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[ErasureAcer]

ww.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2004_10_24.php#003778

Apparently this is also the front page story for New York times tomorrow.

--snip--

To review the essential facts, prior to the war, Iraq's Al Qa Qaa bunker and weapons complex had roughly 350 tons of high explosives under IAEA seal. After the war, for whatever reason, the complex was either not guarded at all or inadequately guarded. And all those explosives (primarily RDX and HMX) were carted away.

What we're talking about here isn't just a bunch of dynamite. This encyclopedia entry says RDX "is considered the most powerful and brisant of the military high explosives." And not 350 pounds, 350 tons.

----------

Bush is giving the terrorists weapons with his poor planning and unnecessary Iraq war. My gawd.

 

[Outdoor Miner]

Ooooh boy.

What's clear in Nelson's and TPM's reporting is that the administration has known about this for at least a year. But they've gone to great lengths to hide the facts both from monitoring organizations like the IAEA but also, by extension, from the American public

Fucked up if true.

 

[BigJonsson]

Cheney knows something

 

[videogamer]

what is talkingpoints? I'd wait until more mainstream outlets take this up.

 

[ErasureAcer]

www.drudgereport.com says it is the frontpage story of the NYTimes tomorrow. Good enough? They're just like the biggest paper out there. The story is true. Suck it down.

 

[videogamer]

www.drudgereport.com says it is the frontpage story of the NYTimes tomorrow. Good enough? They're just like the biggest paper out there. The story is true. Suck it down.

swallowing

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/25/i...e1aa29b7871&hp&ex=1098676800&partner=homepage

 

[Incognito]

the new york times has consistently been owning bushCO for months now with stories such as this, but republican shillls discount their reporting as slanted "LIBERAL BIAS!!".

 

[ErasureAcer]

Just about to post the NY Times story myself...you beat me to it.

 

[Phoenix]

That's nothing. Entire Iraq nuclear facilities have been emptied and in some cases completely dismantled and shipped elsewhere and the US government says it wasn't them.

 

[Outdoor Miner]

God, all this BULLSHIT about Bush being better on terror.

HOW?!?! Terrorists recruitment has experienced a boon ever since this war was launched, and now they're getting their hands on weapons they covet for free.

Ridiculous.

 

[Ecrofirt]

That's nothing. Entire Iraq nuclear facilities have been emptied and in some cases completely dismantled and shipped elsewhere and the US government says it wasn't them.

is 'them' the US government? Your post confuzzled me a bit.

 

[mashoutposse]

It looks like the stability of the Hussein regime would actually be considered preferable right about now... Amazing.

 

[MadOdorMachine]

It looks like the stability of the Hussein regime would actually be considered preferable right about now... Amazing.

Yeah, that way he could continue to build his weapons. Maybe if we asked nicely for the hundredth time he would have just surrendered and left his home country and position of power.

 

[Incognito]

Yeah, that way he could continue to build his weapons. Maybe if we asked nicely for the hundredth time he would have just surrendered and left his home country and position of power.

Er, what weapons were being developed by Hussein?

 

[BigJonsson]

The Bush admin has helped spread WMD's

 

[MIMIC]

Yeah, that way he could continue to build his weapons. Maybe if we asked nicely for the hundredth time he would have just surrendered and left his home country and position of power.

I like people like you.

Read it and weep

The government's most definitive account of Iraq's arms programs, to be released today, will show that Saddam Hussein posed a diminishing threat at the time the United States invaded and did not possess, or have concrete plans to develop, nuclear, chemical or biological weapons, U.S. officials said yesterday.

Not done yet

WASHINGTON - Contradicting the main argument for a war that has cost more than 1,000 U.S. lives, the top U.S. arms inspector reported Wednesday that he had found no evidence that Iraq produced weapons of mass destruction after 1991. He also concluded that Saddam Hussein’s weapons capability weakened, not grew, during a dozen years of U.N. sanctions before the U.S. invasion last year.

 

[MadOdorMachine]

So if he wasn't a threat explain the 380 tons of explosives that are missing?

From your same post -
Interviews with the toppled leader and other former Iraqi officials made it clear that Saddam had not lost his ambition to pursue weapons of mass destruction and hoped to revive his weapons program if U.N. sanctions were lifted, his report said.

“What is clear is that Saddam retained his notions of use of force and had experiences that demonstrated the utility of WMD,” Duelfer told the Senate Armed Services Committee

 

[mashoutposse]

Yeah, that way he could continue to build his weapons. Maybe if we asked nicely for the hundredth time he would have just surrendered and left his home country and position of power.

It has already been shown that Iraq complied with the UN and, for all intents and purposes, already disarmed. Unfortunately, when you've been a lying bad guy for as long as he has been, no one's going to believe you when you say for the last time, "No, I don't have any weapons."

Hussein was a murderous dictator who needed to be put down, sure, but I look at the situation in Iraq today and can't help but admit that the stability and order maintained by his regime was ultimately a good thing.

 

[Ripclawe]

A European diplomat reported that Jacques Baute, head of the I.A.E.A.'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 they ever returned.

By late 2003, diplomats said, I.A.E.A. 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 I.A.E.A. seals on bunker doors and moved most of the HMX to nearby fields, where it would have been lightly camouflaged - and ripe for looting

You can't move that amount of explosives(350 tonnes) without someone knowing via sat pics or word of mouth. There is more to the story than a ridiculous conclusion that no one did anything and everything went poof.

 

[MadOdorMachine]

It has already been shown that Iraq complied with the UN and, for all intents and purposes, already disarmed. Unfortunately, when you've been a lying bad guy for as long as he has been, no one's going to believe you when you say for the last time, "No, I don't have any weapons."

Hussein was a murderous dictator who needed to be put down, sure, but I look at the situation in Iraq today and can't help but admit that the stability and order maintained by his regime was ultimately a good thing.

Really? Then how come the inspectors found new missiles in Iraq that exceeded the boundaries made by the UN just before the war started?

 

[MIMIC]

So if he wasn't a threat explain the 380 tons of explosives that are missing?

Uh, the site was under the IAEA. You know...the guys who had Iraq under tight wraps before Bush kicked them out.

Chaos later ensued.

From your same post -
Interviews with the toppled leader and other former Iraqi officials made it clear that Saddam had not lost his ambition to pursue weapons of mass destruction and hoped to revive his weapons program if U.N. sanctions were lifted, his report said.

When, exactly, were sanctions going to be lifted?

Really? Then how come the inspectors found new missiles in Iraq that exceeded the boundaries made by the UN just before the war started?

Why did Iraq destroy them?

 

[Justin Bailey]

What's the difference between Vietnam and Iraq?

Spoiler

Bush had a plan for getting out of Vietnam.

 

[Outlaw Pro Mod]

And think - we still have about 9 days until the election.

This definitely isn't good news if completely accurate. Gonna let the dust settle a couple of days to see what comes of it.

 

[mashoutposse]

So if he wasn't a threat explain the 380 tons of explosives that are missing?

At least we knew where they were when he was in power. Hence the notion that his regime could be considered a better alternative to the relative anarchy present today.

From your same post -
Interviews with the toppled leader and other former Iraqi officials made it clear that Saddam had not lost his ambition to pursue weapons of mass destruction and hoped to revive his weapons program if U.N. sanctions were lifted, his report said.

“What is clear is that Saddam retained his notions of use of force and had experiences that demonstrated the utility of WMD,” Duelfer told the Senate Armed Services Committee

Something tells me that the US would have ranked surprisingly low on his list of targets. His previous actions suggest that his main interest was the take over of certain entities in his immediate vicinity (real chances for success; very real upside), and not to wage a ridiculous war with a far stronger opponent halfway around the world (extremely difficult; no clear motive).

 

[MadOdorMachine]

Why did Iraq destroy them?

I see where you're going with that. The fact of the matter is that he built those weapons after 1991, behind the worlds back and against UN regulations. He destroyed them because he was under pressure and being threatened of invasion. There's no telling what else he made during that time as well. The missiles are proof that he had no intention of stopping. They were jerking us around when we asked them to release the documents and at the last minute before their deadline, they released only a fraction of what was requested. They were playing us trying to buy their time to prepare. What we're seeing in Iraq today from these Saddam loyalists was probably planned out before the war ever started.

 

[mashoutposse]

I see where you're going with that. The fact of the matter is that he built those weapons after 1991, behind the worlds back and against UN regulations. He destroyed them because he was under pressure and being threatened of invasion.

Sounds like we had him in check.

 

[Fatghost]

I see where you're going with that. The fact of the matter is that he built those weapons after 1991, behind the worlds back and against UN regulations. He destroyed them because he was under pressure and being threatened of invasion. There's no telling what else he made during that time as well. The missiles are proof that he had no intention of stopping. They were jerking us around when we asked them to release the documents and at the last minute before their deadline, they released only a fraction of what was requested. They were playing us trying to buy their time to prepare. What we're seeing in Iraq today from these Saddam loyalists was probably planned out before the war ever started.

Even if...IF you're right, 350 tons of explosives in the hands of one carefully watched and largely marginalized dictator who's primary motivation is maintaining control in his own country is a better situation than 350 tons of explosives in the hands of hundreds of terrorists that we can't see who are intent on destroying civilized society at all costs.

 

[MIMIC]

I see where you're going with that. The fact of the matter is that he built those weapons after 1991, behind the worlds back and against UN regulations. He destroyed them because he was under pressure and being threatened of invasion. There's no telling what else he made during that time as well. The missiles are proof that he had no intention of stopping. They were jerking us around when we asked them to release the documents and at the last minute before their deadline, they released only a fraction of what was requested. They were playing us trying to buy their time to prepare. What we're seeing in Iraq today from these Saddam loyalists was probably planned out before the war ever started.

BTW, those missiles weren't why we invaded.

We invaded because he was apparently a threat to the UNITED STATES.

 

[ShadowRed]

You can't move that amount of explosives(350 tonnes) without someone knowing via sat pics or word of mouth. There is more to the story than a ridiculous conclusion that no one did anything and everything went poof.

LOL oh shit the irony. Now you want to use logic when it it suits your purposes. I and others were saying the same thing about the WMD that you and other pro war people where ranting about being moved into Syria and other places.

 

[mashoutposse]

LOL oh shit the irony. Now you want to use logic when it it suits your purposes. I and others were saying the same thing about the WMD that you and other pro war people where ranting about being moved into Syria and other places.

LOL, you're right.

 

[MadOdorMachine]

Something tells me that the US would have ranked surprisingly low on his list of targets. His previous actions suggest that his main interest was the take over of certain entities in his immediate vicinity (real chances for success; very real upside), and not to wage a ridiculous war with a far stronger opponent halfway around the world (extremely difficult; no clear motive).

After the Gulf War, he had no direct targets. He would have to be pretty dumb and have a death wish to try and attack another country directly. It was indirect targets we were concerned about; giving WMD to terrorists which we thought he had the capability of doing. You know, I hope you're right and Bush was wrong and this whole thing is just a big conspiracy made up by the Bush administartion. I hope Saddam destroyed his weapons and didn't give them to terrorists or another country. I just need proof to accept the fact that someone like Saddam would just give it all up. Just because we didn't find WMD doesn't mean he didn't have them.

 

[MIMIC]

LOL oh shit the irony. Now you want to use logic when it it suits your purposes. I and others were saying the same thing about the WMD that you and other pro war people where ranting about being moved into Syria and other places.

:lol

 

[MadOdorMachine]

Sounds like we had him in check.

Kind of like we had him in check from 1991 to 2002? I'm not saying that Bush is perfect and he did everything right, but at least he's trying and not letting these guys do whatever they want. The intelligence they had obviously told them Iraq was a threat. Even John Kerry agreed to go to war with them. The fact that Saddam was buying his time before the invasion and the fact that these weapons are missing isn't a coincedence to me. This is exactly what the terrorists and Saddam loyalists want.

 

[Azih]

As for those missiles, they were tested without any payload, so their range did exceed the UN mandated maximum of 150 km, IF THEY HAD NO EXPLOSIVES ON THEM.

The missiles were never tested with a payload so you can't use them as any sort of a smoking gun at all.

 

[Azih]

The fact that Saddam was buying his time before the invasion and the fact that these weapons are missing isn't a coincedence to me. This is exactly what the terrorists and Saddam loyalists want.

Well yes, this *is* what terrorists want, but that hardly says anything about whose fault it was that they got what they wanted. The site should have been guarded.

Edit: I mean the U.S army is in charge of the country. And this was a known facility.

 

[MadOdorMachine]

As for those missiles, they were tested without any payload, so their range did exceed the UN mandated maximum of 150 km, IF THEY HAD NO EXPLOSIVES ON THEM.

The missiles were never tested with a payload so you can't use them as any sort of a smoking gun at all.

Apparently they had at least 350 tons of payload.

 

[Azih]

not from the articles I'm reading. The Iraqi counterclaim was never verified because you know, the U.N inspectors had to leave because the invasion started.

http://64.233.161.104/search?q=cach....edu/~blakesle/opensource/white-paper-WMD.pdf

 

[Zaptruder]

Kind of like we had him in check from 1991 to 2002? I'm not saying that Bush is perfect and he did everything right, but at least he's trying and not letting these guys do whatever they want. The intelligence they had obviously told them Iraq was a threat. Even John Kerry agreed to go to war with them. The fact that Saddam was buying his time before the invasion and the fact that these weapons are missing isn't a coincedence to me. This is exactly what the terrorists and Saddam loyalists want.

Kerry agreed to go to war, under the pretense that Bush was going to wait for real proof and for multilateral support (when real proof was found).

If proof had been found before invasion, I don't think anyone would be disagreeing with this war. But the hastiness, the veil of lies and just everything else has caused this to be one gigantic fuck up. And the fact that weapons haven't been found... well the world is just getting more pissed off really. Why does that matter? Because the world includes extremist muslim fundamentalists.

 

[MadOdorMachine]

Well yes, this *is* what terrorists want, but that hardly says anything about whose fault it was that they got what they wanted. The site should have been guarded.

Edit: I mean the U.S army is in charge of the country. And this was a known facility.

They've been getting what they wanted since the Carter administration. The Bush administration is the first one to actually do something about it. The terrorists only have to be right once, we have to be right all of the time. It says in that NYTimes report that they assume the weapons were moved just before the war started. People are always quick to put the blame on someone. You can blame who you want, but I think Bush is doing what he thinks is in this countries best interest.

 

[Incognito]

It is apparently widely believed within the US government that those looted explosives are what in many, perhaps most, cases is being used in car bombs and suicide attacks against US troops. That is, according to TPM sources and sources quoted in this evening's Nelson Report, where the story first broke.

One administration official told Nelson, "This is the stuff the bad guys have been using to kill our troops, so you can’t ignore the political implications of this, and you would be correct to suspect that politics, or the fear of politics, played a major role in delaying the release of this information."

In response to questions about whether the material might have been smuggled out of Iraq, another source told Nelson, "It’s still in Iraq, and this is the most likely primary source of the explosives which have been used to blow up Humvees and in all the deadly car bomb attacks since the Occupation began.”

As I've noted, the White House and the Pentagon have known for more than a year that this stuff had gone missing. But the White House, according to TPM sources, has known that this story was coming for at least ten days. Again, not just the underlying facts -- that the stuff had been stolen and was being used against American troops (they've known that for more than a year) -- but the fact that this story was going to break in the not too distant future. And they've been going to great lengths to try to push it back until after the election.

As another administration source told Nelson, "What the hell were WE doing in the year and a half from the time we knew the stuff was gone, is obviously a huge question, and you can imagine why no one [in the Administration] wants to face up to it, certainly not before the election."

Another told Nelson, "You would be correct to suspect that politics, or the fear of politics, played a major role in delaying the release of this information."

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/

simply unbeilevable... gross incompetence and dishonesty. the whitehouse has been sitting on this for a fucking year!!

 

[Incognito]

 

[videogamer]

It would be better if they counted the number of times each individual said those things and omitted non-administration people.

 

[Shinobi]

What's the difference between Vietnam and Iraq?

Spoiler

Bush had a plan for getting out of Vietnam.

*chuckle*

LOL oh shit the irony. Now you want to use logic when it it suits your purposes. I and others were saying the same thing about the WMD that you and other pro war people where ranting about being moved into Syria and other places.

Kind of like we had him in check from 1991 to 2002? I'm not saying that Bush is perfect and he did everything right, but at least he's trying and not letting these guys do whatever they want. The intelligence they had obviously told them Iraq was a threat. Even John Kerry agreed to go to war with them. The fact that Saddam was buying his time before the invasion and the fact that these weapons are missing isn't a coincedence to me. This is exactly what the terrorists and Saddam loyalists want.

First of all, who the fuck did Saddam invade between 1991 and 2002?

Second of all, it's wrong for Saddam to do whatever he wants, but it's okay for Bush?

Third of all, the "intelligence" was atrocious...accept that fact and move on.

And fourth, the UN inspectors were the people trying to buy time. The US, secure in their "intelligence", decided they didn't want to wait that long.

 

[Keio]

I'm not saying that Bush is perfect and he did everything right, but at least he's trying and not letting these guys do whatever they want.

Yeah, he's really tough on proliferation! Except that during his watch Iran and North Korea are going nuclear. Since 1991, Saddam was contained, he didn't even have practical means to project conventional power beyond his own borders and his army was in a sorry state, but look who Bush decided to target!

The looting of 350 tonnes of high explosive makes the disappearance of potential WMD manufacturing technologies even more disturbing: if the former ended up in wrong hands, what about the latter. Ouch.

edit - what is HMX? "a development of RDX, HMX is the military's most powerful conventional (non-nuclear) explosive." Ouch again. Less than one pound was used to bring down Pan Am Flight 103. The terrorists hit the mother lode, all thanks to Bush.

 

[MIMIC]

What's the difference between Vietnam and Iraq?

Spoiler

Bush had a plan for getting out of Vietnam.

I just got that.

 

[xsarien]

You can blame who you want, but I think Bush is doing what he thinks is in this countries best interest.

Well, bravo for him. Maybe someone needs to tell him that despite what he believes, he's actually making the situation worse.

 

[Christoff Yurievich]

LOL oh shit the irony. Now you want to use logic when it it suits your purposes. I and others were saying the same thing about the WMD that you and other pro war people where ranting about being moved into Syria and other places.

a beautiful post. Do we get a rebuttal? I want to see the rebuttal to this one... :lol

 

[BigGreenMat]

It is really incredible that pro-war junkies are able to hold their rationale despite incredibly mounting evidence about the fallacies and follies that resulted in the situation we are in now. I tell you that cognitive dissonance study was right on the money. These people are completely blind. If you supported the war initially fine, admit it say it hasn't worked out well and that mistakes were made. Don't try to act like everything is ok and gone to plan and you were 'right'. One thing has shown to be incredibly wrong and that is every single reason Bush and his cronies have given for going to war outside of 'well Sadam is a bad man and could have hurt somebody, somewhere, somehow', and even that is incredibly faulty.

JUST ADMIT IT! WE SCREWED UP! WE SCREWED UP BIG TIME!

 

[Phoenix]

is 'them' the US government? Your post confuzzled me a bit.

Yes.

 

[Phoenix]

After the Gulf War, he had no direct targets. He would have to be pretty dumb and have a death wish to try and attack another country directly. It was indirect targets we were concerned about; giving WMD to terrorists which we thought he had the capability of doing.

And that's fine. If we knew he was doing this a preemptive attack would be more than justified. The problem is that we didn't really do due dillegence and find out with certainty. That is a fault of government officials across the board.

You know, I hope you're right and Bush was wrong and this whole thing is just a big conspiracy made up by the Bush administartion. I hope Saddam destroyed his weapons and didn't give them to terrorists or another country. I just need proof to accept the fact that someone like Saddam would just give it all up.

Someone like Saddam? Now you have to ask yourself. Since you don't know the man, have likely never met the man, nor know what lurks within his mind - why is it so much easier to accept that he had to have the weapons as opposed to having destroyed them. One must keep an open mind about this and not buy into the story fed to us from either side. If the only thing you know about Saddam is the information that's been give to you, how can you take a 'strong' stance either way?

Just because we didn't find WMD doesn't mean he didn't have them.

Its impossible to prove either way at this point, but all signs at the moment point to him not having them.