Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Politics : Stockman Scott's Political Debate Porch -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: mistermj who wrote (62912)	10/26/2004 6:22:58 PM
From: redfish	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 89467

What part of "The explosives were safely under U.N. supervision until we decided to invade" do you not understand?

To: mistermj who wrote (62912)	10/26/2004 6:27:02 PM
From: sylvester80	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 89467

How could they have been missing if the IAEA says that nothing was missing up till the last second of being asked to leave Iraq for Bush's invasion? The only thing that's missing is the Bush administration's integrity. They never had any. BUNCH OF FREAKING CRIMINAL LIARS!

To: mistermj who wrote (62912)	10/26/2004 6:28:50 PM
From: sylvester80	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 89467

AP: U.N. Nuclear Agency Says Tons of Explosives Vanished From Former Iraqi Military Installation abcnews.go.com Oct 25, 2004 — THE REPORT: The International Atomic Energy Agency confirmed Monday that nearly 380 tons of conventional explosives has disappeared from a former Iraqi military installation. THE IMPACT: The IAEA had warned the U.S.-led coalition to secure the facility, fearing that the explosives could fall into the wrong hands. The materials, HMX and RDX, are key components of plastic explosives, which insurgents have used in a bloody series of car bomb attacks. THE REACTION: The Kerry campaign demanded that the Bush administration explain "what may be the most grave and catastrophic mistake in a tragic series of blunders in Iraq." The White House played down the significance of the missing weapons, saying they do not constitute a nuclear proliferation threat.

To: mistermj who wrote (62912)	10/26/2004 6:31:13 PM
From: sylvester80	Respond to of 89467

NEWS: Experts Worry About Missing Iraqi Arms Posted on Tue, Oct. 26, 2004 WILLIAM J. KOLE Associated Press miami.com VIENNA, Austria - Revelations that nearly 400 tons of conventional explosives have disappeared in Iraq have experts worrying that other weapons might also be in jeopardy of falling into insurgent or terrorist hands. Even the State Department concedes it can't provide "100 percent security for 100 percent of the sites." And by all accounts, Iraq is studded with weapons depots - many in places where U.S.-led forces are preoccupied by fierce fighting. Troubling questions about which other weapons could be vulnerable to looting have arisen since the U.N. nuclear agency's warning this week that 377 tons of non-nuclear explosives vanished from the former Al-Qaqaa military installation south of Baghdad. International Atomic Energy Agency spokeswoman Melissa Fleming said Tuesday that the Iraqis have not told the IAEA about any other missing materials since their Oct. 10 letter stating that the weapons vanished from Al-Qaqaa as a result of "theft and looting ... due to lack of security" sometime after coalition forces took control of the capital. But she said the agency's chief Iraq inspector, Jacques Baute, "would encourage more such reporting on what has happened to sites subject to IAEA verification." IAEA chief Mohamed ElBaradei reported the explosives' disappearance to the U.N. Security Council on Monday. The missing explosives have become a hot issue in the final week of the presidential campaign, with the White House stressing that the U.S.-led coalition has destroyed hundreds of thousands of munitions and the Kerry campaign calling the disappearance the latest in a "tragic series of blunders." "There was an utter lack of curiosity to follow up on what was well-known to the U.N.," said David Albright, a former U.N. weapons inspector. "There was a systematic failure of the military, which overran the country and left all these explosives behind without protecting its rear," he said. "The military should have had the sense to either secure high explosives and armaments or blow them up as they went through." The Al-Qaqaa explosives included HMX and RDX, key components in plastic explosives, which insurgents in Iraq have used in repeated bomb attacks on the U.S.-led multinational force. Among Iraq's known weapons depots is one near Khaldiya - about 50 miles west of the capital - where a suicide car bomber attacked a U.S. convoy Monday, destroying at least two Humvees. Others have been identified around Tikrit and near Karbala - places where U.S.-led forces have battled insurgents and been targeted by car bombs. Last week, a patrol from the 1st Infantry Division's 3rd Brigade discovered a weapons cache at a large depot near Salman Pak, south of Baghdad. The cache included 450 anti-tank mines, 300 grenades, 35 rocket-propelled grenades, as well as mortar shells and primers. The Pentagon said U.S.-led forces who searched the Al-Qaqaa facility after last year's invasion found some explosive material but that none of it carried IAEA seals. The nuclear agency's inspectors had sealed storage bunkers shortly before the war because HMX is a "dual use" explosive that also can be used as an ignitor on a nuclear bomb. "Our greatest concern from both a proliferation standpoint and from a standpoint of danger to human beings was Al-Qaqaa," the IAEA's Fleming said. Weapons experts are questioning why Al-Qaqaa - once a key facility in Saddam Hussein's effort to build a nuclear bomb - wasn't under 24-hour guard. The facility was considered "the pre-eminent site for high explosive stockpiles," a U.S. official said, speaking on condition of anonymity. The explosives missing from Al-Qaqaa could produce hundreds of thousands of bombs - more than enough to "fuel an insurgency literally for years," said Shannon Kyle, a senior researcher at the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute. Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman said coalition forces were present in the vicinity of the site both during and after major combat operations, which ended on May 1, 2003. He said they searched the facility but found none of the explosives in question. That raised the possibility the explosives disappeared before U.S. soldiers could secure the site in the immediate aftermath of the invasion. However, some reports suggest otherwise. 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. An NBC News reporter embedded with a U.S. Army unit that seized the Al-Qaqaa base the following day - April 10, 2003 - said Tuesday that she saw no signs that the Americans searched for the powerful explosives. Reporter Lai Ling Jew, who accompanied the Army's 101st Airborne, Second Brigade, said her news team stayed at the base for about 24 hours en route to the capital. "There wasn't a search," she told MSNBC, an NBC cable news channel. "The mission that the brigade had was to get to Baghdad. ... 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. The Pentagon would not say whether it had informed the IAEA at that point that the conventional explosives were not where they were supposed to be.