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

To: Wharf Rat who wrote (63481)	10/28/2004 11:02:11 AM
From: Wharf Rat	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 89467

5 EYEWITNESS NEWS video may be linked to missing explosives in Iraq A 5 EYEWITNESS NEWS crew in Iraq shortly after the fall of Saddam Hussein was in the area where tons of explosives disappeared, and may have videotaped some of those weapons. The missing explosives are now an issue in the presidential debate. Democratic candidate John Kerry is accusing President Bush of not securing the site they allegedly disappeared from. President Bush says no one knows if the ammunition was taken before or after the fall of Baghdad on April 9, 2003 when coalition troops moved in to the area. Using GPS technology and talking with members of the 101st Airborne Division, 5 EYEWITNESS NEWS has determined the crew embedded with the troops may have been on the southern edge of the Al Qaqaa installation, where the ammunition disappeared. The news crew was based just south of Al Qaqaa, and drove two or three miles north of there with soldiers on April 18, 2003. During that trip, members of the 101st Airborne Division showed the 5 EYEWITNESS NEWS news crew bunker after bunker of material labelled "explosives." Usually it took just the snap of a bolt cutter to get into the bunkers and see the material identified by the 101st as detonation cords. "We can stick it in those and make some good bombs." a soldier told our crew. Soldiers who took a 5 EYEWITNESS NEWS crew into bunkers on April 18 said some of the boxes uncovered contained proximity fuses. There were what appeared to be fuses for bombs. They also found bags of material men from the 101st couldn't identify, but box after box was clearly marked "explosive." In one bunker, there were boxes marked with the name "Al Qaqaa", the munitions plant where tons of explosives allegedly went missing. Once the doors to the bunkers were opened, they weren't secured. They were left open when the 5 EYEWITNESS NEWS crew and the military went back to their base. "We weren't quite sure what were looking at, but we saw so much of it and it didn't appear that this was being secured in any way," said photojournalist Joe Caffrey. "It was several miles away from where military people were staying in their tents". Officers with the 101st Airborne told 5 EYEWITNESS NEWS that the bunkers were within the U.S. military perimeter and protected. But Caffrey and former 5 EYEWITNESS NEWS Reporter Dean Staley, who spent three months together in Iraq, said Iraqis were coming and going freely. "At one point there was a group of Iraqis driving around in a pick-up truck,"Staley said. "Three or four guys we kept an eye on, worried they might come near us." On Wednesday, 5 EYEWITNESS NEWS e-mailed still images of the footage taken at the site to experts in Washington to see if the items captured on tape are the same kind of high explosives that went missing in Al Qaqaa. Those experts could not make that determination. The footage is now in the hands of security experts to see if it is indeed the explosives in question. kstptv5.com

To: Wharf Rat who wrote (63481)	10/28/2004 12:06:37 PM
From: Ron	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 89467

IAEA Says It Warned U.S. About Explosives By WILLIAM J. KOLE, Associated Press Writer VIENNA, Austria - The U.N. nuclear agency said Thursday it warned the United States about the vulnerability of explosives stored at Iraq (news - web sites)'s Al-Qaqaa military installation after another facility — Iraq's main nuclear complex — was looted in April 2003. Melissa Fleming, a spokeswoman for the International Atomic Energy Agency, told The Associated Press that U.S. officials were cautioned directly about what was stored at Al-Qaqaa, the main high explosives facility in Iraq. Some 377 tons of high explosives are now missing from the facility, said by Iraqi officials to have been taken by looters. Questions have arisen about what the United States knew about Al-Qaqaa and what it did to secure the site. Fleming did not say which officials were notified or exactly when, but she said the IAEA — which had put storage bunkers at the site under seal just before the war — alerted the United States after the Tuwaitha nuclear complex was looted. "After we heard reports of looting at the Tuwaitha site in April 2003, the agency's chief Iraq inspectors alerted American officials that we were concerned about the security of the high explosives stored at Al-Qaqaa," she told the AP. "It is also important to note that this was the main high explosives storage facility in Iraq, and it was well-known through IAEA reports to the Security Council," Fleming said. ----------- Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz should be sent to Iraq post haste to look for those explosives, on foot. Oh let's be generous and let them take a couple of bomb-sniffing dogs......