380 tons stolen *BEFORE* troops arrived

[Dedpuhl]

Originally posted by: Pliablemoose
How many semi trucks would it take to move that much explosives, considering that they're moving explosives over rough roads?

How many pickups would it take to move 380 tons?

How many men/machines to load?

Where would you hide 380 tons of explosives?

WTF was the UN doing allowing Saddam to keep these horrible, horrible WMD? I thought the sanctions/inspections were working...


conjur & dave

shh...you can't say that!

 

[heartsurgeon]

as a conservative, i fully expect the liberal media, spearheaded by NYT's and CBS, to try and pull an "October Surprise" out of thin air.

Deceptive, misleading and flat out false stories will be published , probably daily from now on, in an effort to discredit Bush and curry votes for Kerry.

This effort to portray Bush as an incompetent military leader is just the evolution of the Kerry position on Iraq. He has flip-flopped so many times.....his evolutionary stand on the Iraq War now is that he will be a better "General" than Bush, and that Bush is incompetent (he has redefined the "debate" about Iraq ..he avoids taking about the votes he made, and he avoids the issue of the moral correctness about removing Saddam, and avoids criticising the war itself, rather he criticises Bush leadership...this is the only position he has not taken every concievable side on).

You can be assurred that NYT's coordinated the "story" of the missing explosives with the Kerry campaign, so that he couild highlite it at a rally.

How will the NYT's handle the revelation that the explosives were gone before the U.S. troops ever got to the ammo depot?

Will they admit the "story", that happened more than a year ago, and is being "reported" on days before the election, was tarted up and timed to hurt Bush. Will they admit the story was "spun".

Duh, of course not....

 

[chess9]

Well, the liberals will need about 10,000 false stories to catch up to W's whopper list.

-Robert

 

[The Aficionado]

Originally posted by: chess9
Well, the liberals will need about 10,000 false stories to catch up to W's whopper list.

-Robert

Yup - No matter how badly facts are distorted by lefties it's OK, because BOOSH LIED!!!!!!!111ONEONE

Typical.:roll:

The sad thing is that it's Bush. A person of reasonable intelligence shouldn't need to flat out lie to attack him.

 

[Pliablemoose]

It'll be fun to see if Kerry backs away from the story today.

CNN's running clips about Kerry's bleating & the NBC story side by side...

 

[bozack]

Originally posted by: chess9
Well, the liberals will need about 10,000 false stories to catch up to W's whopper list.

-Robert

yup typical response....and you guys say "we" are bad.

 

[phillyTIM]

Originally posted by: Luck JF
The liberals are despicable. They will stoop to any lie to try and take power.

Well if that isn't the pot calling the kettle black! You little neocon hypocrites!

 

[GoPackGo]

Originally posted by: Dedpuhl

Originally posted by: Pliablemoose
How many semi trucks would it take to move that much explosives, considering that they're moving explosives over rough roads?

How many pickups would it take to move 380 tons?

How many men/machines to load?

Where would you hide 380 tons of explosives?

WTF was the UN doing allowing Saddam to keep these horrible, horrible WMD? I thought the sanctions/inspections were working...


conjur & dave

shh...you can't say that!

What was saddam doing with that much high power explosives, I too thought inspections were working.

 

[classy]

So they did know about these stock piles then. Well why didn't they moved to secure these first. Yesterday, it was being spun by the right that Rice knew about them in OCT., but it is clear they knew about these explosives in April. If your intent was to disarm, you should have made sure you moved to protect those weapons first.

 

[Chadder007]

Originally posted by: NightCrawler
It deserves it's own thread due to the fact that so much BS was posted in the other thread that turns out to be so untrue.

I wonder if we will hear an apology or if the Media will gloss over it.

No apologies....Lockhart is even still going at it trying to blame Bush in some way, saying its a super duper blunder. LOL!

Typical bunch of NeoLibs:roll:

 

[The Aficionado]

Originally posted by: classy
If your intent was to disarm, you should have made sure you moved to protect those weapons first.

Right. Next time the troops will go in via teleporter. That way every site will be secured within a month of the invasion starting, and no monday morning quarterbacks will be pointing fingers for not accomplishing such a feat.

 

[LTC8K6]

Classy:

So they did know about these stock piles then. Well why didn't they moved to secure these first. Yesterday, it was being spun by the right that Rice knew about them in OCT., but it is clear they knew about these explosives in April. If your intent was to disarm, you should have made sure you moved to protect those weapons first.

It is clear that the U.S. military was there promptly. Since there were no IAEA sealed or marked stocks of HMX/RDX, there was nothing to report or know about.

Rice knew that Iraq had finally gotten around to making a report in Oct.

The UN knew the explosives had already begun to disappear by January of 03.

 

[classy]

Originally posted by: The Aficionado

Originally posted by: classy
If your intent was to disarm, you should have made sure you moved to protect those weapons first.

Right. Next time the troops will go in via teleporter. That way every site will be secured within a month of the invasion starting, and no monday morning quarterbacks will be pointing fingers for not accomplishing such a feat.

Its not monday morning quarterbacking. They knew about these weapons which were being destroyed and under control of inspectors before the invasion. So yes they should have planned to protect these known weapons. Once again the question of flaky planning arises. They have shown they are incompetant. This should have been common sense. Maybe if Bush would have showed up for guard duty he could learned a little more about war. We know Cheney doesn't know anything cause he took several deferments not to serve at all.

 

[classy]

Originally posted by: LTC8K6
Classy:

So they did know about these stock piles then. Well why didn't they moved to secure these first. Yesterday, it was being spun by the right that Rice knew about them in OCT., but it is clear they knew about these explosives in April. If your intent was to disarm, you should have made sure you moved to protect those weapons first.

It is clear that the U.S. military was there promptly. Since there were no IAEA sealed or marked stocks of HMX/RDX, there was nothing to report or know about.

Rice knew that Iraq had finally gotten around to making a report in Oct.

The UN knew the explosives had already begun to disappear by January of 03.

There is nothing in any report that suggests these weapons were disappearing in Jan. You just made that up. If your planning for war to disarm, why would you not plan first to protect what you know already exists? Let me answer, they had no plan. Period. This is a clear indication they didn't have a plan. And oh by the way, the Washingtonpost reported that the cost of the war is about to go over $225 billion. This is so sad.

 

[Gusty987]

Those weapons, regardless of when they were moved, are still NOT in U.S. possesion and could very well be in the hands of the insurgents/bad guys. I think that is the point, and that is what John Kerry was bashing Bush about.

 

[Pliablemoose]

Originally posted by: classy
So they did know about these stock piles then. Well why didn't they moved to secure these first. Yesterday, it was being spun by the right that Rice knew about them in OCT., but it is clear they knew about these explosives in April. If your intent was to disarm, you should have made sure you moved to protect those weapons first.

So there were WMD?

So we should have attacked sooner?

I don't think this was Rove's work, Kerry did this to himself.

The media is figuring out how to break it down into sound bytes otherwise even they can't talk about it.

It's so much easier to SHOUT 380 TONS OF EXPLOSIVES, BUSH'S FAULT...

I wonder if we're talking about English or Metric tons?

Also, in reference to my earlier post, it would take ~506 compact pickup loads if they're using the pickups I see on the news, don't recall seeing a full size pickup yet.

 

[classy]

Originally posted by: Pliablemoose

Originally posted by: classy
So they did know about these stock piles then. Well why didn't they moved to secure these first. Yesterday, it was being spun by the right that Rice knew about them in OCT., but it is clear they knew about these explosives in April. If your intent was to disarm, you should have made sure you moved to protect those weapons first.

So there were WMD?

So we should have attacked sooner?

I don't think this was Rove's work, Kerry did this to himself.

The media is figuring out how to break it down into sound bytes otherwise even they can't talk about it.

It's so much easier to SHOUT 380 TONS OF EXPLOSIVES, BUSH'S FAULT...

I wonder if we're talking about English or Metric tons?

Also, in reference to my earlier post, it would take ~506 compact pickup loads if they're using the pickups I see on the news, don't recall seeing a full size pickup yet.

Those were WMDs dummy. They were explosives that were being destroyed after Saddam agreed to disarm after the first Gulf war. These weapons were under UN control and being tagged. You would think that it would be COMMON SENSE that if your going to invade to disarm, make sure you have a plan to isolate known weapons like these. But I think we can see Bush is common, with no sense attached.

 

[chowderhead]

first, drudge is quoting NBC. I don't see anything on NBC only the MSNBC report which confirms the NYTimes story. Drudge is already downplaying this already gone angle as is CNN which took Drudge's bait but has now removed their "gone" story.
The embed reporter went to the site on 04/010/03. Did they search the massive compex?
What about all the stories Marines reportedly find cyanide, mustard agents in Euphrates in 04/04/2003 - 6 days before the reporter arrived at the scene. They had already found the explosives.

They did not in fact find chemical weapons. They found thousands and thousands of boxes of conventional explosives.

Earlier, advancing U.S. troops found thousands of boxes of suspicious white powder, nerve agent antidote and Arabic documents on how to engage in chemical warfare at an industrial complex south of Baghdad. But a senior U.S. official familiar with initial testing said the materials were believed to be explosives.


A senior U.S. official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the material was under further study. The site is enormous and U.S. troops are still investigating it for potential weapons of mass destruction, the official said.

"Initial reports are that the material is probably just explosives, but we're still going through the place," the official said.

The facility had been identified by the International Atomic Energy Agency as a suspected chemical, biological and nuclear weapons site. U.N. inspectors visited the plant at least a dozen times, including as recently as Feb. 18.

The facility is part of a larger complex known as the Latifiyah Explosives and Ammunition Plant al Qa Qaa. During the 1991 Gulf War, U.S. jets bombed the plant

HMX, etc are ofter in powder form.

Look, the US military found a lot of stuff as they swept through the facilities and promptly left and didnt' secure it. This is the fault of the higher military command and poor post-invasion planning.

 

[Corn]

Originally posted by: The Aficionado

Originally posted by: classy
If your intent was to disarm, you should have made sure you moved to protect those weapons first.

Right. Next time the troops will go in via teleporter. That way every site will be secured within a month of the invasion starting, and no monday morning quarterbacks will be pointing fingers for not accomplishing such a feat.

That is just classic. LOL

 

[LTC8K6]

Classy, I am going to overlook the fact that you have called me a liar. Read the report yourself and you'll see that Iraq was already breaking IAEA seals and using and moving the HMX before Jan 03. This report makes no mention of anything but HMX, btw.

Report

If they didn't have a plan, how did they reach the complex so fast? They must have had it on a list of places to secure, and they did so as soon as possible.

As I said before, this story is a dud now that the doubts about are public.

 

[BBond]

Here is a quote from the CNN report:

"In a letter to the IAEA dated October 10, Iraq's director of planning, Mohammed Abbas, said the material disappeared sometime after Saddam's regime fell in April 2003, which he attributed to "the theft and looting of the governmental installations due to lack of security."

Baghdad fell on April 9, 2003. According to NBC, troops from the 101st Airborne arrived the next day to find that the material was already gone.

Prior to the Iraq war, the high-grade explosives at Al Qaqaa had been under the control of IAEA inspectors because the material could be used as a component in a nuclear weapon, IAEA spokeswoman Melissa Fleming said. IAEA and other U.N. inspectors left the country in March 2003 before the fighting began on March 19."

The explosives in question were under the control of the IAEA prior to Bush's invasion of Iraq. The IAEA was forced to leave Iraq by Bush. The explosives were left unguarded and uncontrolled. The Bush administration, in direct contradiction of the Pentagon military did NOT send in enough troops to secure Iraq after the invasion as witnessed by the wide spread looting which occurred across Iraq after the invasion.

The Bush administraiton was fully aware of the weapons stockpiles.

The Bush adminstration invaded Iraq knowing they did not have the troop strength to secure KNOWN weapons stockpiles.

The Bush administration is responsible for the looting of those stockpiles.

How the right wing can now claim that Bush isn't responsible is simply beyond me. The stockpiles were looted weeks after the invasion. Keep pointing that out people. I love to watch you shoot yourselves in the foot.

If Bush had listened to the IAEA inspectors or the advice of his own Joint Chiefs instead of the fairy tale that criminal Chalabi and Dr. Strangelove Rumsfeld told him these stockpiles wouldn't have been looted and the explosives wouldn't be used to blow up our troops today. It's bad enough these high density explosives, which were looted directly due to the incompetence of the Bush administration, are being used in Iraq, but when they start showing up here in America maybe you people will finally wake up to the facts.

How the hell can you try to excuse the Bush administration's incompetence now by arguing whether the stockpiles were stolen on April 10, 2003 or April 23, 2003???

These stockpiles were secured before Bush rushed into his baseless invasion of Iraq. They were looted as a direct result of the failure of the Bush administration to plan for the aftermath of the invasion. But you people are satisfied to live in the fantasy land Bush spins for you. Consider the facts for once.

You people are truly pathetic.

 

[LTC8K6]

Chowderhead, just how many of Iraq's 100's, probably 1,000's, of large explosives and munitions caches should we have secured?

 

[CaptnKirk]

P-Moose:

I'll try to give you reasonable answers -

1) WMD - No, none have been found, these were conventional explosive materials, not weapons.
Exhibit A, HMX - High Melting point Explosive
Comprised of RDX mised with TNT to provide end product known as HMX.
Exhibit B, RDX - Rapid Detonation Explosive
Multiple combound mises available, use specific.
Compound A
Compound B(another HMX mix)
Compound C (Generic C-4 type plastic explosive)

C-4 Plastic Explosive 90% - 92 % RDX material.

2) No need to attack, that was a paranoid over reaction.

3) Media put out the info, both parties blithered acordingly.

4) More Media hype.

5) And more hype.

6) English tonnage 1s 377, Metric Tonnage is 340, both terms have been presented.

7) Iraqi vehicle of choice is Toyota.

 

[imported_Condor]

Originally posted by: shadowninja
http://forums.anandtech.com/me...4897&enterthread=y

Somebody already posted this in the other thread about the missing explosives.

That posting was highly biased and inaccurate. This is a posting of new facts and, therefore, stands on it's own.

 

[imported_Condor]

Originally posted by: jtusa4
No, this post is just "neocons grasping at straws"....:roll:

It is time we started using another term that I just heard on a talk radio program. If I am a "Neocon", and I don't dispute that, you must be a "Neocom"! I'm going to use the Neocom term at every opportunity for anyone the least bit liberal.