NationStates Jolt Archive

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 material that went missing from the Al-Qaqaa facility, south of Baghdad.


http://www.washingtontimes.com/national/20041027-101153-4822r.htm

I guess Shrubbury (Bush) has a plan after all: Blame anyone and everyone except myself and my own administration, because I can't be seen as the weak asshole that I really am.

SPIN MunkeBrain SPIN!

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 material that went missing from the Al-Qaqaa facility, south of Baghdad.


http://www.washingtontimes.com/national/20041027-101153-4822r.htm

Yeah well like I said before, anyone can hold a belief. Belief is easy. Knowing, that's the trick. Now when the junior undersecretary of fart-catching at the Pentagon says he 'believes' that somebody 'almost certainly' did something, it doesn't ring true with me. Don't tell me what you believe might have happened. Tell me what DID happen, anything else just serves to muddy the waters.

And let me see now, you wouldn't possibly think that someone from the Pentagon or the current administration would be trying their level best to muddy those particular waters with less than week left before the ballots, now, would you?

An interesting theory.

And let me see now, you wouldn't possibly think that someone from the Pentagon or the current administration would be trying their level best to muddy those particular waters with less than week left before the ballots, now, would you?

They don't need to. This is a 2-year-old non-story that CBS tried to air the night before the election. Someone at CBS grew a conscience and leaked the story so it could be shot down, rightly, with time to spare. We've secured 640,000 tons of explopsives and CBS decides 377 of those 640,000 which were gone before we got there is proof positive of incompetence not by the military but by President Bush directly... it's crap and people know it.

Indeed.

Yeah well like I said before, anyone can hold a belief. Belief is easy. Knowing, that's the trick. Now when the junior undersecretary of fart-catching at the Pentagon says he 'believes' that somebody 'almost certainly' did something, it doesn't ring true with me. Don't tell me what you believe might have happened. Tell me what DID happen, anything else just serves to muddy the waters.

And let me see now, you wouldn't possibly think that someone from the Pentagon or the current administration would be trying their level best to muddy those particular waters with less than week left before the ballots, now, would you?
What about all the libs that assumed it was Bush's fault and his fault alone on Monday when the story broke. I didn't realize that the waters were so clear at that point.

Why won't this administration grows some balls and admit that they screwed up?

There's a long way from "believes almost certainly" from a guy quoted in the Moonie Times to anything resembling actual proof. And according to Iraqi scientists working at the facility during the period between the final IAEA inspection and the fall of Baghdad, nothing was removed. (http://www.turkishpress.com/news.asp?id=31993)BAGHDAD, Oct 27 (AFP) - A top Iraqi science official said Wednesday it was impossible that 350 tonnes of high explosives could have been smuggled out of a military site south of Baghdad before the regime fell last year.

He warned that explosives from nearby sites could have also been looted.

The UN nuclear watchdog this week said the explosives went missing from a weapons dump some time after Saddam Hussein's regime was toppled in April 2003 by the US-led invasion....

Mohammed al-Sharaa, who heads the science ministry's site monitoring department and worked with UN weapons inspectors under Saddam, said "it is impossible that these materials could have been taken from this site before the regime's fall."

He said he and other officials had been ordered a month earlier to insure that "not even a shred of paper left the sites."

"The officials that were inside this facility (Al-Qaqaa) beforehand confirm that not even a shred of paper left it before the fall and I spoke to them about it and they even issued certified statements to this effect which the US-led coalition was aware of."

He said officials at Al-Qaqaa, including its general director, whom he refused to name, made contact with US troops before the fall in an effort to get them to provide security for the site.
So tell me, does "we worked there and know what was going on" trump "believe almost certainly because it's my job to believe seven impossible things before breakfast"?

So tell me, does "we worked there and know what was going on" trump "believe almost certainly because it's my job to believe seven impossible things before breakfast"?

Yep pretty much. Like I said I wish this administration would grow some balls and admit they screwed up.

Good attempt, but NO! Try again


Oct. 27, 2004 — Iraqi officials may be overstating the amount of explosives reported to have disappeared from a weapons depot, documents obtained by ABC News show.

The Iraqi interim government has told the United States and international weapons inspectors that 377 tons of conventional explosives are missing from the Al-Qaqaa installation, which was supposed to be under U.S. military control.

But International Atomic Energy Agency documents obtained by ABC News and first reported on "World News Tonight with Peter Jennings" indicate the amount of missing explosives may be substantially less than the Iraqis reported.

The information on which the Iraqi Science Ministry based an Oct. 10 memo in which it reported that 377 tons of RDX explosives were missing — presumably stolen due to a lack of security — was based on "declaration" from July 15, 2002. At that time, the Iraqis said there were 141 tons of RDX explosives at the facility.

But the confidential IAEA documents obtained by ABC News show that on Jan. 14, 2003, the agency's inspectors recorded that just over 3 tons of RDX was stored at the facility — a considerable discrepancy from what the Iraqis reported.

The IAEA documents could mean that 138 tons of explosives were removed from the facility long before the start of the United States launched "Operation Iraqi Freedom" in March 2003.

http://www.abcnews.go.com/WNT/story?id=204304&page=1

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 material that went missing from the Al-Qaqaa facility, south of Baghdad.


http://www.washingtontimes.com/national/20041027-101153-4822r.htm
Sweet. When do we start bombing Moscow?
Or maybe not. I guess the explosives in question only cause mild-to-moderate destruction. We only invade countries who have weapons of MASS destruction ... and lots of oil.

Sweet. When do we start bombing Moscow?
Or maybe not. I guess the explosives in question only cause mild-to-moderate destruction. We only invade countries who have weapons of MASS destruction ... and lots of oil.

Russia has alot of oil.

Let me point out something to you MunkeBrain--the "may be" and the "could be." That means "we don't really know and have no positive proof."

And I'll tell you something--I hope that there was less of that explosive there than we originally thought, because whatever was looted is being used to kill US servicepeople. I know you think I don't care about the troops--you're wrong. But whether it was 380 tons or half that, or even a tenth of that, the fact still remains that we knew these munitions were there, and we didn't secure them. Why? Because we didn't have enough people on the ground to do the job right. And why was that the case? Because Bush and his administration are incompetent. And come Jan. 20, 2005, they'll all be out of jobs as well.

The funniest part of this whole issue is that the major networks were saying the explosives could be used to set off a nuke... no scare tactics there, no sir... an M-80 could be used to set off a nuke. :p

The funniest part of this whole issue is that the major networks were saying the explosives could be used to set off a nuke... no scare tactics there, no sir... an M-80 could be used to set off a nuke. :p
If it was preped properly, something I don't see any insurgents doing to harm troops. It takes lots of preperation to turn an explosive from a very stable powder into a weapon, contrary to the claims of the higly "educated".

An M-80 could set off a nuke? That's news to me. In fact, I suspect its utterly false. It takes a certain level of explosive force to trigger a nuke, and some kinds of highly stable explosives are much better suited; including those that may or not be in the hands of insurgents.

I hate to say this, but it looks like MunkeBrain has the advantage here. However, its not unspurising that there is revision of the earlier scares. Kerry's campaign was counting the investigation wouldnt uncover much until near the end o fthe elections, but at this pace, he might end up losing that gambit. It seems the investigations are yielding some theories already. He can no longer pass this off as a certain case of US government incompotency without blatantly lying, but im sure he will try anyway.

I hate to say this, but it looks like MunkeBrain has the advantage here. However, its not unspurising that there is revision of the earlier scares. Kerry's campaign was counting the investigation wouldnt uncover much until near the end o fthe elections, but at this pace, he might end up losing that gambit. It seems the investigations are yielding some theories already. He can no longer pass this off as a certain case of US government incompotency without blatantly lying, but im sure he will try anyway.
Kerry is going to campaign on this til the end, I suspect. Hitched his wagon to an old nag, and it died on him before he left the barn! :D

I think this is going to turn out to be a case of documentation gone crazy. During the months leading to the war everything was chaotic. Plus there's really no telling how much there was of what before that.

There may be some explosive lost, either taken by insurgents, destroyed without record, misplaced, recorded twice, etc. It's going to be a while before we know anything for sure.

LOL if in doubt blame the Russians.

Good attempt, but NO! Try again


Oct. 27, 2004 — Iraqi officials may be overstating the amount of explosives reported to have disappeared from a weapons depot, documents obtained by ABC News show.

The Iraqi interim government has told the United States and international weapons inspectors that 377 tons of conventional explosives are missing from the Al-Qaqaa installation, which was supposed to be under U.S. military control.

But International Atomic Energy Agency documents obtained by ABC News and first reported on "World News Tonight with Peter Jennings" indicate the amount of missing explosives may be substantially less than the Iraqis reported.

The information on which the Iraqi Science Ministry based an Oct. 10 memo in which it reported that 377 tons of RDX explosives were missing — presumably stolen due to a lack of security — was based on "declaration" from July 15, 2002. At that time, the Iraqis said there were 141 tons of RDX explosives at the facility.

But the confidential IAEA documents obtained by ABC News show that on Jan. 14, 2003, the agency's inspectors recorded that just over 3 tons of RDX was stored at the facility — a considerable discrepancy from what the Iraqis reported.

The IAEA documents could mean that 138 tons of explosives were removed from the facility long before the start of the United States launched "Operation Iraqi Freedom" in March 2003.

http://www.abcnews.go.com/WNT/story?id=204304&page=1


For starters, the story was never a claim about 377 Tons of RDX - it was always a total of the stored RDX AND HMX, of which the HMX totalled over 200 tons.


Oh, and as to the "138 Tons" removed...

From AP (http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=540&e=5&u=/ap/20041028/ap_on_re_mi_ea/iraq_weapons_iaea)
ABC News, citing IAEA inspection documents, reported Wednesday night that the Iraqis had declared 141 tons of RDX explosives at Al-Qaqaa in July 2002, but that the site held only three tons when it was checked in January 2003.


The network said that could suggest that 138 tons were removed from the facility long before the U.S.-led invasion in March 2003.


But (IAEA spokesperson Melissa)Fleming said most of the RDX — about 125 tons — was kept at Al-Mahaweel, a storage site under Al-Qaqaa's jurisdiction located outside the main Al-Qaqaa site. She also said about 10 tons already had been reported by Iraq as having been used for non-prohibited purposes between July 2002 and January 2003.




So... the other 125 tonnes was in the building next door.... again also a KNOWN location fully documented to the UN and the US military. Again a building not checked or secured until months later.


So, your point becomes rather moot I think.

Right, so possibly 3 tons of explosives dissapered before the U.S. liberated Iraq. Still not Bush's fault.

more lies from the NYTimes scheduled for maximum electoral impact.

http://www.nypost.com/postopinion/opedcolumnists/32832.htm

irrefutable logic, unless your nation name ends in -stan.


;)

more lies from the NYTimes scheduled for maximum electoral impact.

http://www.nypost.com/postopinion/opedcolumnists/32832.htm

irrefutable logic, unless your nation name ends in -stan.


;)
Geez. That article has a few mistakes. The first one being that it was the IAEA the one that filtered this information to journalists. That's simply not true, although the IAEA doesn't deny it's report, it has been US journalists the ones responsible for the use it's been given. Second, the IAEA says that the seals were put in January 2003, not March 2003. They had to leave before any attack and since they knew they would lose all control of the sites they were in, the correct procedure to follow was to safeguard the records and put seals in appropriate places to make it easier to know if anything had been touched or removed. That's exactly what they did.

The initial journalistic report said that the explosives had gone missing. Initially it was believed that this had happened after the US had taken control of the site. Later research and declarations by the US Army have shown that the explosives went missing sometime after the pull out of the IAEA and the arrival of US forces. Not surprising, given the chaotic nature of those months.

The explosives could simply have been taken by the Iraqi Army in preparation of the invasion (the seals didn't impede that, and what was going to happen if they removed them? An invasion?) and been used for bombs, ammo, blow bridges or whatever else explosives are used for in a war. Or they could have been taken to one of the other facilities where the US has discovered tons and tons of explosives.

Frankly, I think too much is being done of a non-issue by both sides.

Conventional explosives are not weapons of mass destruction. And the word of John A. Straw is not proof of anything, there is no way to completely destroy the evidence of something like that, if it happened it would have been proven by now.

Do Russia have a motive here, or are they just collaborating with Saddam Hussein because they're commie bad guys?

Do Russia have a motive here, or are they just collaborating with Saddam Hussein because they're commie bad guys?

CNN just reported that Rumsfeld is quoted as saying the claim isn't true, they have no evidence or reason to believe Russians did any thing and pointed out that Shaw does not speak for the American government. So the Russian claim seems to have been dismissed by Rumsfeld himself.. Next!

more lies from the NYTimes scheduled for maximum electoral impact.

http://www.nypost.com/postopinion/opedcolumnists/32832.htm

irrefutable logic, unless your nation name ends in -stan.


;)

This is irrefuteable logic? Let's read that opinion piece shall we....



A devious IAEA report suggests that 400 tons of explosives were spirited away by our enemies under the noses of our Keystone-Cops troops after the fall of Baghdad. The document just happened to be released in the closing days of our presidential election. Purely a coincidence, of course. Brought to you by those selfless U.N. bureaucrats who failed in Iraq and are now failing in Iran.

Since Kerry's willing to blame our troops for a scandal invented by America-haters, let's look at the story the military way, by the numbers.


The IAEA reporting is devious? How about the fact that the US has refused them access to Iraq to complete their inspections, and it was their interpretation of the finally released reports of the post-invasion US weapons searches, and information recieved from the Interim Government that informed them of the theft.

You see, unlike the Bush Administration they wait for solid information before making declarations about Iraqi weapons....

One: The IAEA claims its inspectors visited the ammo dump at Al-Qaqaa on March 9, 2003, and found the agency's seals intact on bunkers containing sensitive munitions. Unverifiable, but let's assume that much is true.

The inspection schedule's of all of the inspectors were well known to all members of the UN security council prior to the war given the way that the US was pushing for them to find things. The US also had their own observers of this process at the time. Nobody in official Washington has disputed this timeline, so trying to insinuate that it might be false is pretty bogus.

Two: Faced with an impending invasion, Saddam's forces did what any military would do. They began dispersing ammunition stocks from every storage site that might be a Coalition bombing target. If the Iraqis valued it, they tried to move it. Before the war.


Nice supposition presented as fact. Too bad, the people running the place disagree (http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/afp/20041027/wl_mideast_afp/iraq_us_explosives_041027134758)

"It is impossible that these materials could have been taken from this site before the regime's fall," said Mohammed al-Sharaa, who heads the science ministry's site monitoring department and previously worked with UN weapons inspectors under Saddam.

"The officials that were inside this facility (Al-Qaqaa) beforehand confirm that not even a shred of paper left it before the fall and I spoke to them about it and they even issued certified statements to this effect which the US-led coalition was aware of."

Sharaa also warned that other nearby sites with similar materials could have also been plundered.

"The Al-Milad Company in Iskandariyah and the Yarmouk and Hateen facilities contained explosive materials that could have also been taken out," the official told AFP in an interview.




Three: Members of our 3rd Infantry Division — the heroes who led the march to Baghdad — reached the site in question in early April. Despite the pressures of combat, they combed the dump. Nothing was found. Al-Qaqaa was a vast junkyard.

Four: Our 101st Airborne Division assumed responsibility for the sector as the 3ID closed on Baghdad. None of the Screaming Eagles found any IAEA markers — even one would have been a red flag to be reported immediately.


Nobody is denigrating the soldiers here. They did the job asked of them. The problem is that they were not told to search this facility for those items:

As has been noted: (http://www.phillyburbs.com/pb-dyn/news/93-10272004-390036.html)
One of the first U.S. military units to reach the Al-Qaqaa military installation south of Baghdad after the invasion of Iraq did not have orders to search for the nearly 400 tons of explosives that are missing from the site, the unit spokesman said Tuesday.

When troops from the 101st Airborne Division's 2nd Brigade arrived at the Al-Qaqaa base a day or so after other coalition troops seized Baghdad on April 9, 2003, there were already looters throughout the facility, Lt. Col. Fred Wellman, deputy public affairs officer for the unit, told The Associated Press.

The soldiers "secured the area they were in and looked in a limited amount of bunkers to ensure chemical weapons were not present in their area," Wellman wrote in an e-mail message to The Associated Press. "Bombs were found but not chemical weapons in that immediate area.

"Orders were not given from higher to search or to secure the facility or to search for HE type munitions, as they (high-explosive weapons) were everywhere in Iraq," he wrote.

The 101st Airborne was apparently at least the second military unit to arrive at Al-Qaqaa after the U.S. led invasion began. Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman told The Washington Post that the 3rd Infantry Division reached the site around April 3, fought with Iraq forces and occupied the site. They left after two days, headed to Baghdad, he told the newspaper for Wednesday's editions.

Associated Press Correspondent Chris Tomlinson, who was embedded with the 3rd Infantry but didn't go to Al-Qaqaa, described the search of Iraqi military facilities south of Baghdad as brief, cursory missions to seek out hostile troops, not to inventory or secure weapons stockpiles. One task force, he said, searched four Iraqi military bases in a single day, meeting no resistance and finding only abandoned buildings, some containing weapons and ammunition.



Five: At the end of May, military teams searching for key Iraqi weapons scoured Al-Qaqaa. They found plenty of odds and ends — the detritus of war — but no IAEA seals. And no major stockpiles.


So, that narrows the theft as likely occuring between April and May. Because the embed with the 101st PHOTOGRAPHED THE BUNKERS WITH THE SEALS!

Six: Now, just before Election Day, the IAEA, a discredited organization embarrassed by the Bush administration's decision to call it on the carpet, suddenly realizes that 400 tons of phantom explosives went missing from the dump.


The IAEA has never been discredited. Ever. It's not it's fault it was not permitted to verify the stuff, or that they had to wait for the warning from the Iraqi Interim Government about the threat.

Seven: Even if repeated inspections by U.S. troops had somehow missed this deadly elephant on the front porch, and even if the otherwise-incompetent Iraqis had been so skilled and organized they were able to sneak into Al-Qaqaa and load up 400 tons of Saddam's love-powder, it would have taken a Teamsters' convention to get the job done.


A dozen pickup trucks over a couple of months can move a LOT of stuff.


Eight: If the Iraqis had used military transport vehicles of five-ton capacity, it would have required 80 trucks for one big lift, or, say, 20 trucks each making four trips. They would have needed special trolleys, forklifts, handling experts and skilled drivers (explosives aren't groceries). This operation could not have happened either during or after the war, while the Al-Qaqaa area was flooded with U.S. troops.


Who says they used military trucks? Also, RDX and HMX are VERY stable, and need no special handling to load up the crates. You can base this on the fact that the little bomb inside the radio that took down the Pan Am flight passed through regular baggage handling....

Indeed, it is so stable it won't detonate under normal circumstances (http://www.websters-online-dictionary.org/definition/english/RD/RDX.html[/url)

It is a colourless solid, of density 1.82 g/cm³. It is obtained by reacting concentrated nitric acid on hexamine. It is a heterocycle and has the shape of a ring. It starts to decompose at about 170°C and melts at 204°C. Its structural formula is: hexahydro-1,3,5-trinitro-1,3,5-triazine or (CH2-N-NO2)3

At room temperatures, it is a very stable product. It burns rather than explodes, and only detonates with a detonator, being unaffected even by small arms fire. It is less sensitive than pentaerytritol tetranitrate (PETN). However, it is very sensitive when crystalized, below -4°C.


Somehow, I don't think they had to worry about it freezing... in the desert! And if you can SHOOT it without exploding it - I don't think tossing the crates into a truck requires much "special handling"



Nine: We owned the skies. And when you own the skies, you own the roads. We were watching for any sign of organized movement. A gaggle of non-Coalition vehicles driving in and out of an ammo dump would have attracted the attention of our surveillance systems immediately.


REally? you own the roads? That's why most attacks have been on convoys on the open road? Indeed, it is STILL so dangerous that recently troops refused to drive along the highway because their equipment was not well enough armoured? Clearly these convoys are in no danger at all on the highway what with your owning them and all....

Ten: And you don't just drive high explosives cross-country, unless you want to hear a very loud bang. Besides, the Iraqis would have needed to hide those 400 tons of explosives somewhere else. Unless the uploaded trucks are still driving around Iraq.


The stability of these explosives already noted. It would be helpfull if this dork was writing about something they actually knew.....

Eleven: Even if the IAEA told the truth and the Iraqis were stealth-logistics geniuses who emptied the site's ammo bunkers under our noses, the entire issue misses a greater point: 400 tons of explosives amounted to a miniscule fraction of the stocks Saddam had built up. Coalition demolition experts spent months destroying more than 400,000 tons of Iraqi war-making materiel.

Our soldiers eliminated more than a thousand tons of packaged death for every ton the United Nations claims they missed. Does that sound like incompetence? Why hasn't our success been mentioned? Can't our troops get credit for anything?


Except that the whole number of "war materials" includes everything from weapons to hardware to small arms ammo.

These 400 tons are the most sophisticated explosives to be found in Iraq. So yes - they rate as more important that just another RPG round.

And again - stop trying to twist the complaint that the people RUNNING the war didn't tell the troops to find and guard or destroy this stuff with a slight on the troops. Nobody expected them to do other than what they were ordered to do. The problem was that the orders didn't go out when it would have mattered.


12: The bottom line is that, if the explosives were ever there, the Iraqis moved them before our troops arrived. There is no other plausible scenario.


Yes - there is another plausible scenario. That they were pilfered during the period when that location was left alone while the troops bypassed and continued the push north, consolidated the hold on the major cities and oilfields, and before the place was propery searched and guarded.

The fact that the seals were photographed still in place in April tends to bear that out.




Irrefuteable?

Hell - it's not even CLOSE to the truth.....

Nice try though Eli.


Sign me "A nation that ends in -stan who follows issues well enough to recognize bullshit when they read it"

Thank you, Zepp.

Thank you, Zepp.

He's my husband in real life.. he always makes me so proud :)

Way to pwn Eli! Zeppy baby :) :fluffle:

The Bush goons were way to quick to denounce Kerry. This makes their situation even worse. The local news station's video is pretty damning.

Lol. It is isnt it?

If I may say so Munkebrain.
Owned!

Lol. It is isnt it?

If I may say so Munkebrain.
Owned!
Its a bad idea to put all your rice in that pot.


Trite.

I dont think so. As they said, the evidence is pretty damning. Is it so hard to admit that post war plannig was slack? They used too much force and not enough diplomacy.

CNN just reported that Rumsfeld is quoted as saying the claim isn't true, they have no evidence or reason to believe Russians did any thing and pointed out that Shaw does not speak for the American government. So the Russian claim seems to have been dismissed by Rumsfeld himself.. Next!

But but but...Michael Savage said it was true!

Is the original article not loading for anyone else? I mean, I heard all about this on Savage today, and discounted it as his usual crap (as I recall, it's based on unreleased documents - how convenient), but I wouldn't mind reading it anyway.

Seriously zep, you have no clue what went on there, unless of course you were there. Are you one of those soldiers? Are you on the IAEC?

"A dozen pickup trucks over a couple of months can move a LOT of stuff."

Do you even know how stupid you sound when you use that phrase? Since you are such a high explosives' expert, would you clue me in on why you would want to load RMX and HMX (maybe even a little RUN-DMC haha) on unstable platforms such as pickup trucks? Sure it's a somewhat safe powder, but still you must use extreme care (you know dust and all that exploding). Sorry little buddy, but if you wanted to do that I'd walk rather then ride with you. Maybe you have little nubs where your fingers once were, due to a tragic firecracker incident.

Haven't you seen the video yet?
Experts say the universal markers are clear. (that the barrels contained HMX)
Barrels were found in locked bunker.
IAEA had sealed the bunkers and the seals were unbroken when soldier (American btw) arrived.
IAEA only sealed bunkers which had HMX in them.
It's unclear how much of it was there.
It's clear that the soldiers left the place unguarded (as they were told to)

Yeah. I have pointed that out in the other thread that has sprung up on this topic.

An interesting theory.
"It wasn't our incompetence, it was those Russki Commies!!! Or aliens! Or Elvis! Or an International Zionist Conspiracy! (aide whispers something about lobbyists) OK, maybe not that last one."

All this, despite the fact that Putin is one of the great supporters of Yankee foreign policy right now...

Yeah, either that guy is going to be in deep s--- for being off-message by a whole decade, or Putin should now consider his options.

I suggest vetoing anything the US says in the Security Council about the Iranian nuclear programme as a response with a sufficintly strong educational message.

1) The article no longer works

2) Perhaps you should look at a more recent article from the Washington Kampf in which the Russians, despite Putin's recent endorsement of Bush, have denied specifically this crap:

"I can state officially that the Russian Defense Ministry and its structural divisions could not have been involved in the disappearance of the explosives, because Russian servicemen were not in Iraq long before the beginning of the American-British operation in that country," Defense Ministry spokesman Col. Vyacheslav Sedov told Interfax news agency.

More to the point, asked about foreign intelligence reports of Russian troops moving Iraq's weapons to Syria, Mr. McClellan said, "I have no information that points in that direction."

National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice said in a interview on the Laura Ingraham radio show that she also was not aware of the information about Russian troops relocating Saddam's weapons to Syria, Lebanon and possibly Iran.

http://www.washingtontimes.com/national/20041028-115519-3700r.htm

Now, the document from which this all came is actually regarding a photo showing 2 trucks prior to the US-led invasion (March 17th), but the photo shows exactly that - 2 trucks. Unfortunately it fails to recognize that not only could this be a complete coincidence (or perhaps at best: a small number of explosives were removed by someone), and it completely ignores the footage of IAEA stickers on the explosives' containers and seals on the door at the Al Aquaa facility taken after the invasion.

The fact that the Bush admin hasn't moved quickly to endorse so convenient a rebuttal to so damning a claim this close to an election really says alot: they probably don't believe what Shaw is saying.

Yeah, I love how the administration spent all day yesterday declassifying satellite pictures only to have those imbedded reporters who cheered them on during the invasion come back and bite them in the ass.

So this story has legs, and yesterday the Bush campaign admitted that they'd faked a picture for a campaign ad. Are the wheels coming off all at once?

Very typical: Prof of missmanaging in Iraq (like in this case or some there else) and the pro-bush media and bush supporters try evry they the can to blur the discussion so atleast it will be a draw if the president did some wrong or not. Then the simple fact that this a sign that is not just iraq historial monuments that got lost and destroyed after and during the american invasion (to some americans: yes Iraq have a long history over 3000 years old and yes a lot of the memoribilies it got destroyed or lost even if the americans got specific notes that to protect and there it was, read about it on BBC.com or somewhere) but also explosives. IAEA is not specific intersted in explosives but there are intrested in HMX because it is a good coponent in nuclear weapons it was the reason they sealed of the buncer. So they now have proof that some of it is gone and also it was gone after the american invasion. So it could atleast be a intersting start for the media to investigate how the military is controlling explosives and weapons captured in Iraq. But why not blur the water and accuse the media who want to report about it liberal and also blame russia (the american public can be tired with all the mention of france lets find a new country to blame)

Seriously zep, you have no clue what went on there, unless of course you were there. Are you one of those soldiers? Are you on the IAEC?

Zeppistan is my husband IRL.. take him on at your own risk..lol I can't say exactly without giving away who his mother is.. but lets just say Zeppistan certainly does have a strong UN connection. I think he might know a little more about what is going on then you do kid. ;)

does that mean that Zepp is one of the recepients of the bribes in the Oil for Food scandal that kept the UN from enforcing its resolutions because they were too busy getting rich?

probably not.

*waves hi to Steph* ;)

does that mean that Zepp is one of the recepients of the bribes in the Oil for Food scandal that kept the UN from enforcing its resolutions because they were too busy getting rich?

No one from the UN actually got rich from any thing. The only job the UN had in the "Oil For Food Program" was handing out the contracts. It was those companies that got those contracts that may have broken rules, not the UN it's self. Please do get your facts straight Eli. :)

JC, the old "Blame the Russians line". If Russia was to take those explosives, you'd have to go through Syria, Iran or Turkey in some form.

Iran? Iran was never Communist or aligned with Russia
Turkey? EU wannabes helping Russia move WMDs? Don't think so
Syria? Might be, but they'd get caught since the US is watching them.

Oh dear, the Russians didn't do it! :p

Zeppistan is my husband IRL.. take him on at your own risk..lol I can't say exactly without giving away who his mother is.. but lets just say Zeppistan certainly does have a strong UN connection. I think he might know a little more about what is going on then you do kid. ;)

Sorry but you lose! I was in the 3rd, so perhaps I have more knowledge then you or your hubby with his "strong" UN connection.

BTW was his mom in Iraq placing seals on bunkers?

What about this video?
http://kstp.com/article/stories/S3723.html?cat=1
Clearly shows the explosives after occupation.

The Russians are coming... The Russians are coming... The Russians are coming...

The Russians are coming... The Russians are coming... The Russians are coming...
Those were actually the last words of some US Army General as he leapt to his death from a window, back during the height of the early Cold War years.

What about this video?
http://kstp.com/article/stories/S3723.html?cat=1
Clearly shows the explosives after occupation.


It clearly doesn't say what kind of explosives.

you don't get it, do you? you have to learn to connect the dots, there guy. this is a snowjob, actually an incredibly weak and pathetic snowjob, just like all the incredibly weak and pathetic snowjobs that you've endured for the last three years. Check your nose, it's getting frostbitten.

Those were actually the last words of some US Army General as he leapt to his death from a window, back during the height of the early Cold War years.

I know the event, but I actually rememebred it from a movie title. Paranoia seems to have returned though.

It clearly doesn't say what kind of explosives.
but it shows the site, after we went in there, says al qaqaa or whatever on the fucking containers. WTF u want me to say?
I believe they were gone before the 101st and a US news crew went in there?

Actually, according to the footage aired today, there were IAEA seals and some of the explosive was positively identified as RDX. Former head inspector David Kay said on Newsnight with Aaron Brown that this was "Game, Set Match." Look up the transcript if you don't believe me.

Actually, according to the footage aired today, there were IAEA seals and some of the explosive was positively identified as RDX. Former head inspector David Kay said on Newsnight with Aaron Brown that this was "Game, Set Match." Look up the transcript if you don't believe me.

Ah, I probably should read the thread first, but I assume that this is all about the stupid al qaqaa thing with the explosives.

Well there is no proof whatsoever that they were there when the US army first arrived, so I would say the jury is still out.

Ah, I probably should read the thread first, but I assume that this is all about the stupid al qaqaa thing with the explosives.

Well there is no proof whatsoever that they were there when the US army first arrived, so I would say the jury is still out.
Then you would be wrong--look at the links others have provided and watch the video. The explosives were most definitely there when the US Army came through, and they aren't there now.

Interesting that the Russians would be able to get the explosives in the first place. While we were running around they came in and got the explosives. They obviously had better intel then we did. Shame.