What else can you call allowing 380 tons of high explosives to go missing?
The Iraqi interim government has warned the United States and international nuclear inspectors that nearly 380 tons of powerful conventional explosives — used to demolish buildings, produce missile warheads and detonate nuclear weapons — are missing from one of Iraq’s most sensitive former military installations.
The huge facility, called Al Qaqaa, was supposed to be under American military control but is now a no-man’s land, still picked over by looters as recently as Sunday. United Nations weapons inspectors had monitored the explosives for many years, but White House and Pentagon officials acknowledge that the explosives vanished after the American invasion last year.
Tracking the Weapons: Huge Cache of Explosives Vanished From Site in Iraq
What are the odds that these explosives are among those being used to murder coalition forces? Given the administration’s record, I’m sure somebody will be held accountable for this colossal screw-up.
October 25, 2004 at 11:10 PM
Amazing how quickly you all post this piece of news! Equally amazing how conveniently
you all didn’t notice that the date this stuff disappeared was before we got there.
Perhaps you should update this info, no? Or does it not fit your agenda?
October 26, 2004 at 12:05 AM
J. Krogman:
From the BBC’s timeline of Iraq’s history from 1920 to August 2004:
From the Boston Globe:
(Emphasis mine)
The April 9, 2003 date is cited in the letter sent by an Iraqi official to nuclear inspectors. A scan of this document is linked at the NYT story.
The United States forces reached central Baghdad on April 9, 2003. The munitions, stored in the Al-Qaqaa facility 30 miles south of Baghdad, disappeared after April 9, 2003. The United States military was (or should have been) aware of the existence and importance of the facility because it was among those watched by the IAEA as part of the sanction and inspection regimes, but it apparently went unguarded.
Thanks for getting me to update the info!