Huge Cache of Explosives Vanished From Site in Iraq
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Rspaight
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You mean the head of the IAEA? Frankly, I don't blame him...
Bolding mine. Yet another instance of the administration trusting Chalabi more than our own intel.
Vast amounts of weapons-related material missing, official says
BY JONATHAN S. LANDAY
Knight Ridder Newspapers
WASHINGTON - (KRT) - The more than 320 tons of missing Iraqi high explosives at center stage in the U.S. presidential election are only a fraction of the weapons-related material that's disappeared in Iraq since the U.S.-led invasion last year.
Huge amounts of arms and ammunition were stolen from military sites, and there's "ample evidence" that Iraqi insurgents are firing looted weapons at U.S. troops and using some of them in car bombs and improvised explosive devices, said a senior U.S. intelligence official, speaking on condition of anonymity.
U.N. officials also are concerned about the disappearance of sensitive equipment and controlled materials that could be used to develop nuclear, biological or chemical weapons.
"If this equipment is finding itself on the open market, then anybody with money can buy it," said Dimitri Perricos, acting head of the U.N. Monitoring and Verification Commission (UNMOVIC), the U.N. weapons inspection agency.
The CIA has convened a "mini taskforce" of experts to assess precisely what equipment is gone and what threat it could pose if it fell into the wrong hands, said two U.S. officials.
In a new disclosure, the senior U.S. military officer and another U.S. official, who also spoke on condition he not be identified because of the sensitivity of the matter, said that an Iraqi working for U.S. intelligence alerted U.S. troops stationed near the al Qaqaa weapons facility that the installation was being looted shortly after the fall of Baghdad on April 9, 2003.
But, they said, the troops took no apparent action to halt the pillaging.
"That was one of numerous times when Iraqis warned us that ammo dumps and other places were being looted and we weren't able to respond because we didn't have anyone to send," said a senior U.S. military officer who served in Iraq.
An ABC television station in Minnesota reported that one of its camera crews embedded with the 101st Airborne Division might have filmed some of the high explosives after arriving on al Qaqaa's perimeter on April 18. Experts at the International Atomic Energy Agency, the U.N. agency that was monitoring al Qaqaa because the missing explosives could have been used to trigger a nuclear weapon, are examining the videotape.
The disclosure appeared to contradict the Bush administration's suggestion that Saddam's regime may have removed the high explosives between the last U.N. inspection of al Qaqaa on March 15 and the arrival at the installation of 3rd Infantry Division troops on April 3. The U.S.-backed interim Iraqi government contends that the high explosives disappeared sometime after the fall of Baghdad on April 9.
The Defense Department on Thursday released a satellite photograph taken on March 17 that shows two trucks parked outside one of the 56 bunkers at the al Qaqaa complex, and Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld said U.S. reconnaissance would have detected any major effort to loot the complex.
"We would have seen anything like that," Rumsfeld said in a radio interview. "The idea that it was suddenly looted and moved out, all these tons of equipment, I think that is at least debatable."
However, a senior U.S. intelligence official said, U.S. reconnaissance coverage of Iraqi weapons complexes and military movements was most intense before and during the U.S.-led invasion, while smaller-scale looting after the fall of Baghdad might have evaded detection.
Many U.S. officials and other experts blame the massive disappearance of Iraqi weapons-related materials on the Pentagon's failure to anticipate the waves of looting and lawlessness that convulsed Iraq after Saddam's ouster in April 2003.
They also cited decisions by Rumsfeld and former Gen. Tommy Franks, the overall commander of the invasion, to deploy far fewer U.S. troops to stabilize the country than U.S. ground commanders had sought.
Al Qaqaa was on a classified list of Iraqi weapons facilities that the CIA provided to Pentagon and military officials before the invasion, said the U.S. intelligence official.
But when the Pentagon and U.S. Central Command produced their own list of sites that a limited number of U.S. "exploitation teams" should search, priority was given to those identified by exiled Iraqi opposition groups, he said. Al Qaqaa wasn't one of them.
"The top of the list was dominated by nuclear facilities and places where we expected to find chemical and biological weapons," he said. "Iraqi exiles had a very heavy hand in determining which places got looked at first."
Al Qaqaa was one of some 900 known weapons sites in Iraq that U.S. experts estimated held more than 650,000 tons of munitions.
The Defense Department contends that the U.S.-led military coalition has destroyed or secured 402,000 tons of munitions. That leaves at least 248,000 tons still unaccounted for.
Thousands of unknown caches holding varying amounts of arms and ammunitions have been discovered in mosques, homes, schools and other locations since Baghdad's capture, and new stashes believed to belong to resistance groups are constantly being found.
The IAEA and UNMOVIC have reported that large amounts of equipment and materials have disappeared from numerous sites that were associated with the outlawed weapons programs that U.S. inspectors now believe Saddam discontinued after the 1991 Gulf War.
The IAEA monitored sites and equipment that were related to Iraq's pre-1991 nuclear weapon program, while UNMOVIC oversaw facilities that had been associated with Iraq's chemical, biological and missile programs.
The missing equipment and materials have civilian and military applications. Precisely how much dual use technology is missing is not known, but some materials have been taken across Iraq's poorly guarded borders.
Earlier this year, radioactive scrap metal, sheets of metal alloys that are subject to strict international export controls, and dozens of missile engines from Iraq turned up in scrap metal yards in Jordan and the Netherlands.
An Aug. 27 UNMOVIC report to the U.N. Security Council said an assessment using commercial satellite imagery confirmed the "systematic removal of items subject to monitoring ... the fate of which remains unknown."
Mohamed ElBaradei, the head of the IAEA, said in an Oct. 1 letter to the U.N. Security Council that his agency "continues to be concerned about the widespread and apparently systematic dismantlement that has taken place at sites previously relevant to Iraq's nuclear programme and sites previously subject to ongoing monitoring."
Bolding mine. Yet another instance of the administration trusting Chalabi more than our own intel.
Vast amounts of weapons-related material missing, official says
BY JONATHAN S. LANDAY
Knight Ridder Newspapers
WASHINGTON - (KRT) - The more than 320 tons of missing Iraqi high explosives at center stage in the U.S. presidential election are only a fraction of the weapons-related material that's disappeared in Iraq since the U.S.-led invasion last year.
Huge amounts of arms and ammunition were stolen from military sites, and there's "ample evidence" that Iraqi insurgents are firing looted weapons at U.S. troops and using some of them in car bombs and improvised explosive devices, said a senior U.S. intelligence official, speaking on condition of anonymity.
U.N. officials also are concerned about the disappearance of sensitive equipment and controlled materials that could be used to develop nuclear, biological or chemical weapons.
"If this equipment is finding itself on the open market, then anybody with money can buy it," said Dimitri Perricos, acting head of the U.N. Monitoring and Verification Commission (UNMOVIC), the U.N. weapons inspection agency.
The CIA has convened a "mini taskforce" of experts to assess precisely what equipment is gone and what threat it could pose if it fell into the wrong hands, said two U.S. officials.
In a new disclosure, the senior U.S. military officer and another U.S. official, who also spoke on condition he not be identified because of the sensitivity of the matter, said that an Iraqi working for U.S. intelligence alerted U.S. troops stationed near the al Qaqaa weapons facility that the installation was being looted shortly after the fall of Baghdad on April 9, 2003.
But, they said, the troops took no apparent action to halt the pillaging.
"That was one of numerous times when Iraqis warned us that ammo dumps and other places were being looted and we weren't able to respond because we didn't have anyone to send," said a senior U.S. military officer who served in Iraq.
An ABC television station in Minnesota reported that one of its camera crews embedded with the 101st Airborne Division might have filmed some of the high explosives after arriving on al Qaqaa's perimeter on April 18. Experts at the International Atomic Energy Agency, the U.N. agency that was monitoring al Qaqaa because the missing explosives could have been used to trigger a nuclear weapon, are examining the videotape.
The disclosure appeared to contradict the Bush administration's suggestion that Saddam's regime may have removed the high explosives between the last U.N. inspection of al Qaqaa on March 15 and the arrival at the installation of 3rd Infantry Division troops on April 3. The U.S.-backed interim Iraqi government contends that the high explosives disappeared sometime after the fall of Baghdad on April 9.
The Defense Department on Thursday released a satellite photograph taken on March 17 that shows two trucks parked outside one of the 56 bunkers at the al Qaqaa complex, and Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld said U.S. reconnaissance would have detected any major effort to loot the complex.
"We would have seen anything like that," Rumsfeld said in a radio interview. "The idea that it was suddenly looted and moved out, all these tons of equipment, I think that is at least debatable."
However, a senior U.S. intelligence official said, U.S. reconnaissance coverage of Iraqi weapons complexes and military movements was most intense before and during the U.S.-led invasion, while smaller-scale looting after the fall of Baghdad might have evaded detection.
Many U.S. officials and other experts blame the massive disappearance of Iraqi weapons-related materials on the Pentagon's failure to anticipate the waves of looting and lawlessness that convulsed Iraq after Saddam's ouster in April 2003.
They also cited decisions by Rumsfeld and former Gen. Tommy Franks, the overall commander of the invasion, to deploy far fewer U.S. troops to stabilize the country than U.S. ground commanders had sought.
Al Qaqaa was on a classified list of Iraqi weapons facilities that the CIA provided to Pentagon and military officials before the invasion, said the U.S. intelligence official.
But when the Pentagon and U.S. Central Command produced their own list of sites that a limited number of U.S. "exploitation teams" should search, priority was given to those identified by exiled Iraqi opposition groups, he said. Al Qaqaa wasn't one of them.
"The top of the list was dominated by nuclear facilities and places where we expected to find chemical and biological weapons," he said. "Iraqi exiles had a very heavy hand in determining which places got looked at first."
Al Qaqaa was one of some 900 known weapons sites in Iraq that U.S. experts estimated held more than 650,000 tons of munitions.
The Defense Department contends that the U.S.-led military coalition has destroyed or secured 402,000 tons of munitions. That leaves at least 248,000 tons still unaccounted for.
Thousands of unknown caches holding varying amounts of arms and ammunitions have been discovered in mosques, homes, schools and other locations since Baghdad's capture, and new stashes believed to belong to resistance groups are constantly being found.
The IAEA and UNMOVIC have reported that large amounts of equipment and materials have disappeared from numerous sites that were associated with the outlawed weapons programs that U.S. inspectors now believe Saddam discontinued after the 1991 Gulf War.
The IAEA monitored sites and equipment that were related to Iraq's pre-1991 nuclear weapon program, while UNMOVIC oversaw facilities that had been associated with Iraq's chemical, biological and missile programs.
The missing equipment and materials have civilian and military applications. Precisely how much dual use technology is missing is not known, but some materials have been taken across Iraq's poorly guarded borders.
Earlier this year, radioactive scrap metal, sheets of metal alloys that are subject to strict international export controls, and dozens of missile engines from Iraq turned up in scrap metal yards in Jordan and the Netherlands.
An Aug. 27 UNMOVIC report to the U.N. Security Council said an assessment using commercial satellite imagery confirmed the "systematic removal of items subject to monitoring ... the fate of which remains unknown."
Mohamed ElBaradei, the head of the IAEA, said in an Oct. 1 letter to the U.N. Security Council that his agency "continues to be concerned about the widespread and apparently systematic dismantlement that has taken place at sites previously relevant to Iraq's nuclear programme and sites previously subject to ongoing monitoring."
RQOTW: "I'll make sure that our future is defined not by the letters ACLU, but by the letters USA." -- Mitt Romney
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Rspaight
- Posts: 4386
- Joined: Wed Apr 30, 2003 10:48 am
- Location: The Reality-Based Community
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Pentagon Seeks to Account for Explosives
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published: October 29, 2004
Filed at 1:48 p.m. ET
WASHINGTON (AP) -- An Army unit removed 250 tons of ammunition from the Al-Qaqaa weapons depot in April 2003 and later destroyed it, the company's former commander said Friday. A Pentagon spokesman said some was of the same type as the missing explosives that have become a major issue in the presidential campaign.
But those 250 tons were not located under the seal of the International Atomic Energy Agency -- as the missing high-grade explosives had been -- and Pentagon spokesman Larry Di Rita could not definitely say whether they were part of the missing 377 tons.
Maj. Austin Pearson, speaking at a press conference at the Pentagon, said his team removed 250 tons of TNT, plastic explosives, detonation cords, and white phosporous rounds on April 13, 2003 -- 10 days after U.S. forces first reached the Al Qaqaa site.
"I did not see any IAEA seals at any of the locations we went into. I was not looking for that,'' Pearson said.
Di Rita sought to point to Pearson's comments as evidence that some RDX, one of the high-energy explosives, might have been removed from the site. RDX is also known as plastic explosive.
But Di Rita acknowledged: "I can't say RDX that was on the list of IAEA is what the major pulled out. ... We believe that some of the things they were pulling out of there were RDX.''
Further study was needed, Di Rita said.
Whether Saddam Hussein's forces removed the explosives before U.S. forces arrived on April 3, 2003, or whether they fell into the hands of looters and insurgents afterward -- because the site was not guarded by U.S. troops -- has become a key issue in the campaign.
Pearson's comments raise further questions about the chain of events surrounding these explosives, the disappearance of which has been repeatedly cited by Democrat John Kerry as evidence of the Bush administration's poor handling of the war in Iraq.
Still, 377 tons of explosives amount to a tiny fraction of the weaponry in Iraq. U.S. forces have already destroyed, or have slated to destroyed, more than 400,000 tons of all manner of Iraqi weapons and ammunition. But at least another 250,000 tons from Saddam's regime remain unaccounted for, and some has undoubtedly fallen into the hands of insurgents.
The window in which the explosives were most likely removed from Al-Qaqaa begins on March 15, 2003 -- five days before the war started -- and ends in late May, when a U.S. weapons inspection team declared the depot stripped and looted.
Two weeks ago, Iraqi officials told the United Nations' International Atomic Energy Agency that the explosives vanished as a result of "theft and looting ... due to lack of security.''
The explosives were known to be housed in storage bunkers at the sprawling Al-Qaqaa complex and nearby structures. U.N. nuclear inspectors placed fresh seals over the bunker doors in January 2003. The inspectors visited Al-Qaqaa for the last time that March 15 and reported that the seals were not broken; concluding the weapons were still inside at the time.
A U.S. military reconaissance image, taken of Al Qaqaa on March 17, shows two vehicles, presumably Iraqi, outside a bunker at Al-Qaqaa. But Di Rita said that bunker was not known to contain any of the 377 tons, and that the image only shows that there was activity at the depot after U.N. inspectors left.
Elements of the U.S. 3rd Infantry Division arrived in the area on April 3 en route to Baghdad. They fought a battle with Iraqi forces inside Al Qaqaa and moved on, leaving a battalion behind to clear out enemy fighters in the area. Troops found other weapons, including artillery shells, on the base, he said. They didn't specifically search for the 377 tons of high explosives that are missing. On April 6, the battalion left for Baghdad.
Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld and others have advanced the theory that the materials were removed before U.S. forces arrived, saying looting that much material would be impossible by small-scale thieves, and that a large-scale theft would have involved lots of trucks and would have been detected.
About four days later, another large unit, the 2nd Brigade of the 101st Airborne Division, moved into the area. That unit did not search Al-Qaqaa. A unit spokesman said there was heavy looting in the area at the time.
On April 13, Pearson's ordnance-disposal team arrived and took the 250 tons out in a day. That materiel was later destroyed by U.S. forces. His comments may suggest that some of it was still there when U.S. forces arrived.
On April 18, a Minnesota television crew traveling with the 101st Airborne shot a videotape of troops as they first opened the bunkers at the Al-Qaqaa that shows what appeared to be high explosives still in barrels and bearing the markings of the International Atomic Energy Agency.
U.S. weapons hunters did not give the area a thorough search until May, when they visited on three occasions, starting May 8. They searched every building on the compound over the course of those three visits, but did not find any material or explosives that had been marked by the IAEA.
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published: October 29, 2004
Filed at 1:48 p.m. ET
WASHINGTON (AP) -- An Army unit removed 250 tons of ammunition from the Al-Qaqaa weapons depot in April 2003 and later destroyed it, the company's former commander said Friday. A Pentagon spokesman said some was of the same type as the missing explosives that have become a major issue in the presidential campaign.
But those 250 tons were not located under the seal of the International Atomic Energy Agency -- as the missing high-grade explosives had been -- and Pentagon spokesman Larry Di Rita could not definitely say whether they were part of the missing 377 tons.
Maj. Austin Pearson, speaking at a press conference at the Pentagon, said his team removed 250 tons of TNT, plastic explosives, detonation cords, and white phosporous rounds on April 13, 2003 -- 10 days after U.S. forces first reached the Al Qaqaa site.
"I did not see any IAEA seals at any of the locations we went into. I was not looking for that,'' Pearson said.
Di Rita sought to point to Pearson's comments as evidence that some RDX, one of the high-energy explosives, might have been removed from the site. RDX is also known as plastic explosive.
But Di Rita acknowledged: "I can't say RDX that was on the list of IAEA is what the major pulled out. ... We believe that some of the things they were pulling out of there were RDX.''
Further study was needed, Di Rita said.
Whether Saddam Hussein's forces removed the explosives before U.S. forces arrived on April 3, 2003, or whether they fell into the hands of looters and insurgents afterward -- because the site was not guarded by U.S. troops -- has become a key issue in the campaign.
Pearson's comments raise further questions about the chain of events surrounding these explosives, the disappearance of which has been repeatedly cited by Democrat John Kerry as evidence of the Bush administration's poor handling of the war in Iraq.
Still, 377 tons of explosives amount to a tiny fraction of the weaponry in Iraq. U.S. forces have already destroyed, or have slated to destroyed, more than 400,000 tons of all manner of Iraqi weapons and ammunition. But at least another 250,000 tons from Saddam's regime remain unaccounted for, and some has undoubtedly fallen into the hands of insurgents.
The window in which the explosives were most likely removed from Al-Qaqaa begins on March 15, 2003 -- five days before the war started -- and ends in late May, when a U.S. weapons inspection team declared the depot stripped and looted.
Two weeks ago, Iraqi officials told the United Nations' International Atomic Energy Agency that the explosives vanished as a result of "theft and looting ... due to lack of security.''
The explosives were known to be housed in storage bunkers at the sprawling Al-Qaqaa complex and nearby structures. U.N. nuclear inspectors placed fresh seals over the bunker doors in January 2003. The inspectors visited Al-Qaqaa for the last time that March 15 and reported that the seals were not broken; concluding the weapons were still inside at the time.
A U.S. military reconaissance image, taken of Al Qaqaa on March 17, shows two vehicles, presumably Iraqi, outside a bunker at Al-Qaqaa. But Di Rita said that bunker was not known to contain any of the 377 tons, and that the image only shows that there was activity at the depot after U.N. inspectors left.
Elements of the U.S. 3rd Infantry Division arrived in the area on April 3 en route to Baghdad. They fought a battle with Iraqi forces inside Al Qaqaa and moved on, leaving a battalion behind to clear out enemy fighters in the area. Troops found other weapons, including artillery shells, on the base, he said. They didn't specifically search for the 377 tons of high explosives that are missing. On April 6, the battalion left for Baghdad.
Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld and others have advanced the theory that the materials were removed before U.S. forces arrived, saying looting that much material would be impossible by small-scale thieves, and that a large-scale theft would have involved lots of trucks and would have been detected.
About four days later, another large unit, the 2nd Brigade of the 101st Airborne Division, moved into the area. That unit did not search Al-Qaqaa. A unit spokesman said there was heavy looting in the area at the time.
On April 13, Pearson's ordnance-disposal team arrived and took the 250 tons out in a day. That materiel was later destroyed by U.S. forces. His comments may suggest that some of it was still there when U.S. forces arrived.
On April 18, a Minnesota television crew traveling with the 101st Airborne shot a videotape of troops as they first opened the bunkers at the Al-Qaqaa that shows what appeared to be high explosives still in barrels and bearing the markings of the International Atomic Energy Agency.
U.S. weapons hunters did not give the area a thorough search until May, when they visited on three occasions, starting May 8. They searched every building on the compound over the course of those three visits, but did not find any material or explosives that had been marked by the IAEA.
RQOTW: "I'll make sure that our future is defined not by the letters ACLU, but by the letters USA." -- Mitt Romney