Huge cache of explosives missing in Iraq

Marksist · Post by **Marksist** » 2004-10-24 11:53pm

NY Times wrote:BAGHDAD, Iraq, Oct. 24 - The Iraqi interim government has warned the United States and international nuclear inspectors that nearly 380 tons of powerful conventional explosives - used to demolish buildings, produce missile warheads and detonate nuclear weapons - are missing from one of Iraq's most sensitive former military installations.

The huge facility, called Al Qaqaa, was supposed to be under American military control but is now a no-man's land, still picked over by looters as recently as Sunday. United Nations weapons inspectors had monitored the explosives for many years, but White House and Pentagon officials acknowledge that the explosives vanished after the American invasion last year.

The White House said President Bush's national security adviser, Condoleezza Rice, was informed within the past month that the explosives were missing. It is unclear whether President Bush was informed. American officials have never publicly announced the disappearance, but beginning last week they answered questions about it posed by The New York Times and the CBS News program "60 Minutes."

Administration officials said yesterday that the Iraq Survey Group, the C.I.A. task force that searched for unconventional weapons, has been ordered to investigate the disappearance of the explosives.

American weapons experts say their immediate concern is that the explosives could be used in major bombing attacks against American or Iraqi forces: the explosives, mainly HMX and RDX, could be used to produce bombs strong enough to shatter airplanes or tear apart buildings. The bomb that brought down Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, in 1988 used less than a pound of the material of the type stolen from Al Qaqaa, and somewhat larger amounts were apparently used in the bombing of a housing complex in November 2003 in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, and the blasts in a Moscow apartment complex in September 1999 that killed nearly 300 people.

The explosives could also be used to trigger a nuclear weapon, which was why international nuclear inspectors had kept a watch on the material, and even sealed and locked some of it. But the other components of an atom bomb - the design and the radioactive fuel - are more difficult to obtain. "This is a high explosives risk, but not necessarily a proliferation risk," one senior Bush administration official said.

The International Atomic Energy Agency publicly warned about the danger of these explosives before the war, and after the invasion it specifically told United States officials about the need to keep the explosives secured, European diplomats said in interviews last week. Administration officials say they cannot explain why the explosives were not safeguarded, beyond the fact that the occupation force was overwhelmed by the amount of munitions they found throughout the country.

The Qaqaa facility, about 30 miles south of Baghdad, was well known to American intelligence officials: Saddam Hussein made conventional warheads at the site, and the I.A.E.A. dismantled parts of his nuclear program there in the early 1990's after the Persian Gulf war in 1991. In the prelude to the 2003 invasion, Mr. Bush cited a number of other "dual use" items - including tubes that the administration contended could be converted to use for the nuclear program - as a justification for invading Iraq.

After the invasion, when widespread looting began in Iraq, the international weapons experts grew concerned that the Qaqaa stockpile could fall into unfriendly hands. In May, an internal I.A.E.A. memorandum warned that terrorists might be helping "themselves to the greatest explosives bonanza in history."

In an interview with The Times and CBS in Baghdad, the minister of science and technology, Rashad M. Omar, confirmed the facts described in the letter. "Yes, they are missing," Dr. Omar said. "We don't know what happened." The I.A.E.A. says it also does not know, and has reported that machines tools that can be used for either nuclear or non-nuclear purposes have also been looted.

Post by **Sea Skimmer** » 2004-10-24 11:58pm

Iraq is so awash in explosives that this really isn't a specific threat. Anyway, the people that stole off of it, I doubt it was just one group given that you'd need about 75 good sized trucks to haul it all off, proubabbly stole the stuff as much to resell it to mining companies as to use it for terrorist attacks.

Agrajag · Post by **Agrajag** » 2004-10-25 11:42am

What I want to know is how Bush can still have followers believe he's better at securing our safety when he can't secure this sort of material!

"The International Atomic Energy Agency said about 350 tons of highly explosive material had disappeared in Iraq, apparently stolen because of a lack of security at governmental installations."

This might just resonate with swing voters. Bush keeps telling people he's better at securing us but then this happens. Give me a break.

But hey, how are the oil fields doing? Something tells me they're protected.

Mange · Post by **Mange** » 2004-10-25 12:32pm

This is very serious. Don't they have guards at those installations?

Enforcer Talen · Post by **Enforcer Talen** » 2004-10-25 12:56pm

my math teacher made this a running joke in his class today.

"dont you feel safer? think of all those new terrorists, whowhee!"

neoolong · Post by **neoolong** » 2004-10-25 01:06pm

Mange the Swede wrote:This is very serious. Don't they have guards at those installations?

It looks like it did, but then they pulled out or something.

Post by **Darth Wong** » 2004-10-25 01:20pm

Wow, I feel safe. 350 tons of high explosive in the hands of terrorists thanks to a lapse in security. Yippee.

Ryoga · Post by **Ryoga** » 2004-10-25 02:45pm

What really fries my bacon is that this totally puts to the lie the claim that we went into Iraq 'because the IAEA was being snowballed and we had to go in to make sure'.....because, hey, look, there's direct evidence that the IAEA was more on-the-ball than the US. They don't even have an excuse, they just seem to kinda shrug their shoulders and say 'oh well'.

JME2 · Post by **JME2** » 2004-10-25 04:03pm

Great. Thanks to the incompetence of Dubya and his Iraqi lackies (hey, I made rhyme

), something's going to end up going bump in the night big-time...

Post by **Darth Wong** » 2004-10-25 04:32pm

Don't worry, it's nothing to get excited about. It's only one third of a fucking kiloton, that's all ...

Post by **Sea Skimmer** » 2004-10-25 06:23pm

Darth Wong wrote:Don't worry, it's nothing to get excited about. It's only one third of a fucking kiloton, that's all ...

In a country in which the total stocks of explosives and heavy ammunition like shells and bombs are measured in the hundreds of thousands of tons. The amount of stuff a nation with an Army the size of what Iraq formally had is just incredible, and as a result there is going to be no shortage for those want it.

To give an example of the kind of tonnages that a military can pile up, when the British went to destroy the German ammunition stocks on Helgoland island after WW2, they gathered some 6,000 tons of munitions containing several thousand tons of explosives for one massive explosion they actually expected to destroy the entire island. Though it proved much more resistance then expected and lives on to this day.

MKSheppard · Post by **MKSheppard** » 2004-10-25 08:28pm

LInka

We blew up 110,000 tons, and secured 138,000 tons as of this summer

Post by **Darth Wong** » 2004-10-25 09:29pm

MKSheppard wrote:LInka

We blew up 110,000 tons, and secured 138,000 tons as of this summer

Given the sheer quantity of explosives in the country, the wisdom of the "why worry about a little looting?" Rumsfeldian post-invasion plan seems even more clear.

SirNitram · Post by **SirNitram** » 2004-10-25 09:32pm

MKSheppard wrote:LInka

We blew up 110,000 tons, and secured 138,000 tons as of this summer

When hundreds of tons walks off, I question the use of 'Secured'.

Joe · Post by **Joe** » 2004-10-25 10:24pm

NBC News says the weapons were gone 18 months ago. No link yet.

SirNitram · Post by **SirNitram** » 2004-10-25 10:28pm

Joe wrote:NBC News says the weapons were gone 18 months ago. No link yet.

....There are no words. No words in my vocabulary for the sort of incompetence required for such. And I have a large vocabulary for describing incompetence and idiocy.

Post by **Darth Wong** » 2004-10-25 10:31pm

It took them a year and a half to notice that people were looting an installation that had supposedly been secured the whole time?

Joe · Post by **Joe** » 2004-10-25 10:33pm

There were no troops in Iraq 18 months ago, folks...

Enforcer Talen · Post by **Enforcer Talen** » 2004-10-25 10:33pm

Im feeling safer.

woop, my safeness went up another notch. have to be prepped for that.

Post by **Darth Wong** » 2004-10-25 10:34pm

Joe wrote:There were no troops in Iraq 18 months ago, folks...

The article said people have been looting the installation as recently as Sunday.

Joe · Post by **Joe** » 2004-10-25 10:34pm

Oh yes there were! Joe just forgot how to add and subtract!

SirNitram · Post by **SirNitram** » 2004-10-25 10:35pm

Joe wrote:Oh yes there were! Joe just forgot how to add and subtract!

I was about to say! Let's go back to wtf'ing in unison.

Post by **Darth Wong** » 2004-10-25 10:36pm

Joe wrote:Oh yes there were! Joe just forgot how to add and subtract!

Sarcasm aside, I'm starting to wonder if that's true. If the weapons were missing before they secured them, why didn't they notice when they "secured" them? And if the installation was "secured" since the invasion, why are looters still picking over it up to the present?

Post by **Vympel** » 2004-10-25 10:36pm

Indeed. April 03 was 18 months ago, right? And it still being looted as of this week is just ... *smacks head*

Idiots. Like Shinseki said- more troops.

Post by **Sea Skimmer** » 2004-10-26 01:42am

Darth Wong wrote: Sarcasm aside, I'm starting to wonder if that's true. If the weapons were missing before they secured them, why didn't they notice when they "secured" them? And if the installation was "secured" since the invasion, why are looters still picking over it up to the present?

Its unlikely that the troops knew how many conventional explosives where suppose to be in the depot, they where probably only concerned with the potential banned weapons related equipment. NBC news was showing footage it filmed at the depot when it was first overrun tonight, and most of what they filmed appeared to be normal 500 and 1000 kilogram aircraft bombs, the sort of thing that Iraq would have just plain thousands of. Its unlikely that even the US militaries uber computer run inventory could account for all of its own 800,000 odd unguided bomb stock or its 50 million artillery shells. The UN inspectors probably only knew by going around and counting each and every one by hand, and that sort of data they where suppose to keep to themselves, removing it from potential prewar planning.

Vympel wrote:Indeed. April 03 was 18 months ago, right? And it still being looted as of this week is just ... *smacks head*

Idiots. Like Shinseki said- more troops.

Indeed, with a million Stryker born men flown directly into the streets of Baghdad and empowered with raw courage by the black beret the war would have been over within hours.