377 tons of high explosives gone
Scape @ Tue Oct 26, 2004 1:45 am
This was a bomb factory that the UN had sealed.
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Research & Development
* Created special unit at Al Qaqaa for the production of high explosive lenses, detonators and propellants for nuclear weapons
* Compiled large stocks of imported HMX and RDX and own operating RDX production plant
* Al Atheer designed to accommodate all technical activities related to nuclear weapon development, including experiments with high explosives for which an elaborate complex was designed and constructed
* Iraqs primary focus was a basic implosion fission design, fuelled by HEU
* Using open-source literature and theoretical studies, ran various computer codes through Iraqs mainframe computer to adapt the codes and develop the physical constants for a nuclear weapon development programme
* Was aware of more advanced weapon design concepts
* Invested significant efforts to understand the various options for neutron initiators
* Tested high explosivelenses
* Made significant progress in developing capabilities for the production, casting and machining of uranium metal
* Casted a uranium sphere of about five centimeter diameter, several hemispheres of similar size and a small number of rods weighing 1.2 kg per piece, from which to machine sub-calibre munitions
U.N. Nuclear Agency Confirms That Tons of Explosives Missing From Former Iraqi Base; Material Can Be Used in Atomic Bomb* Created special unit at Al Qaqaa for the production of high explosive lenses, detonators and propellants for nuclear weapons
* Compiled large stocks of imported HMX and RDX and own operating RDX production plant
* Al Atheer designed to accommodate all technical activities related to nuclear weapon development, including experiments with high explosives for which an elaborate complex was designed and constructed
* Iraqs primary focus was a basic implosion fission design, fuelled by HEU
* Using open-source literature and theoretical studies, ran various computer codes through Iraqs mainframe computer to adapt the codes and develop the physical constants for a nuclear weapon development programme
* Was aware of more advanced weapon design concepts
* Invested significant efforts to understand the various options for neutron initiators
* Tested high explosivelenses
* Made significant progress in developing capabilities for the production, casting and machining of uranium metal
* Casted a uranium sphere of about five centimeter diameter, several hemispheres of similar size and a small number of rods weighing 1.2 kg per piece, from which to machine sub-calibre munitions
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The letter from Abbas informed the IAEA that since Sept. 4, 2003, looting at the Al-Qaqaa installation south of Baghdad had resulted in the loss of 214.67 tons of HMX, 155.68 tons of RDX and 6.39 tons of PETN explosives.
Now RDX is very plyable and stable. Ideal for car bombs. HMX is extremely powerful, so much so it can be used in conjunction with fissionable material like uranium 235 to make a nuclear bomb. They have that. Now most of that will be in Iran now as they are paying top dollar for it, that is a mixed blessing as Usamas people won't get their hands on it (we hope). In any event this is a major fuck up. No amount of Kevlar or armored hummer will stop 5 pounds of HMX or RDX and now there is 760,000lbs of it out there and Bush was told BEFOREHAND IT WAS THERE AND IT WAS STILL NOT SECURED??? 
NO excuse! Troops were there April 5th and the looting only stopped last sunday!!!
Scape @ Tue Oct 26, 2004 3:36 am
Check your dates: April 4th not 10th.
READ
UN weapons inspectors went repeatedly to the vast al Qa Qaa complex, most recently on March 8. Now the entire area was blanketed with hi-res satellite recon and nobody saw anything. Troops were there on the 4th and the stuff that goes boom was still there.
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Col. John Peabody, engineer brigade commander of the 3rd Infantry Division, said troops found thousands of five-centimetre by 12-centimetre boxes, each containing three vials of white powder, together with documents written in Arabic that dealt with how to engage in chemical warfare.
Alt source
Clearly they have been caught White House's story is all over the map.
Scape @ Tue Oct 26, 2004 4:23 am
They had looters at the site at late as last Sunday Godz. At some point you gotta pull your head out of the sand. Bush has done more to arm the insurgents than Usama would have ever dreamed of, and this is only 1 site!
Making Things Worse
Published: October 26, 2004
President Bush's misbegotten invasion of Iraq appears to have achieved what Saddam Hussein did not: putting dangerous weapons in the hands of terrorists and creating an offshoot of Al Qaeda in Iraq.
The murder of dozens of Iraqi Army recruits over the weekend is being attributed to the forces of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, who has been identified by the Bush administration as a leading terrorist and a supposed link between Iraq and Al Qaeda. That was not true before the war - as multiple investigations have shown. But the breakdown of order since the invasion has changed all that. This terrorist, who has claimed many attacks on occupation forces and the barbaric murder of hostages, recently swore allegiance to Osama bin Laden and renamed his group Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia.
The hideous murder of the recruits was a reminder of the Bush administration's dangerously inflated claims about training an Iraqi security force. The officials responsible for these inexperienced young men sent them home for leave without weapons or guards, at a time when police and army recruits are constantly attacked. The men who killed them wore Iraqi National Guard uniforms.
A particularly horrific case of irony involves weapons of mass destruction. It's been obvious for months that American forces were not going to find the chemical or biological armaments that Mr. Bush said were stockpiled in Iraq. What we didn't know is that while they were looking for weapons that did not exist, they lost weapons that did.
James Glanz, William J. Broad and David E. Sanger reported in The Times yesterday that some 380 tons of the kinds of powerful explosives used to destroy airplanes, demolish buildings, make missile warheads and trigger nuclear weapons have disappeared from one of the many places in Iraq that the United States failed to secure. The United Nations inspectors disdained by the Bush administration had managed to monitor the explosives for years. But they vanished soon after the United States took over the job. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld was so bent on proving his theory of lightning warfare that he ignored the generals who said an understaffed and underarmed invasion force could rush to Baghdad, but couldn't hold the rest of the country, much less guard things like the ammunition dump.
Iraqi and American officials cannot explain how some 760,000 pounds of explosives were spirited away from a well-known site just 30 miles from Baghdad. But they were warned. Within weeks of the invasion, international weapons inspectors told Washington that the explosives depot was in danger and that terrorists could help themselves "to the greatest explosives bonanza in history."
The disastrous theft was revealed in a recent letter to an international agency in Vienna. It was signed by the general director of Iraq's Planning and Following Up Directorate. It's too bad the Bush administration doesn't have one of those.
Rev_Blair @ Tue Oct 26, 2004 9:24 am
Okay Godz...let's deal in facts instead of your opium dreams. The explosives were there, the Bush administration was made aware of that. They illegally invaded Iraq and, in a bizarre act of stupidity, guarded only the Oil Ministry while the rest of the country was being looted. Now the explosives are missing.
Now you can try to blame the UN or France or Santa Claus, but the fact is that the Bush administration was in such a rush to get their hands on the paperwork in the Oil Ministry that they allowed somebody to take those explosives. Those explosive are likely being used to kill US soldiers and Iraqi civilians right now.
Scape @ Tue Oct 26, 2004 12:34 pm
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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.
Source
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The disclosure by the IAEA about the missing explosives may have had an impact going all the way to the US presidential campaigns, but in the anarchic conditions of Iraq there had hardly been a rush to improve security. Yesterday there was not a sign of even one guard at the gate of the deserted site.
'Secure' arms dump that may have armed enemy
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In the first of yesterday's discoveries, the 3rd Infantry Division entered the vast Qa Qaa chemical and explosives production plant and came across thousands of vials of white powder, packed three to a box. The engineers also found stocks of atropine and pralidoxime, also known as 2-PAM chloride, which can be used to treat exposure to nerve agents but is also used to treat poisoning by organic phosphorus pesticides. Alongside those materials were documents written in Arabic that, as interpreted at the scene, appeared to include discussions of chemical warfare.
source
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"There wasn't a search," she told MSNBC, an NBC cable news channel. "The mission that the brigade had was to get to Baghdad. That was more of a pit stop there for us. And, you know, the searching, I mean certainly some of the soldiers head off on their own, looked through the bunkers just to look at the vast amount of ordnance lying around.
Embedded Reporter Saw No Explosives Search
I don't believe you Godz I will take the IAEA mandate over the NBC/Drudge gossip anytime.
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On Saturday, the first U.N. inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency arrived here to survey the loss of control over Iraq's nuclear program that occurred when the invading forces bypassed this complex during their drive on Baghdad.U.S. Marines who inspected the facility during their push toward Baghdad reported that looting was rampant there. Army officials who checked the site soon after encountered high radiation levels in the storage buildings and withdrew.
Ever since, agency officials have pressed for access to the site, but U.S. officials have resisted, arguing that the IAEA's mandate in Iraq had expired and that the occupiers are in charge.
Ever since, agency officials have pressed for access to the site, but U.S. officials have resisted, arguing that the IAEA's mandate in Iraq had expired and that the occupiers are in charge.
Iraqis near nuclear site took ore barrels home In war's chaos, thirsty villagers drank from contaminated containers
UglyYank @ Tue Oct 26, 2004 2:28 pm
Yo Rev,
Another "harmful partisan game" being played out. LOL
Scape @ Tue Oct 26, 2004 4:59 pm
Allawi blames US 'negligence' for massacre
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Allawi blames US 'negligence' for massacre
Agencies
Tuesday October 26, 2004
Iraq's interim prime minister, Ayad Allawi, said today that "negligence" by US-led forces brought about the massacre of 49 Iraqi soldiers and warned of further "terrorist acts".
"There was great negligence on the part of some coalition forces, " Mr Allawi told Iraq's national assembly. "It was a heinous crime where a group of national guards were targeted."
About 50 newly recruited Iraqi soldiers were found dead at the weekend after being ambushed at a bogus checkpoint between Balad Ruz and Qazaniya in Diyala province, 50 miles (80km) north-east of Baghdad.
A senior defence ministry official, Brigadier Salih Sarhan, said the soldiers - who were unarmed and wearing civilian clothing - "were ordered from their buses by men in police uniforms, told to lie face down on the ground, and then shot in the back of the head".
The men had just finished three weeks of training at the Kir Kush military base near the Iranian border, he added.
Mr Allawi said he will form an emergency investigative committee to look into the massacre and warned politicians that they "should expect an escalation in terrorist acts".
Agencies
Tuesday October 26, 2004
Iraq's interim prime minister, Ayad Allawi, said today that "negligence" by US-led forces brought about the massacre of 49 Iraqi soldiers and warned of further "terrorist acts".
"There was great negligence on the part of some coalition forces, " Mr Allawi told Iraq's national assembly. "It was a heinous crime where a group of national guards were targeted."
About 50 newly recruited Iraqi soldiers were found dead at the weekend after being ambushed at a bogus checkpoint between Balad Ruz and Qazaniya in Diyala province, 50 miles (80km) north-east of Baghdad.
A senior defence ministry official, Brigadier Salih Sarhan, said the soldiers - who were unarmed and wearing civilian clothing - "were ordered from their buses by men in police uniforms, told to lie face down on the ground, and then shot in the back of the head".
The men had just finished three weeks of training at the Kir Kush military base near the Iranian border, he added.
Mr Allawi said he will form an emergency investigative committee to look into the massacre and warned politicians that they "should expect an escalation in terrorist acts".
Another "harmful partisan game" indeed. Bush should eat another pretzel.
Rev_Blair @ Tue Oct 26, 2004 6:36 pm
Yo, Ugly Yank...not my fault that your president is moronic puppet run by incompetent greed-headed puppetmasters.
Scape @ Tue Oct 26, 2004 6:42 pm
The military has just now opened an inquiry into the disappearance.
Good thing they know how to close the gate after the horse has long since left the barn.
The first U.S. military unit to reach the Al-Qaqaa military installation after the invasion of Iraq did not have orders to search for the explosives, but looters were already throughout the facility, the unit spokesman said Tuesday.
Don't secure that bomb factory, onward to the oil!!!
Rev_Blair @ Wed Oct 27, 2004 6:20 am
$1:
Don't secure that bomb factory, onward to the oil!!!
That's what it's all about.
UglyYank @ Wed Oct 27, 2004 4:12 pm
Everything the UN touches turns to Al-Qa Qaa.
Rev_Blair @ Wed Oct 27, 2004 11:01 pm
No, actually that's everything the US touches. It seems that George Bush is the opposite of King Midas...everything George touches turns to crap.