The Command Post - 2004 US Presidential Election

October 27, 2004

Bush | Al Qaqaa roundup

From No Check of Bunker, Unit Commander Says:

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…

…”We happened to stumble on it,” he said. “I didn’t know what the place was supposed to be. We did not get involved in any of the bunkers. It was not our mission. It was not our focus. We were just stopping there on our way to Baghdad. The plan was to leave that very same day. The plan was not to go in there and start searching. It looked like all the other ammunition supply points we had seen already.”…

…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…

…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.”

Other reports:

10/26/04’s Al-Qaqaa spokesman says no weapons search has similar comments from the spokesman for the same unit.

10/26/04’s Timing of theft of explosives a mystery: Army officials told NBC News on condition of anonymity that troops from the Army’s 3rd Infantry did not arrive at Al-Qaqaa until April 4, finding “looters everywhere” carrying what they could out on their backs. The troops searched bunkers and found conventional weapons but no high explosives, the officials said. Six days later, the 101st Airborne Division arrived. Neither group was specifically searching for HMX or RDX, and the complex is so large — with more than 1,000 buildings — that it is not clear that the troops even saw the bunkers that might have held the explosives. The Iraq Survey Group discovered that the stockpiles of HMX and RDX were missing on May 27, seven weeks after the last visit by U.S. troops.

10/26/04’s Embedded Reporter Saw No Explosives Search: “There wasn’t a search,” [NBC Dateline reporter Lai Ling Jew] 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.

10/26/04’s Paula Zahn: talks to former assistant Secretary of State Jamie Rubin, now a foreign policy adviser to the Kerry campaign, and Dan Senor, the former spokesman for the Coalition Provisional Authority now representing the Bush campaign about this issue.

AP’s 10/25/04 Timeline on missing explosives in Iraq

10/06/04’s Outside Baghdad, lawlessness haunts a small Iraqi town: The insurgents probably are using weapons and ammunition looted from the nearby Qa-Qaa complex, a 3-mile by 3-mile weapons-storage facility about 25 miles southwest of Baghdad, said Maj. Brian Neil, operations officer for the 2nd Battalion, 2nd Marine Regiment, which initially patrolled the area. The facility was bombed during last year’s invasion and then left unguarded, Neil said. “There’s definitely no shortage of weapons around here,” he said.

April 5, 2003’s Banned Iraqi Weapons Might Be Hard to Find briefly describes items found at al Qaqaa.

Earlier links in “White House Downplays Missing Iraq Explosives”.

Posted by Lonewacko at October 27, 2004 04:13 AM | TrackBack

Comments

…psssst 380 tons..during a war..down mostly deserted streets..with army tanks ..jets over head..
..still haven`t heard anything about the “very large craters in the area”..oh yeh back to the 380 tons..if any at all..read previous statment..trucks mostly used in the area haul roughly 10,000 lbs..after kicking my shoes off and some `sifering thats 38 trucks..now..come on..talk about having a Deaniac moment..this “STORY” reeecks of rotten fish..talking about hunting for anything to run on.. then this….
http://www.washtimes.com/world/20041027-121030-7792r.htm
..if anyone had any grand illusion that Kerry would hunt down and kill the terrorist..these guy`s hope he can pull it off..sorry that aint going to happen..but this says allot..they know Kerry is a waffler..weak..and will beg for UN participation..W puts fear in these murders ..they know he will hunt them down and bring their reign of terror to justice…

Posted by: Rob_NC at October 27, 2004 08:21 AM

“oh yeh back to the 380 tons..if any at all..read previous statment..trucks mostly used in the area haul roughly 10,000 lbs..after kicking my shoes off and some `sifering thats 38 trucks.”

Next time take your socks off, too.

It’s 76 trucks.

Posted by: Spoons at October 27, 2004 08:48 AM

Or maybe 2 trucks making 5 trips a day (or night) for a little over a week.

Or maybe no trucks, and 380 people making ten trips a day (or night) for ten days (20 pounds per trip).

Or maybe one truck making 2 trips per day, plus ten cars making 4 trips per day (500 lbs/trip), plus 100 people making 10 trips per day for a little less than two weeks.

If there’s nobody there to say exactly how it went, the possibilities are endless.

Posted by: James at October 27, 2004 01:44 PM

Yup. You’re right, James. Including one long freakin’ convoy to Syria before we got there.

BTW - What happened to all the WMDs that Saddam had? You know… The ones EVERYONE (including the idiot U.N. Inspectors) said he had?

Do you suppose they got ‘disappeared’ just like these supposedly did?

That’s why YOUR endless variations on the common theme of ‘It’s all President Bush’s fault’ are totally worthless and disingenuous. As is your boy’s accusing the military of ineptitude. He did that 34 years ago, and has been proven to be a freakin’ LIAR.

So, <b<James, my man. You got anything more than weak hypotheses?

Posted by: Cap'n DOC at October 27, 2004 03:02 PM

As is your boy’s accusing the military of ineptitude.

That seems to be the latest desperate spin attempt, doesn’t it. However, I believe Kerry is only discussing the ineptitude of the administration, not of the military.

Posted by: Lonewacko at October 27, 2004 04:37 PM

I’m just not sure what it takes to make those folks that want to spit on our Veterans, happy. (you know, the Kerry lovers) Is there someone out there stupid enough to put their name on a comment and say the Kerry could do a better job than what we’ve seen in Iraq? If so, I’d like to see this grand exposure of a fool.

Posted by: No Party at October 27, 2004 06:02 PM

Lonewacko I sure hope you ain’t speakin’ for James, because his argument is no stronger than a thrice-used Teabag.

But I give you far more credit for at least attempting to explain the spin applied by Kerry to this fiasco. If he wants to pin it on the President, fine, but he hasn’t. He wants to pin it on our troops for somehow ‘missing’ the proper accounting for crap the IAEA already said was missing - in part.

I keep hearin’ the tune “I think we got us a CONVOY’ for some reason. What was taken (which is being called ‘volatile’), is far from being that in the form in which it was stored. Better that the looters go for the loose artillery shell than this crap anyway.

Hell, I used to cook with C4…

Posted by: Cap'n DOC at October 27, 2004 08:25 PM