TRACKING THE WEAPONS
Huge Cache of Explosives Vanished From Site in Iraq
By JAMES GLANZ, WILLIAM J. BROAD and DAVID E. SANGER

Published: October 25, 2004

This article was reported and written by James Glanz, William J. Broad and David E. Sanger.

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, make 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 sometime after the American-led 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 Sunday 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 produce bombs strong enough to shatter airplanes or tear apart buildings.

fantomas:
HOW IS THIS POSSIBLE???

Adam:
Remember the comedy skit Bush, Cheney, and Rumsfeld created for the White House Correspondents' Dinner last year, the one where the three of them wander around the Oval Office looking for weapons of mass destruction (Bush, looking behind the drapes: \"They're not back here...\") If this missing cache weren't so serious, we'd probably get a laugh riot from the Administration over it.

~Adam

aquaman:
Seriously, how many more fiascoes is the American public willing to suffer before they realize that Bush is out of his league here?

RazorbackTX:
Yes, I remember that, making jokes about no WMD's, now that's hilarious. I have wondered why there was no commercial made using that footage. My understanding is that one has been made and will start running this week.

Q Prior to the 10th, and the notification by the interim government, whose responsibility was it to keep track of these munitions, the IAEA or the multinational force in Iraq?

MR. McCLELLAN: Well, I think you need to look at the time. I think the Department of Defense can probably answer a lot of these questions for you. But that's why I pointed out what we did to -- literally, there were munitions caches spread throughout Iraq at the end of Operation Iraqi Freedom. That's why I pointed out the large volume of munitions that have already been destroyed and the large volume that are on-line to be destroyed. The sites now are the responsibility of the Iraqi government to secure.

Q But after Iraqi Freedom, there were those caches all around, wasn't the multinational force -- who was responsible for keeping track --

MR. McCLELLAN: At the end of Operation Iraqi Freedom there were a number of priorities. It was a priority to make sure that the oil fields were secure, so that there wasn't massive destruction of the oil fields, which we thought would occur. It was a priority to get the reconstruction office up and running. It was a priority to secure the various ministries, so that we could get those ministries working on their priorities, whether it was --

Q So it was the multinational force's responsibility --

MR. McCLELLAN: There were a number of -- well, the coalition forces, there were a number of priorities at the end of Operation Iraqi Freedom. And munitions, as I said, were literally spread throughout the country. And we have gone in and destroyed, as I pointed out, more than 243,000 tons --

Q But you're saying this is the responsibility of the Iraqi forces. But this was our responsibility until just recently, isn't that right? Weren't these -- there is some U.S. culpability, as far as --

MR. McCLELLAN: You're trying -- I think you're taking this out of context of what was going on. This was reported missing after -- when the interim government informed that these munitions went missing some time after April 9th of 2003, remember, that was when we were still involved in major military action at that point. And there were a number of important priorities at that point. There were munitions, munition caches spread throughout Iraq. There were -- there was a concern that there would be massive refugees fleeing the country. There is concern about the devastation that could occur to the oil fields. There was concern about starvation that could happen for the Iraqi people.

Q Are U.S. troops under any kind of higher alert because there's enough munitions for like 50 car bombs? Is there, like, any kind of alert going on for them? Are they on any kind of higher standard?

MR. McCLELLAN: I think you need to look at what we have done in terms of destroying munitions. As I point out, we've destroyed more than 243,000 munitions, we've secured another nearly 163,000 that will be destroyed.

Q This was an urgent matter, as far as U.S. government was concerned?

MR. McCLELLAN: It's something that's being looked into now. So I don't know how you can characterize it as not. I mean, it's something that the Pentagon, upon being informed about it, immediately directed the multinational forces and Iraq Survey Group to look into this matter, and that's what they're doing.

TomFord:


Q Are U.S. troops under any kind of higher alert because there's enough munitions for like 50 car bombs? Is there, like, any kind of alert going on for them? Are they on any kind of higher standard?

MR. McCLELLAN: I think you need to look at what we have done in terms of destroying munitions. As I point out, we've destroyed more than 243,000 munitions, we've secured another nearly 163,000 that will be destroyed.

fantomas:
HOW IS THIS POSSIBLE??? Yesterday, we learned that 49 Iraqi trainees were brazenly assassinated; an American official was killed; several more US troops were killed; there were bombings not only in the Sunni triangle but in the north and south of Iraq...and now this!

The article even claims Condoleezza Rice was informed about within the last month...has she broached this grave series of events in her barnstorming tour through the swing states? What exactly DOES she do for her job?

Just wondering, did Faux report on this or on the brazen assassination of the 49 Iraqi trainees yesterday, or the killing of the US official over there?


Tracking the weapons: Huge cache of explosives vanished from Iraq

MR. McCLELLAN: You're trying -- I think you're taking this out of context of what was going on. This was reported missing after -- when the interim government informed that these munitions went missing some time after April 9th of 2003, remember, that was when we were still involved in major military action at that point.

The remaining stockpile was no secret. Dr. Mohamed ElBaradei, the director general of the arms agency, frequently talked about it publicly as he investigated - in late 2002 and early 2003 - the Bush administration's claims that Iraq was secretly renewing its pursuit of nuclear arms. He ordered his weapons inspectors to conduct an inventory, and publicly reported their findings to the Security Council on Jan. 9, 2003.

During the following weeks, the I.A.E.A. repeatedly drew public attention to the explosives. In New York on Feb. 14, nine days after Secretary of State Colin L. Powell presented his arms case to the Security Council, Dr. ElBaradei reported that the agency had found no sign of new atom endeavors but \"has continued to investigate the relocation and consumption of the high explosive HMX.\"

A European diplomat reported that Jacques Baute, head of the arms agency's Iraq nuclear inspection team, warned officials at the United States mission in Vienna about the danger of the nuclear sites and materials once under I.A.E.A. supervision, including Al Qaqaa.

But apparently, little was done. A senior Bush administration official said that during the initial race to Baghdad, American forces \"went through the bunkers, but saw no materials bearing the I.A.E.A. seal.\" It is unclear whether troops ever returned.

By late 2003, diplomats said, arms agency experts had obtained commercial satellite photos of Al Qaqaa showing that two of roughly 10 bunkers that contained HMX appeared to have been leveled by titanic blasts, apparently during the war. They presumed some of the HMX had exploded, but that is unclear.

Other HMX bunkers were untouched. Some were damaged but not devastated. I.A.E.A. experts say they assume that just before the invasion the Iraqis followed their standard practice of moving crucial explosives out of buildings, so they would not be tempting targets. If so, the experts say, the Iraqi must have broken seals from the arms agency on bunker doors and moved most of the HMX to nearby fields, where it would have been lightly camouflaged - and ripe for looting.

But the Bush administration would not allow the agency back into the country to verify the status of the stockpile. In May 2004, Iraqi officials say in interviews, they warned L. Paul Bremer III, the American head of the occupation authority, that Al Qaqaa had probably been looted. It is unclear if that warning was passed anywhere. Efforts to reach Mr. Bremer by telephone were unsuccessful.

Dr. Omar said that after the American-led invasion, the sites containing the explosives were under the control of the Coalition Provisional Authority, an American-led entity that was the highest civilian authority in Iraq until it handed sovereignty of the country over to the interim government on June 28.

\"After the collapse of the regime, our liberation, everything was under the coalition forces, under their control,\" Dr. Omar said. \"So probably they can answer this question, what happened to the materials.\"

Ms. de Blazer:
One sentence that virtually leaped off the page when I read the article in the newspaper: it was not known whether the president had been informed.
Good lord.
I mean, isn't it rather important? Shouldn't even a very incurious president be informed of such a development, considering they could be used against US troops, embassy, etc.?
Or should we just have faith?

Denver Fan:
Mission Accomplished!

(CNN) -- The mystery surrounding the disappearance of 380 tons of powerful explosives from a storage depot in Iraq has taken a new twist, after a network embedded with the U.S. military during the invasion of Iraq reported that the material had already vanished by the time American troops arrived.

NBC News reported that on April 10, 2003, its crew was embedded with the U.S. Army's 101st Airborne Division when troops arrived at the Al Qaqaa storage facility south of Baghdad.

While the troops found large stockpiles of conventional explosives, they did not find HMX or RDX, the types of powerful explosives that reportedly went missing, according to NBC.

The International Atomic Energy Agency revealed Monday that it had been told two weeks ago by the Iraqi government that 380 tons of HMX and RDX disappeared from Al Qaqaa after Saddam Hussein's government fell.

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

Sent to me by a source in the government: “The Iraqi explosives story is a fraud. These weapons were not there when US troops went to this site in 2003. The IAEA and its head, the anti-American Mohammed El Baradei, leaked a false letter on this issue to the media to embarrass the Bush administration. The US is trying to deny El Baradei a second term and we have been on his case for missing the Libyan nuclear weapons program and for weakness on the Iranian nuclear weapons program.”

[The troops with NBC] visit wasn't the first time US troops went to the facility. That happened a week earlier, on April 4th, as was reported at the time. According to an AP account from the following day, the troops made spot visits to some of the buildings and found chemical warfare antidotes but no WMD.

The same report says they also found \"thousands of five-centimetre by 12-centimetre boxes, each containing three vials of white powder\" which were initially believed to be chemical agents but were later determined to be \"explosives.\"

...

I'm working on a final update for the evening on the al Qaqaa issue. But I notice that CNN has picked up the NBC news report that the explosives were already gone when the first US troops arrived.

NBC, they say, \"reports that the material had already vanished by the time American troops and an NBC crew arrived there on April 10, 2003.\"

You guys are awfully gullible. Did it strike you guys as odd that MSNBC doesn't even appear to have picked up this \"report\"?

Setting aside the matter of whether a detachment from the 101st Airborne and an NBC news crew would have been able to make that determination, they weren't the first US troops there.

The first American troops on the scene (from the 3rd Infantry Division) came a week earlier, on April 4th and they found lots of explosives -- though what kind is unclear from contemporary wire service reports -- in a series of spot checks of the 87 buildings and bunkers at the al Qaqaa complex.

Veritas:
Tom,

This story is, indeed, a fraud. It is no different than the CBS News Bill Birkett forged documents story. In fact, 60 Minutes was battling the NYT to see who could \"break\" this story first. It turns out that 60 Minutes's producer explained they decided not to air this story--scheduled for Sunday, October 31, just 36 hours before the election--because \"it wouldn't hold...it didn't have enough credibility.\"

And Kerry's now using this as talking points in his campaign appearances. How many more lies must we hear from this corrupt bunch of scumbags and their partners at the NYT?

TomFord:
It just seems a bit unbelievable to think that troops would be at the site, see \"stuff\" there, and walk away from it.

TomFord:
I'm not saying everyone is clean. I'm saying that it's not quite the huge \"they ignored this known site\" story. Yeah, someone screwed up, but that's for the military to find out. Clearly they at least knew the place existed, etc. The Times piece made it seem like the Europeans and everyone else warned the U.S., and that we did nothing. That's not what happened. We were there, we may have goofed, but it's not like we were totally asleep at the wheel.

fantomas:
But MIB, it ISN'T a fraud--the NBC crew wasn't the first one there! Moreover, the IRAQI GOVERNMENT, not the NY Times, first made the announcement. So now are you saying they're a fraud, because if so, doesn't that challenge directly the statements of your beloved W that Allawi is legit?

auNsoccer:
How is this possible? It's quite easy. Even with a million troops, America could not defend every American/Iraqi soldier. No matter how misguided the war in Iraq was to begin with, let's not put the blame for the deaths of the American soldier and 45+ Iraqis on anyone else but the murders who perpetrated these crimes.

auNsoccer:
Where [sic] is Tom Brokaw, Dan Rather, or any network news person going to Iraq and demanding answers from Al Zaqawahiri? Why do the news people stick a microphone in Tony's Blair's face and ask him what is he going to do about the woman recently kidnapped (forgot her name)? Why don't they go to Al Zaq and ask him why he would even think about murdering an innocent woman trying to help ordinary Iraqis find food and shelter?

White House officials reasserted yesterday that 380 tons of powerful explosives may have disappeared from a vast Iraqi military complex while Saddam Hussein controlled Iraq, saying a brigade of American soldiers did not find the explosives when they visited the complex on April 10, 2003, the day after Baghdad fell.

But the unit's commander said in an interview yesterday that his troops had not searched the site and had merely stopped there overnight.

The commander, Col. Joseph Anderson, of the Second Brigade of the Army's 101st Airborne Division, said he did not learn until this week that the site, Al Qaqaa, was considered sensitive, or that international inspectors had visited it before the war began in 2003 to inspect explosives that they had tagged during a decade of monitoring.

President Bush's aides told reporters that because the soldiers had found no trace of the missing explosives on April 10, they could have been removed before the invasion. They based their assertions on a report broadcast by NBC News on Monday night that showed video images of the 101st arriving at Al Qaqaa.

By yesterday afternoon Mr. Bush's aides had moderated their view, saying it was a \"mystery\" when the explosives disappeared and that Mr. Bush did not want to comment on the matter until the facts were known.

On Sunday, administration officials said that the Iraq Survey Group, the C.I.A. taskforce that hunted for unconventional weapons, had been ordered to look into the disappearance of the explosives. On Tuesday night, CBS News reported that Charles A. Duelfer, the head of the taskforce, denied receiving such an order.

The official suggested that the material could have vanished while Mr. Hussein was still in power, sometime between mid-March, when the international inspectors left, and April 3, when members of the Army's Third Infantry Division fought with Iraqis inside Al Qaqaa. At the time, it was reported that those soldiers found a white powder that was tentatively identified as explosives. The site was left unguarded, the official said.

The 101st Airborne Division arrived April 10 and left the next day. The next recorded visit by Americans came on May 27, when Task Force 75 inspected Al Qaqaa, but did not find the large quantities of explosives that had been seen in mid-March by the international inspectors. By then, Al Qaqaa had plainly been looted.

Colonel Anderson said he did not see any obvious signs of damage when he arrived on April 10, but that his focus was strictly on finding a secure place to collect his troops, who were driving and flying north from Karbala.

\"There was no sign of looting here,\" Colonel Anderson said. \"Looting was going on in Baghdad, and we were rushing on to Baghdad. We were marshaling in.\"

fantomas
... and the deaths of hundreds of thousands of innocent Iraqi citizens... [/QB]

auNsoccer:
One thing I don't hear from the papers and most TV commentators is any placing of responsiblity for these murders with the murderers. Where is Tom Brokaw, Dan Rather, or any network news person going to Iraq and demanding answers from Al Zaqawahiri? Why do the news people stick a microphone in Tony's Blair's face and ask him what is he going to do about the woman recently kidnapped (forgot her name)? Why don't they go to Al Zaq and ask him why he would even think about murdering an innocent woman trying to help ordinary Iraqis find food and shelter?
Maybe these reporters have questioned the terrorists in a similar manner to Bush and Blair-help me out here.

aquaman:
While I agree with much of your post, I don't recall seeing any statistic which shows \"hundreds of thousands\" of Iraqis have died since the beginning of the war. I think tens of thousands is perhaps more accurate. [/QB]

fantomas:
Aquaman, I agree with you that I overstated the deaths. But...!

Yahoo! News: Study: 100,000 Excess Civilian Iraqi Deaths Since War

On top of which, as others have noted:

Yahoo! News: Video shows explosives went missing after war [/QB]