If you thought we had a plan before we went into Iraq, think again..:-(
Posted : October 24, 2004 at 8:48 pm [America/Los_Angeles]
A 1996 photograph of a bunker where high-density explosives were stored
at Al Qaqaa, an Iraqi military facility south of Baghdad.
Huge Cache of Explosives Vanished From Site in Iraq
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.
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So, let me get this straight. We invaded the country worrying about the presence of WMDs and that it could be passed onto terrorists. If I were to go along with that argument for a second, what would be the logical think to look for and secure first after US successfully toppled Saddam regime. If you answered places like Al Qaqaa (as shown above), I guess you would be a minority in the current Administration.
Apparently, Oil fields! were more important and apparently still is.
Ugh..
Update (10/25/2004 09:37 AM PDT):
CNN just reported the White House commented that it was following protocol in not making the public aware of the 380 tons of explosive…
What protocol?
- Anand
Category: United (or not) State of American Politics 2004