Pentagon: Saddam Loyalists May Have Emptied Al Qaqaa
By Robert B. Bluey
CNSNews.com Staff Writer
October 27, 2004
cnsnews.com
(CNSNews.com) - As questions continued to circulate Wednesday about a cache of missing explosives in Iraq, the Pentagon outlined a timeline suggesting Saddam Hussein's loyalists might have taken the 380 tons of weapons before U.S. forces reached the Qaqaa site in April 2003.
The New York Times reported Monday the explosives had gone missing from al Qaqaa after U.S. forces seized Baghdad on April 9, 2003. In a letter earlier this month, Iraq's Ministry of Science and Technology claimed the explosives disappeared because of "the theft and looting of the governmental installations due to lack of security."
Monday's report in the Times suggested the explosives had vanished under the U.S. military's watch, calling the al Qaqaa site "a no man's land, still picked over by looters as recently as Sunday."
As a result of the Times' article, which was published with the help of CBS News, President Bush has faced a barrage of criticism from Democrat presidential nominee, Sen. John Kerry, whose campaign even released an ad citing the newspaper's report. It is running in states Bush plans to visit in the next six days.
But the allegations that Bush and the U.S. military were "incompetent" by allowing looters to pilfer the explosives from al Qaqaa might not fully represent the truth of what happened, Defense Department spokesman Lt. Col. Barry Venable told CNSNews.com Wednesday.
"Although some believe the al Qaqaa facility may have been looted, there is no way to verify this," Venable said. "Another explanation is that regime loyalists or others emptied the facility prior to coalition forces arriving in Baghdad in April."
The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), headed by Bush critic Mohammed El-Baradei, had inspectors visit al Qaqaa on March 9, 2003, at which time the agency's seals were still in place on bunkers holding the explosives.
But it wasn't until around April 3 that the Army's 3rd Infantry Division became the first U.S. military unit to reach al Qaqaa, according to the Pentagon. Al Qaqaa is located 30 miles from Baghdad. A week later, on April 10, the 101st Airborne Division arrived.
NBC Nightly News reported Monday that it had an embedded correspondent, Dana Lewis, who now works for Fox News, with the 101st Airborne Division while the soldiers were at al Qaqaa. No explosives were found at the time, although a thorough search wasn't conducted.
Despite the doubts cast on the Times' article, the newspaper has continued to stand by its reporting. A spokeswoman for the Times released a statement Tuesday dismissing suggestions that its report was inaccurate.
Critics of the newspaper's report have said there are too many unanswered questions and that placing the blame on Bush, as Kerry has done, might not be correct.
Andrew C. McCarthy, a senior fellow at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, wrote in a National Review article Wednesday that there are many scenarios to consider before blaming anyone for the explosives' disappearance.
Even though the IAEA confirmed it had inspectors at al Qaqaa on March 9, McCarthy speculated that Saddam might have tricked the agency. The IAEA didn't break the seals on the bunkers, McCarthy wrote, so there is no way of knowing if the explosives were removed and seals replaced.
McCarthy wrote that it's unlikely that al Qaqaa would have been looted given the amount of explosives taken - 380 tons - and the difficulty of transporting them. The Times reported it would have taken 40 trucks, each carrying a load of 10 tons, to move the explosives.
"To the contrary though, a regime such as Saddam's, awash as it was in weaponry, had the time, the expertise, the opportunity and the means to move the explosives while preparing - as we know it was preparing - for the U.S. attack," McCarthy wrote. "We also know, moreover, that there was a flurry of transport activity immediately preceding the invasion."
Venable, the Pentagon spokesman, said U.S. forces had discovered weapons in schools, mosques and hospitals, which were used by Saddam as hiding spots. He said the coalition has destroyed more than 240,000 tons of weapons, and another 162,000 tons are awaiting destruction.
"Some weapons were stored at the al Qaqaa complex," Venable said. "Coalition forces were present in the vicinity at various times during and after major combat operations. The forces searched 32 bunkers and 87 other buildings at the facility, but found no indicators of WMD. While some explosive material was discovered, none of it carried IAEA seals."
The missing explosives reportedly include caches of HMX (high melting point explosive), RDX (research department explosive) and PETN (pentaerythritol tetranitrate). They don't pose a nuclear proliferation risk, but HMX could be used to set off nuclear bombs. |
