| THIS IS A READ-ONLY ARCHIVE FROM THE SORABJI.COM MESSAGE BOARDS (1995-2016). |
|---|
There has been a lot of speculation about what Iraq-related events could affect the presidential race in the last week. Would heavy U.S. military action against insurgents help Bush? Heavy U.S. casualties hurt him? Would Bush pull Zarqawi out of a hat and declare victory? Well, on this Monday morning, Bush is being forced to contend with Iraq news he probably didn't expect -- news that underlines the Kerry campaign's assessment that he makes a mess out of everything he touches. The front page New York Times story about the disappearance of 380 tons of munitions from a military installation in Iraq, despite warnings from the IAEA that the site needed security, is the Democrats' ammunition du jour. Talk of the missing munitions was the first thing out of Howard Dean's mouth on CNN this morning. And John Kerry wove it into his stump speech at a rally in New Hampshire, saying: "George W. Bush, who talks tough -- talks tough -- and brags about making America safer has once again failed to deliver after being warned about the danger of major stockpiles of munitions in Iraq; this president failed to guard those stockpiles ... Today we learned these explosives are missing, unaccounted for and potentially in the hands of terrorists. Now we know our troops are less safe because this president failed to do the basics. ... This administration has put our troops at risk and this country at greater risk than we oughta be." Indeed, the Kerry camp has been all over this since last night. We got a mass emailed statement from Joe Lockhart timestamped at 1:15 a.m., and pasted below. (Note the dig at Condi Rice at the end. She is behind the curve on this national security problem, having just learned of the missing munitions in the last month, yet has been completely on top of campaigning for Bush's re-election.) "Kerry-Edwards Senior Advisor Joe Lockhart issued the following statement on reports of missing explosives in Iraq: "Today, the Bush administration must answer for what may be the most grave and catastrophic mistake in a tragic series of blunders in Iraq. How did they fail to secure nearly 380 tons of known, deadly explosives despite clear warnings from the International Atomic Energy Agency to do so? And why was this information unearthed by reporters -- and was it covered up by our national security officials?" "These explosives can be used to blow up airplanes, level buildings, attack our troops and detonate nuclear weapons. The Bush administration knew where this stockpile was, but took no action to secure the site. They were urgently and specifically informed that terrorists could be helping themselves to the most dangerous explosives bonanza in history, but nothing was done to prevent it from happening." "This material was monitored and controlled by UN inspectors before the invasion of Iraq. Thanks to the stunning incompetence of the Bush administration, we now have no idea where it is." "We need to know what the administration knew about this and when. We need to know why they failed to safeguard these explosives and keep them out of the hands of our enemies. The National Security Advisor should be at her desk in Washington tomorrow to work this problem and answer these questions, instead of giving speeches in battleground states." [UPDATE: Josh Marshall has more on the Iraq munitions story, pointing out that Iraqi officials say they warned Paul Bremer about the missing explosives back in May, while he was still the head of the U.S. occupation authority and before the "handover" of sovereignty to Iraq. It's unclear whom he told about the disappeared tons of munitions -- but the IAEA was not told while the U.S. was in power, and according to the Nelson Report, the Bush administration pressured the Iraqis to also not tell the IAEA.] -- Geraldine Sealey |
10/25/2004 In Any Reasonable Democracy, the Fuckin' Camel's Back Should Be Broken: Oh, those heady days of early 2003, when the majority of the nation was all a-twitter about Iraq and weapons of mass destruction and terrorists, oh, my. When we were told, Joe McCarthy-style, that there were hundreds, yea, hundreds of sites that needed to be checked for those ol' vials of botulism and those cannisters of nerve gas. God, what a pussy you had to be back then, so, so long ago, to believe that Iraq didn't have them. You may as well have said you squat to pee if you dared to say that United Nations weapons inspections should continue. And the International Atomic Energy Agency? With their suspiciously Arab-sounding leader? Fuck, all they were saying was that Iraq didn't have nuclear weapons, but fuck them, those fuckin' wimps - fuckin' Dick Motherfuckin' Cheney knew better. Can you imagine back then even suggesting that perhaps it would be important to secure the non-WMD weapons that Iraq had? Like say an IAEA identified site that contained, let's say, just for shits and giggles, you know, 380 tons of high-grade explosives that could be used for, who knows, blowing shit up? Maybe, say, blowing the shit out of our own soldiers with what is, ostensibly, our ammo dump? So it is that during those first few Old West days of freedom in Iraq, when looting and raping was the rule of the land, that among the things looted (other than, say, nuclear waste and ancient artifacts) was, glory be, 380 tons of explosives. Mostly HMX, High Melting eXplosive, and RDX, Royal Demolition eXplosive (both have a bunch of other names). They're colorful bits of death. And they blow shit up at an alarming rate, over 26,000 feet per second. They create shock waves that shatter everything in its path. Fuckin' Bruce Willis could not run fast enough to get away before he was melted into scrapeable goo on the glowing pavement. But, you see, apparently this kind of stuff was not worthy of the attention of American authorities in the minutes, hours, days, and weeks after the invasion, unlike, say, the oil ministry in Baghdad. Even now, one senior Bush adminstration official said, sure, it could kill you, "but it's not a proliferation risk." Other than, you know, the fact that it could be used for making, well, shit, nuclear weapons - the mystical, magical "dual-use" materials Bush used to stammer about, back in the day. Of course, this material was already under the supervision of the IAEA and well-known to weapons inspectors. Here's a report from the IAEA from 1995 about the Al-Qaqaa site: "The work [on weapons compenent] was explained to have started as early as 1988, and had used various kinds of explosives, including Baratol, PETN, COM-B, TNT, RDX and HMX." Even in 1994, the IAEA was aware of the HMX at the Al-Qaqaa facility. Al-Qaqaa was the last vestige of the failed attempt by Saddam in the mid-1990s, to build nuclear weapons. Here's the deal, though: they weren't even close and, Yosemite Sam-style, they blew themselves up trying, killing 700 people at the factory in Al-QaQaa. Why, in February 2003, UNMOVIC (the inspectors) checked out the Al-Qaqaa site to make sure the equipment was sealed. It was even reported in the American media, so we're not really talkin' a secret here. Jesus, the British even had it listed as a WMD site in their sexed-up dossier. They just don't fuckin' get it, at all. So concerned was the administration with finding something, anything, please, Lord, any thing, that would reveal massive quantities of WMDs or al-Qaeda links, that they didn't care - they just didn't care about the rest of it. And they didn't get that they ran the entire friggin' country. The worst part is they knew - they were warned, they had the lists, their own people were telling them. So the only conclusions can be they are complete boobs or they just didn't care. Hence chaos. Hence stolen explosives. Hence dead soldiers and Iraqis. Hence a more dangerous world. It's an old, old story. Man believes he is more powerful than the gods. Gods bitch slap him back into reality through the revelation of man's horrible deeds. Thus it is with any member of the Bush administration. Oh, sure, we like to ascribe the aspects of tragedy to Colin Powell because he "knew better," but we're talkin' Greek tragedy here, motherfuckers, where brazen assholes get the smackdown when they overreach. As Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, and Rice scramble to say they didn't know they fucked their mothers, we're all just sittin' here, a chorus of non-believers, waiting for them to scratch their own eyes out and head into disgrace and exile. // posted by Rude One @ 8:44 AM |
|
Everything is fine! we're at the top of the mountain! poland! poland poland poland!!! |
|
Has anyone tried looking under Bush's chair? I bet that's where they are. |
p.s. Poland |
|
|
|
|
anyway, is this the october surprise or what? |
I'm still waiting for Bin Ladin to turn up. They have one week--and a whole lot of undecided voters. |
|
i tried appealing to their sensibilites. the weapons. the weapons we were supposed to be protected from, are now fanned out across the globe. i appealed to people as a father, and a patriot to really consider what has happened. 380 tons. three hundred and eighty fucking tons. ka ka ka boom ! my uncle, a retired judge and lawyer who considers himself more libertarian than republican responded with this: "My understanding is that the so called loss of weapons is a hoax and lie, just as the memo on Bush's national guard service was; the elite media is so blatantly intent on beating Bush they now have no credibility. One only has to look at Kerry's voting record in the Senate to see who would be better at performing the chief job of a pressident per our Constitution, that being as commander in chief; Bush is certainly not perfect, but when comparing the facts against Kerry, Bush is bar far the best of the lesser of 2 evils." Grammar aside, this is from a well educated man. A well traveled, financially well off American man with two grown children and a very comfortable life. This is what we are up against. We've become so inherently distrustful of the media, we dont even believe anything if it doesnt support our worldview even though the god damn IAEA made its formal filing of its assessment of the missing weapons today at the UN. Its a fact. Nothing left or slanted about it, yet its intepreted as such. The whole swiftboat/national guard shit is an issue for some people which is fucking stupid. and people are actually believing the shit the bush campaign is saying about Kerry's record in the senate. yet they dont care to scrutinize Bush's record. this is what we are up against. we're fucked as a nation dudes. totally fucked. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
There was a guest on the Daily Show last night...a guy from a polling firm Stewart asked a poignant question about the undecided voters...as to who they are, what are they thinking, are they complete trolls. In short, how could anyone be undecided at this point. The pollster summed it up saying that generally, the undecideds tend to be educated and most often undecided because they arent sure in the challenger. Most undecideds are not happy with the incumbent but remain on the fence for not knowing if Kerry is the best alternative but historically tend to swing towards the challenger and that Bush's relatively low numbers for an incumbent are troubling for them. The Dems need to take this weapon issue and drill it over the weekend. Hit the Sunday talk shows and make a fuckin nasty stink. three hundred and eight tons 3 8 0 TONS |
linky The looting of Iraq's arsenal The same month Al Qaqaa was being stripped of high explosives, I warned my military intelligence unit of another weapons facility that was being cleaned out. But nothing was done. - - - - - - - - - - - - By David DeBatto Oct. 29, 2004 | When I read last Sunday's New York Times story of the missing explosives from the Iraqi weapons storage facility south of Baghdad at Al Qaqaa, it brought back memories from my time with the Army National Guard's 223rd Military Intelligence Battalion in Iraq last year. Bad memories. In the Times story, Iraqi scientists who worked at Al Qaqaa described how the facility was looted of almost 400 tons of high explosives right after the American troops swept through the area in April 2003 and failed to secure the site. But Al Qaqaa is not the whole story. The same month it was being looted, I learned of another major weapons and ammunition storage facility, near my battalion's base at Camp Anaconda, that was unguarded and targeted by looters. But despite my repeated warnings -- and those of other U.S. intelligence agents -- nothing was done to secure this facility, as it was systematically stripped of enough weapons and explosives to equip anti-U.S. insurgents with enough roadside improvised explosive devices, or IEDs, for years to come. Camp Anaconda, where I was stationed with the 223rd from April through October, 2003, is a sprawling logistical supply base located 50 miles north of Baghdad which once served as one of Saddam's largest air force bases. It is now home to over 22,000 U.S. troops, mostly Army but some Air Force personnel as well, and serves as the main supply point for American forces throughout Iraq. Hundreds of heavy trucks in long convoys enter and leave the two main gates every day, 24 hours a day, hauling every conceivable item that an army at war might need. When I first arrived at Anaconda in late April of 2003 however, the base was a barren, desolate outpost. There were only about 200 soldiers on the base when we first arrived with our wartime convoy of California and Massachusetts National Guard troops up from Kuwait. The base had been vacated by Iraqi forces just days before our arrival. The signs of battle were everywhere, starting with the charred remains of the guard shack at the main gate and continuing all over the base in the form of bomb craters, bullet holes and wrecked vehicles. With a total area of about 15 square miles within the base to defend, and with just a couple hundred soldiers to do it, security was our main concern. The war was still going on and the base was located right in the middle of the hot zone known as the Sunni Triangle. We all took turns standing watch on one of the many guard towers that ringed the base. As a counterintelligence agent, one of my main jobs was to talk to local Iraqis and gather information on any possible threats to the security of the Army. This is called "force protection." In order to do that, we recruit and train local people to act as informants to provide us with needed information on the location and intention of the bad guys and their weapons. This is also known as "human intelligence" and is the area most lacking in our war on terrorism thus far. During the period just after we arrived at Anaconda, the Iraqi people were actually very supportive of our presence and would line up at the entrances to the base in order to bring us information on all manner of things and also to ask for assistance with their medical or other needs. Those bringing us information were referred to as "walk-ins." Some of the best intelligence I obtained during my tour in Iraq came from walk-ins. Sometime in early May 2003, several local walk-ins came to the base and told me that there was a large weapons storage facility located about two or three kilometers to the south that was abandoned after the Iraqi forces fled the area following the collapse of the Saddam regime on April 9, 2003. The facility, they said, was still unguarded. The Iraqi guards had simply deserted their posts and disappeared. The storage facility, I was told, was an annex to the main base at Anaconda and was used by the Iraqi Air Force to store bombs, missiles and other ordnance. These same people said that they were concerned that their children might pick up some of the explosives or landmines that were stored there and blow themselves up. I was also told that local "Ali Babbas" or thieves were looting the site daily and word in the local communities was that they were selling the weapons and explosives to ex-Baath party members for use in attacking U.S forces. My team and I immediately went out to the location, finding a huge facility perhaps 5 square miles or more in size. It was composed of dozens of both underground bunkers and above-ground storage buildings. I was stunned to see vast amounts of weapons simply lying around on the ground littering the base. Some of these weapons included surface-to-air and air-to-air missiles, land mines, rocket-propelled grenades, small arms ammunition, hand grenades, detonator caps, plastic explosives and other assorted ammunition and weaponry. It was quite a frightening sight. My team took pictures of the site and all of the weapons and ammunition and filed a report immediately after returning to Anaconda. I also verbally briefed my battalion commander, Lt. Col. Timothy Ryan, as was the policy with any significant event such as this. Upon hearing my report, Lt. Col. Ryan requested that I take him back out to the site the next day, which I did. Ryan toured the facility just as I had done and saw all of the unsecured weaponry and ammunition. Ryan told me that he would talk to EOD (explosive ordinance disposal) and "have the stuff removed." It should be noted that after U.S forces moved into Iraq and the Saddam regime fell, the responsibility for securing and disposing weapons and explosives at the many storage sites scattered across Iraq became the instant responsibility of the U.S military. The Iraqi police, or any other local public authority that could have taken responsibility, simply no longer existed. I do not know whether Ryan relayed my reports about the storage site to the appropriate military officials. I placed calls to his office on Thursday for comment, but received no replies. In all fairness to him, Ryan did not have the authority to either remove the material or to post guards. He would have had to request such action through his chain of command, in this case, Col. Thomas M. Pappas, commander of the 205th M.I. Battalion of Abu Ghraib fame. But in any event, no action was taken. For the next several weeks I continued to receive reports from my sources in the community that the weapons were still at the storage facility, there were still no guards, and the looting was continuing. I made three or four more trips to the site between May and August and confirmed that the facility was in fact unsecured and that weapons and ammunition were still exposed. On one such visit I actually saw some Iraqis in the distance driving a pickup truck and stopping at bunkers inside the storage facility, no doubt helping themselves. During one visit that summer, I took note of some land mines that were stored in an above-ground building at the site. The next time I visited the site, the land mines were gone. After each visit, I filed reports to the 223rd OMT (Operations Management Team) on the exposed weaponry and the risk to coalition forces. The Iraqi villagers kept coming and telling me of the dangerous situation and asking me why the Americans could not place guards at the facility or haul the stuff away. I had no answer for them. It is interesting to me to note now, as I recall these incidents, that my brigade commander from July 1 onward at Anaconda was Col. Pappas, who I remember making trips to Abu Ghraib several times a week. Although I did not report on the unguarded site directly to Pappas, he undoubtedly received all of my reports. While working on this story, I called another member of the unit who served in Iraq with me at Anaconda, Sgt. Greg Ford. Ford was also a counterintelligence agent and is now retired from the National Guard and lives in California. Ford also remembers the vast weapons stockpiles lying open to looters just outside Anaconda. He advised me that he had also filed at least one written report about the problem and verbally advised Lt. Col. Ryan as well. Ford told me, "No one seemed too interested in what I said about that stuff. I went out there several times after I told them and the place was still unguarded. The more times I went out there, the more stuff was missing. It really sucked." Ford went on to say that his sources had also told him that local insurgents, ex-Baath party members as they were known then, were going to use the weapons as roadside improvised explosive devices (IEDs). In fact, Ford told me, one of his sources in Samarra, a tribal sheik, told him that an Iraqi expatriate living in Syria had been sending drivers across the porous border between the two countries and systematically looting weapons storage facilities, including Al Qaqaa, for material to be used in making IEDs. Until that time, late spring of 2003, IEDs were virtually unknown in Iraq. But beginning around June, they became a common threat to U.S. forces around Anaconda and elsewhere. Ford also told me of a warehouse outside the city of al Khalis, located about 15 kilometers south of Anaconda. During a visit there in May or June 2003, his intelligence team discovered a huge cache of weapons, including heavy machine guns, ammunition, missiles and large chemical drums with Russian insignia. The local people he spoke with told him it had been abandoned right after the regime fell and had been looted ever since. Ford said he filed a written report and verbally briefed his unit upon his return to base. He requested an EOD team to remove the weapons and chemicals. When he returned two days later, almost all of the weapons and chemical drums were gone. When he asked his local sources if the American soldiers had removed them, he was told "No, Ali Babba took them!" The warehouse had been looted and the weapons were now on the street. Michael Marciello, another ex-counterintelligence agent from the 223rd, told me a similar story on Thursday. He said that he too informed his unit chain of command about the unguarded storage facility outside of Anaconda, but got no response. Marciello told me that he saw many such unsecured storage sites all over Iraq that were full of weapons and ammunition. "They were commonplace," he told me. "Nobody really cared about them." An Army civilian interpreter who worked with the 223rd last year had a blunter assessment of the U.S. military command's vigilance. "They just didn't give a shit," said Abdullah Khalil, a Kurdish-American who served in Iraq last year with several Army units, including the 223rd. "I told Ryan many times about those weapons and that they were being stolen. People in the villages asked me all the time when are we (the Americans) going to move them? I asked Ryan what is he going to do? He never even answered me. Because I am Iraqi, he treated me like an animal. What happened in Al Qaqaa is no surprise." On Thursday I spoke with Department of Defense spokesperson, Lt. Col. Barry Venable, who told me that he is not aware of any reports about unsecured weapons storage facilities near Camp Anaconda. He also said that "the priority of the troops at that time was taking down the Saddam regime." Since the regime's fall, said Venable, "Coalition forces have destroyed 240,000 tons of munitions and have secured another 160,000 tons that are awaiting destruction." When asked if there were enough troops to secure the weapons sites after the war, he insisted, "There were enough troops to complete the mission." Are there still unsecured weapons storage sites in Iraq that are being looted even as we speak, I asked? Lt. Col. Venable admitted he had no idea. - - - - - - - - - - - - About the writer David DeBatto is an author and former U.S. Army counterintelligence agent who served in Operation Iraqi Freedom. |
Associated Press FoxNews: http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,137017,00.html (You'll have to cut 'n' paste the link.) Notice what FoxNews omits: "I did not see any IAEA seals at any of the locations we went into. I was not looking for that," Pearson said. In other words, he did not see the explosives everyone's talking about. FoxNews doesn't report that bit, just that the army removed 250 tons of stuff... |
|
Of course, Fox is the only network trying to act like this explains anything. For once, the others are jumping all over this. Even if they did removed 250 tons, that still leaves 150 tons unaccounted for, and if you missed some of it, then you might as well have missed it all. Mission Failed. |
|
surprise? |