraqi Army, Brigadier General Vincent Brooks said April 4 at the daily CENTCOM briefing at Camp As Sayliyah in Qatar. During the briefing Brooks showed an image of an array of brown-tinted bottles with yellow labels that are similar to the containers in which chemicals are customarily stored, and one was clearly marked "Tabun," a known chemical warfare agent.

"Some of these were taken away and testing is ongoing. But we think that there may have been an explanation for this as an NBC training school, not an operational facility," Brooks said. "We believe that was the only sample. That's why we believe it was a training site."

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control (CDC) identifies "Tabun" as a man-made chemical warfare agent classified as a nerve agent. Nerve agents are the most toxic and rapidly acting of the known chemical warfare agents, a CDC fact sheet says. Tabun was originally developed as a pesticide in Germany in 1936, and it is a clear, colorless, tasteless liquid with a faint fruity odor, the CDC says.

"We know that the Iraqis have conducted chemical training," Brooks said. "We've seen it in a number of places we've gone throughout the country."

U.S. troops also found thousands of boxes of an unspecified white powder substance, small vials of unidentified liquids, atropine nerve agent antidote autoinjectors, and an array of Arabic documents detailing how to engage in chemical warfare at the Latifiyah industrial complex 25 miles (40 kilometers) southwest of the Iraqi capital and east of the Euphrates River, he said. This site, part of a larger complex known as the Latifiyah Explosives and Ammunition Plant, was already identified by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) as a suspected NBC weapons site, and had been inspected a number of times.

"We believe that this regime does possess weapons of mass destruction," Brooks said. "We remain convinced of that. We know that some of those may have been pulled into the Baghdad area, either delivery systems or potentially storage systems.

"But let's remember that this regime has been involved in a campaign of denial and deception for decades and has been very effective at it. And so we don't expect that we're just going to walk up on any WMD."

Brooks also said that elements of the 3rd Infantry Division, led by a squadron of the U.S. 7th Cavalry, have seized the international airport west of Baghdad, formerly known as Saddam International Airport, in overnight fighting.

"The airport now has a new name, Baghdad International Airport, and it is the gateway to the future of Iraq," Brooks said.

He said the airport is unusable for normal commercial air operations, but other operations may be possible, though he would not elaborate. He said there are underground facilities at the airport and they require further clearance by coalition troops.

"It's an ongoing process. We don't know what we'll find there," Brooks said.

Brooks also emphasized that coalition forces did not cause electric power to be lost in Baghdad during the nighttime attack on the international airport. As the attack began, electricity to major portions of the city was cut off. He said it is not part of the coalition's plan to damage electric power generation stations in Baghdad because electricity is too important to the people of the city and the services that depend on it.

A car bomb explosion April 4 at a military checkpoint 11 miles (about 17.6 kilometers) southeast of the strategic Hadithah Dam area apparently killed the driver of the car, a pregnant woman riding with him, and three coalition troops, he said. Two other coalition troops were wounded by the blast, he said. The pregnant woman got out of the car and was seen screaming for assistance before the explosion, he said.

In other operations, Brooks said:

-- Approximately 2,500 Iraqi Republican Guard troops surrendered to coalition forces southeast of Baghdad April 4.

-- British forces operating in the south continued to expand their influence by ridding al Basrah of Iraqi paramilitary death squads. Aggressive patrols beyond Basrah resulted in the seizure of a cache of 56 surface-to-surface, short-range ballistic missiles, and four missile launchers in the vicinity of al Zubair, which is just northwest of Basrah.

-- The 1st Marine Expeditionary Force continued its attack toward Baghdad, destroying remnants of the Baghdad Republican Guard Division near al Kut, and elements of the Al Nida Republican Guard Division between al Kut and Baghdad.

(Distributed by the Office of International Information Programs, U.S. Department of State. Web site: http://usinfo.state.gov)

Locobot · 10-26-2004, 04:42 AM

Let's remember here that looting was initially encouraged by U.S. forces. It was seen as evidence of the disintigration of S. Hussein's Iraqi army, and perhaps it was. This was top-down policy delivered from the Department of Defense, President Bush's DoD. Now however, 1100+ U.S. casualties later, these policies are exposed as being extremely naieve.

I've read interviews with Fallujah insurgents that corroborate this story. There were U.S. forces guarding many Iraqi weapons depots but when looters came they were asked if they were "ali baba" and then waved through, with all the weapons they could carry. These are the same people killing Americans and the new Iraqi police and military.

Ustwo · 10-26-2004, 05:12 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Locobot

I've read interviews with Fallujah insurgents that corroborate this story. There were U.S. forces guarding many Iraqi weapons depots but when looters came they were asked if they were "ali baba" and then waved through, with all the weapons they could carry. These are the same people killing Americans and the new Iraqi police and military.

Pardon me if I don't take the word of a Fallujah insurgent interviewed in an unknown source as proof of US policy failure.

Ustwo · 10-26-2004, 05:36 AM

CNN is now running the story too, for those who don't like Drudge.

http://edition.cnn.com/2004/WORLD/me...aq.explosives/

Same shit different day eh?

Superbelt · 10-26-2004, 05:44 AM

Hmm, believe the embedded news crews or the IAEA and Interim Iraqi Government....
Well, first we would need some information coming from those two organizations that backup the claim that the explosives were still there... Where to find it?
Do you think, Ustwo, if I read through this thread from the beginning I may find some evidence of that? I dunno, it's been so long since I started this thread.

Ustwo · 10-26-2004, 06:07 AM

Keep grasping.

Locobot · 10-26-2004, 06:10 AM

Quote:

Let's remember here that looting was initially encouraged by U.S. forces. It was seen as evidence of the disintigration of S. Hussein's Iraqi army, and perhaps it was. This was top-down policy delivered from the Department of Defense, President Bush's DoD. Now however, 1100+ U.S. casualties later, these policies are exposed as being extremely naieve.

I've read interviews with Fallujah insurgents that corroborate this story. There were U.S. forces guarding many Iraqi weapons depots but when looters came they were asked if they were "ali baba" and then waved through, with all the weapons they could carry. These are the same people killing Americans and the new Iraqi police and military.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ustwo

Pardon me if I don't take the word of a Fallujah insurgent interviewed in an unknown source as proof of US policy failure.

okay then how about the corpses of 1100 dead Americans? I suppose that means nothing to you either.

the source was Harper's magazine in case you actually cared and weren't just being an insincere thoroughly contemptible, detestable person.

I'm fairly knowledgable of Harper's factchecking process, in case you want to quibble over that too.

Superbelt · 10-26-2004, 06:13 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ustwo

Keep grasping.

If by grasping you mean point to the wealth of information in this thread that counters your CBS stories. A news organization by the way, that you would outright dismiss as being a Democrat tool if their reporting was the other way around. Then yes, I am grasping.

athletics · 10-26-2004, 06:19 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ustwo

CNN is now running the story too, for those who don't like Drudge.

http://edition.cnn.com/2004/WORLD/me...aq.explosives/

Also note that this does not make even the front page of cnn.com. However yesterday the erroneous story of missing explosives was front and center.

The media shows they are trying to oust Bush when they do things like this.

Superbelt · 10-26-2004, 06:29 AM

Maybe because CBS's accounts, which are the basis for the CNN article, are highly inconclusive.
CBS journalists were embedded with troops, but they weren't embedded with ALL the troops. So the stuff was gone before they got there. Who is to say they got there first?
The direct contradiction between CBS and the IAEA + Interim Govt make the CBS claim seem much less like the whole truth.

As such it wouldn't really be "Front Page Worthy."

athletics · 10-26-2004, 07:26 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Superbelt

Maybe because CBS's accounts, which are the basis for the CNN article, are highly inconclusive.
CBS journalists were embedded with troops, but they weren't embedded with ALL the troops. So the stuff was gone before they got there. Who is to say they got there first?
The direct contradiction between CBS and the IAEA + Interim Govt make the CBS claim seem much less like the whole truth.

As such it wouldn't really be "Front Page Worthy."

Or is it just not front page worthy because it doesn't make Bush look bad?

Superbelt · 10-26-2004, 07:38 AM

No, for the reasons I already said. Until it gets the kind of believability and stature the IAEA and Interim govt have, it's not much of a story. It needs some serious developing before it should be responsibily pushed.

And by the way, it still makes Bush look bad. It still exposes how he was completely unprepared and had his priorities elsewhere (on oil rather than securing weapons).

Stompy · 10-26-2004, 07:51 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by athletics

Also note that this does not make even the front page of cnn.com. However yesterday the erroneous story of missing explosives was front and center.

The media shows they are trying to oust Bush when they do things like this.

Actually it was front page for many hours yesterday. More than the story about the missing weapons even..

athletics · 10-26-2004, 08:05 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Stompy

Actually it was front page for many hours yesterday. More than the story about the missing weapons even..

If it was, then I didn't see it. On their tv coverage it was all about missing weapons. No mention on the time frame.

In other news...there is a big domestic October Surprise that is going to break open in the next few days. The Bush administration has lost a river that flows through Arizona, leaving a very grand canyon. How do you lose a river? Poor environment policies and Halliburton, thats how.

aliali · 10-26-2004, 08:30 AM

And don't forget the millions of leaves, stripped of their greenity by the Bush environment left to turn yellow and red before wilting and falling to the ground leaving out precious grasses nothing but a graveyard whose only remaining purpose is to remind us of the disasterous policies of GWB.

The NY Times and CBS News will offer a story a day until the election to try to decide things for you. I know who wants Bush to win and what they will to help the cause. Are there no Kerry supporters who acknowledge the obvious--that their friends in big media have compromised their ethics--even if for a good cause?

athletics · 10-26-2004, 08:40 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by aliali

And don't forget the millions of leaves, stripped of their greenity by the Bush environment left to turn yellow and red before wilting and falling to the ground leaving out precious grasses nothing but a graveyard whose only remaining purpose is to remind us of the disasterous policies of GWB.

Have no fear aliali, John Kerry has a plan for this. It is on JohnKerry.com

host · 10-26-2004, 11:07 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by athletics

If it was, then I didn't see it. On their tv coverage it was all about missing weapons. No mention on the time frame.

In other news...there is a big domestic October Surprise that is going to break open in the next few days. The Bush administration has lost a river that flows through Arizona, leaving a very grand canyon. How do you lose a river? Poor environment policies and Halliburton, thats how.

Friends, we're experiencing what it must have been like to try to stay
informed if you were living in old Soviet Russia. Bushco seems desperate to
spin the missing explosives story out of it's realm of responsibility.......

drudgereport.com led with a large lettered link at the top of the web pages
yesterday that an NBC news reporter embedded with U.S. invasion forces
has reported that the explosives were "already gone when U.S. troops arrives
at al qaqaa on April 10, 2003. CNN picked up the story and displsyed it as it's
headline story on it's web site last night until 8:00 AM EST today. My skepticism
increased when I observed that, outside of a video report of this story, there
was nothing on MSNBC's website comparable to CNN's feature.

My opinion is that CNN was involved in a transparent effort to aid the Bush
administration in minimizing the fallout from the explosives story by featuring
an NBC reporter's claim that Bushco did not even have an opportunity to
secure the explosives in the first place, at the same time NBC news did not
have enough confidence that the story was signifigant enough to lead with.

The main weakness in the story below is that I have posted three stories
above, including one from the state department's own website that establish
that U.S. troops were at the El Qa Qaa with the 3rd Infantry Division on
April 4, 2003, 6 days before the NBC reporter Lai Ling, embedded with the
101st Airborne division arrived there.
<a href="http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/world/iraq/20030404-1742-war-chemicalfinds.html">http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/world/iraq/20030404-1742-war-chemicalfinds.html</a>
<a href=" http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,83252,00.html"> http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,83252,00.html</a>
<a href="http://usembassy-australia.state.gov/hyper/2003/0404/epf504.htm">http://usembassy-australia.state.gov/hyper/2003/0404/epf504.htm</a>

Quote:

<a href="http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/news/breaking_news/10019672.htm?1c">http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/news/breaking_news/10019672.htm?1c</a>
Posted on Tue, Oct. 26, 2004
Click here to find out more!

Embedded NBC reporter says no indication U.S. soldiers searched an Iraqi site for explosives now missing

NEW YORK (AP) - 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 cable news channel. ``The mission that the brigade had was to get to Baghdad. That was more of a pit stop there for us. And, you know, the searching, I mean certainly some of the soldiers head off on their own, looked through the bunkers just to look at the vast amount of ordnance lying around.

``But as far as we could tell, there was no move to secure the weapons, nothing to keep looters away.''

On Monday night, NBC reported that its embedded crew said U.S. troops did discover significant stockpiles of bombs, but no sign of the missing HMX and RDX explosives.............

.......That raised the possibility that the explosives had disappeared before U.S. soldiers could secure the site in the immediate invasion aftermath.

However, Iraq's Ministry of Science and Technology told the IAEA the explosives disappeared sometime after coalition forces took control of Baghdad on April 9, 2003.

The NBC team accompanied the 101st Airborne at Al-Qaqaa the following day -- on April 10, 2003.

Lai Ling told MSNBC that there was no talk among the 101st of securing the area after they left.

She said the roads were cut off ``so it would have been very difficult, I believe, for the looters to get there.''

The drudgereport.com emphasis on this story yesterday and the CNN
followup "major headline" treatment seems to reveal a transparent CNN
effort to run a damage contol operation for Bush and his campaign. Much
information at these links below to further strenghten this accusation:
<a href="http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2004_10_24.php#003804">http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2004_10_24.php#003804</a>
<a href="http://www.dkosopedia.com/index.php/Al_Qaqaa_Weapons_Cache">http://www.dkosopedia.com/index.php/Al_Qaqaa_Weapons_Cache</a>

jonjon42 · 10-26-2004, 11:50 AM

so basicly it sounds like the April 10'th article did not realize that US troops had already passed through the area, and therefore speculated that the explosives were raided before the US troops arrived. embedded journalism at it's finest..

athletics · 10-26-2004, 12:29 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by host

Friends, we're experiencing what it must have been like to try to stay
informed if you were living in old Soviet Russia. Bushco seems desperate to
spin the missing explosives story out of it's realm of responsibility.......

drudgereport.com led with a large lettered link at the top of the web pages
yesterday that an NBC news reporter embedded with U.S. invasion forces
has reported that the explosives were "already gone when U.S. troops arrives
at al qaqaa on April 10, 2003. CNN picked up the story and displsyed it as it's
headline story on it's web site last night until 8:00 AM EST today. My skepticism
increased when I observed that, outside of a video report of this story, there
was nothing on MSNBC's website comparable to CNN's feature.

My opinion is that CNN was involved in a transparent effort to aid the Bush
administration in minimizing the fallout from the explosives story by featuring
an NBC reporter's claim that Bushco did not even have an opportunity to
secure the explosives in the first place, at the same time NBC news did not
have enough confidence that the story was signifigant enough to lead with.

If you watched CNN last night, they had stories about missing explosives all night. And now you say CNN is on Bush's side? Sure. Makes total sense. Bush hasn't gotten too many breaks from the media at all, maybe he is due one.

This story will probably loose cred and help Bush. It reminds people of the explosives Iraq had and the danger they posed.

daswig · 10-26-2004, 01:27 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by athletics

It reminds people of the explosives Iraq had and the danger they posed.

Heh. Good point. The people crying "Bush screwed up, letting this stuff fall into the hands of potential terrorists" are the same people who cried "Saddam is not a threat!" when Saddam obviously had stuff that terrorists wanted to get their hands on...

host · 10-26-2004, 01:32 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by athletics

If you watched CNN last night, they had stories about missing explosives all night. And now you say CNN is on Bush's side? Sure. Makes total sense. Bush hasn't gotten too many breaks from the media at all, maybe he is due one.

This story will probably loose cred and help Bush. It reminds people of the explosives Iraq had and the danger they posed.

CNN headlined this misleading story last night, and into this morning.
It is misleading because it gives the impression that the 101st Airborne troops
were the first on the scene, when there are credible reports that 3rd Infantry
Division troops were at the same location 5 days earlier, on April 4, 2003.
It is misleading because it gives the impression that the 101st Airborne were
searching the El Qaqaa complex for weapons and that they confirmed that
the 380 tons of high explosives were already missing from the site. The fact
is that the 101st Airborne troops and the NBC imbedded reporter merely
stopped at El Qaqaa to camp overnight on their way to occupy Baghdad.
CNN did not get their facts straight and they provided convenient "cover"
for the Bush Disinfostration!

Quote:

<a href="http://www.cnn.com/2004/WORLD/meast/10/26/iraq.explosives/index.html">http://www.cnn.com/2004/WORLD/meast/10/26/iraq.explosives/index.html</a>
<h2>Report: Explosives could not be found when U.S. troops arrived</h2>
NBC News says its crew was embedded with soldiers at time

Tuesday, October 26, 2004 Posted: 11:16 AM EDT (1516 GMT)

(CNN) -- The mystery surrounding the disappearance of 380 tons of powerful explosives from a storage depot in Iraq has taken a new twist, after a television news crew embedded with the U.S. military during the invasion of Iraq reported that the material could not be found when American troops arrived.

NBC News reported that on April 10, 2003, its crew was embedded with the U.S. Army's 101st Airborne Division when troops arrived at the Al Qaqaa storage facility south of Baghdad.

While the troops found large stockpiles of conventional explosives, they did not find HMX or RDX, the types of powerful explosives that reportedly went missing, according to NBC......

CNN's manipulation of an NBC reporters April 10, 2003 report from the war
in Iraq facilitated an effort to push the blame for not securing the 380 tons
of explosives away from the Bush administration. Now the Drudge, CNN, RNC
disinformation campaign to turn a Bushco failure into a smear on the Kerry
campaign is exposed for what it is.......pathetic, desperate, untrue, propaganda:

Quote:

<a href="http://www.rnc.org/RNCResearch/Read.aspx?ID=4990">http://www.rnc.org/RNCResearch/Read.aspx?ID=4990</a>
The Yak < RNC Research < Home

Tuesday, October 26, 2004
<h2>Kerry Uses Incomplete Report To Attack President; NBC Embeds Debunk Missing Weapons Story</h2>

Something To Yak About - Kerry Uses Incomplete Report To Attack President; NBC Embeds Debunk Missing Weapons Story
If this was John Kerry's October Surprise, it fell a little flat. We're talking about the now de-bunked New York Times report Monday about missing explosives in Iraq - the story John Kerry used to launch a full-scale attack on the president. But it turns out the NYT report was just plain wrong. Seems NBC News had reporters embedded with the military when troops arrived at the weapons facility from which these explosives supposedly disappeared, but reported on April 10, 2003 that the facility didn't have any of the high explosives crowed about in the NYT report.

Mephisto2 · 10-26-2004, 01:33 PM

Let me report two things I heard yesterday.

1) A UN Weapons Inspector (don't think it was Hans Blix, but another American) who basically said "Even IF they were gone when US forces got there, and this is as yet unconfirmed, then it's worse. It means these guys didn't even notice!" [paraphrased]

2) A clarification stating that the NBC team didn't say "there were no explosives" but only "they didn't see them". Quite a different thing.

Looking for references now.

Mr Mephisto

daswig · 10-26-2004, 01:34 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mr Mephisto

1) A UN Weapons Inspector (don't think it was Hans Blix, but another American) who basically said "Even IF they were gone when US forces got there, and this is as yet unconfirmed, then it's worse. It means these guys didn't even notice!" [paraphrased]

Who knows....maybe they had other priorities...like fighting the frigging WAR.

10-25-2004, 11:39 PM	#50 (permalink)
daswig Banned Location: BFE	For those saying "why didn't they post guards over this stuff?", I'd like to point out that the CIA WMD report says there's more than six hundred thousand TONS of ordnance over there. Let's say we detailed one soldier to guard each ton of ordinance. That's 600,000 soldiers, more than we invaded with in Desert Storm, and around 4 times the number of soldiers we invaded with this time. Last edited by daswig; 10-26-2004 at 12:02 AM..

10-26-2004, 12:22 AM	#56 (permalink)
OpieCunningham Loser	Ordnance = all ammunition, explosives, pyro-technics, flares, smoke flares, et. al. So, when you state that there is/was 600,000 tons of ordnance - they (whoever "they" are) are not referring to explosives specifically. Regardless, Al Qa Qaa was a high profile site with highly important explosives that could be used for nuclear triggering. Under (essentially) no circumstances would anyone suggest that it would be acceptable to leave this site unguarded. Last edited by OpieCunningham; 10-26-2004 at 12:26 AM..

10-26-2004, 05:36 AM	#61 (permalink)
Ustwo Pissing in the cornflakes	CNN is now running the story too, for those who don't like Drudge. http://edition.cnn.com/2004/WORLD/me...aq.explosives/ Same shit different day eh? __________________ Agents of the enemies who hold office in our own government, who attempt to eliminate our "freedoms" and our "right to know" are posting among us, I fear.....on this very forum. - host Obama - Know a Man by the friends he keeps.

10-26-2004, 06:07 AM	#63 (permalink)
Ustwo Pissing in the cornflakes	Keep grasping. __________________ Agents of the enemies who hold office in our own government, who attempt to eliminate our "freedoms" and our "right to know" are posting among us, I fear.....on this very forum. - host Obama - Know a Man by the friends he keeps.

10-26-2004, 11:50 AM	#75 (permalink)
jonjon42 Psycho Location: inside my own mind	so basicly it sounds like the April 10'th article did not realize that US troops had already passed through the area, and therefore speculated that the explosives were raided before the US troops arrived. embedded journalism at it's finest.. __________________ A damn dirty hippie without the dirty part....

10-25-2004, 08:10 PM	#41 (permalink)
athletics Crazy Location: atlanta, ga	The NY Times proves their bias by not reporting the timeframe of the weapons. These explosives were gone when our troops arrived. Kerry and Edwards jumped all over this today aligning them on the wrong side of a false argument. Poor political move, it amplifies the Bush administration's foresight when it removes a dangerous dictator.

10-25-2004, 10:06 PM	#47 (permalink)
Superbelt This vexes me. I am terribly vexed. Location: Grantville, Pa	Again you are just ignoring everything that is in the thread before you post. Including that: The Interim Iraqi Government already said the materials went missing AFTER Baghdad fell link And that makes it our responsibility, as we were holding the potato.

10-25-2004, 11:25 PM	#49 (permalink)
OpieCunningham Loser	Boo - Assuming it is accurate that the explosives were looted post-April 9th, it is HIGHLY likely that this is a Department of Defense fuckup, which makes it a Bush administration fuckup. Not a military fuckup. Scott McCellan has gone on record stating that there was a priority to protect the oil fields and as such there were not enough troops to protect other areas. This type of decision comes from civilian commanders, not military officers. No military officer in their right mind is going to leave an unsecured explosives depot in order to protect an oil field, particularly during combat operations, without having been issued a directive from the DoD which overrode their common sense.

10-25-2004, 11:53 PM	#51 (permalink)
OpieCunningham Loser	And yet, no other explosives of this type or severity are known to be missing. This site was "well known", according to the reports. Additionally, there is a significant difference between ordnance and explosives. You, of all people, would assuredly know that.

10-26-2004, 04:42 AM	#59 (permalink)
Locobot is awesome!	Let's remember here that looting was initially encouraged by U.S. forces. It was seen as evidence of the disintigration of S. Hussein's Iraqi army, and perhaps it was. This was top-down policy delivered from the Department of Defense, President Bush's DoD. Now however, 1100+ U.S. casualties later, these policies are exposed as being extremely naieve. I've read interviews with Fallujah insurgents that corroborate this story. There were U.S. forces guarding many Iraqi weapons depots but when looters came they were asked if they were "ali baba" and then waved through, with all the weapons they could carry. These are the same people killing Americans and the new Iraqi police and military.

10-26-2004, 05:44 AM	#62 (permalink)
Superbelt This vexes me. I am terribly vexed. Location: Grantville, Pa	Hmm, believe the embedded news crews or the IAEA and Interim Iraqi Government.... Well, first we would need some information coming from those two organizations that backup the claim that the explosives were still there... Where to find it? Do you think, Ustwo, if I read through this thread from the beginning I may find some evidence of that? I dunno, it's been so long since I started this thread.

10-26-2004, 06:29 AM	#67 (permalink)
Superbelt This vexes me. I am terribly vexed. Location: Grantville, Pa	Maybe because CBS's accounts, which are the basis for the CNN article, are highly inconclusive. CBS journalists were embedded with troops, but they weren't embedded with ALL the troops. So the stuff was gone before they got there. Who is to say they got there first? The direct contradiction between CBS and the IAEA + Interim Govt make the CBS claim seem much less like the whole truth. As such it wouldn't really be "Front Page Worthy."

10-26-2004, 07:38 AM	#69 (permalink)
Superbelt This vexes me. I am terribly vexed. Location: Grantville, Pa	No, for the reasons I already said. Until it gets the kind of believability and stature the IAEA and Interim govt have, it's not much of a story. It needs some serious developing before it should be responsibily pushed. And by the way, it still makes Bush look bad. It still exposes how he was completely unprepared and had his priorities elsewhere (on oil rather than securing weapons).

10-26-2004, 08:30 AM	#72 (permalink)
aliali Insane Location: Missouri	And don't forget the millions of leaves, stripped of their greenity by the Bush environment left to turn yellow and red before wilting and falling to the ground leaving out precious grasses nothing but a graveyard whose only remaining purpose is to remind us of the disasterous policies of GWB. The NY Times and CBS News will offer a story a day until the election to try to decide things for you. I know who wants Bush to win and what they will to help the cause. Are there no Kerry supporters who acknowledge the obvious--that their friends in big media have compromised their ethics--even if for a good cause?

10-26-2004, 01:33 PM	#79 (permalink)
Mephisto2 Junkie	Let me report two things I heard yesterday. 1) A UN Weapons Inspector (don't think it was Hans Blix, but another American) who basically said "Even IF they were gone when US forces got there, and this is as yet unconfirmed, then it's worse. It means these guys didn't even notice!" [paraphrased] 2) A clarification stating that the NBC team didn't say "there were no explosives" but only "they didn't see them". Quite a different thing. Looking for references now. Mr Mephisto