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October 29, 2004
| U.S. Forces Removed Iraq Explosives From Al-Qaqaa

Bloomberg reports that U.S. forces removed as much as 250 tons of ordnance from al-Qaqaa:

Major Austin Pearson, a 3rd Infantry Division officer who led operations at the al-Qaqaa site, said at a Pentagon briefing that he removed explosives from bunkers that were open and accessible. He didn’t see any seals that the International Atomic Energy Agency had placed on bunkers with more than 350 tons of explosives.

“My mission was to minimize the exposure of U.S. forces by taking out what was readily available,” said Pearson, who was at al-Qaqaa on April 13, 2003. “I did not see any IAEA seals. I was not looking for that.”



Posted by Dan Spencer at October 29, 2004 04:16 PM | TrackBack
Comments

I saw Major Pearson’s interview.

What I found interesting is that during his time in Iraq, he personally suervised the destruction of 7,000 tons of munitions. This is 20 times the amount under discussion.

Did the Mainstream Media pay any attention to this? No, where’s the mising 350 tons?

Dunces!

Posted by: patch [TypeKey Profile Page] at October 30, 2004 12:23 AM

patch,

>>What I found interesting is that during his time in Iraq, he personally suervised the destruction of 7,000 tons of munitions. This is 20 times the amount under discussion.

Posted by: bbbeard [TypeKey Profile Page] at October 30, 2004 04:07 AM

patch,

>>What I found interesting is that during his time in Iraq, he personally suervised the destruction of 7,000 tons of munitions. This is 20 times the amount under discussion.<<

That’s not how I heard it, it’s even worse. The transcript says Pearson said, “And at the time, when this was all going on, my high water mark of ammunition — because it went up and down as I destroyed ammunition — was over 7,000 tons of ammunition at the captured ammunition holding area at Dogwood. ” I think that means that on ANY GIVEN DAY, as much as 7,000 tons of munitions were sitting under his control, waiting to be destroyed. But over the period of many weeks in which he did this (the transcript is unclear on this), his unit destroyed much much more than 7000 tons. So it’s even worse than you propose. The NYTimes is all aquiver over an amount of explosive less than 5% of the daily toll at LSA Dogwood. (And that’s crediting the entire “377 tons” that is now in dispute).

BTW transcript URL is

http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A9329-2004Oct29?language=printer

BBB
.

Posted by: bbbeard [TypeKey Profile Page] at October 30, 2004 04:08 AM

sorry about the double (now triple) post; the “preview” didn’t work like I thought it should….

BBB

Posted by: bbbeard [TypeKey Profile Page] at October 30, 2004 04:08 AM

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