Ok, so now that we know the HMX WAS there

[Kelly the Dog]

You'll likely see it tomorrow if you haven't seen it already today. There was an embedded reporter from (I believe) KTSP in Minneapolis, that went with some US troops through that very infamous al Qaqaa munitions dump on April 18th, a full week after the war and the other troops were there, and lo and behold, they cut open boxes and boxes of HMX explosives that had been sealed by the UN and inside for all to see were, indeed, the explosives in question. I saw part of the tape myself, along with the reporter who was actually there. He said the only explosives that were under seal were those particular kind, and you could see the troops cutting through locks and seals and the trip wires used by the UN. You saw rows and rows and rows of boxes of explosives. He said no one was around, although they did see Iraqis on pck-up trucks prowling, obviously looking for things to plunder. Granted, the rows and rows doesn't prove all (now apparently)360 tons of explosives were still there. But you could see "tons" of them, and there wasn't a lot of reason to think the rest or most of the rest werent there too.

 

Here is a story about the video.

http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?t...storyID=6651894

[blzrul]

They're already saying "well yeah but we found and destroyed a lot of explosives"....as if 760,000 pounds of explosives is nothing.

 

Here's a link to some photos and the video. Hard to deny your eyes. In particular my eyes bugged out as I recognized my friend's son - or someone who's his spitting image - from the 101st Airborne, who I intend to contact if I can for a little more info. I'm pretty sure it's him, he got out sometime this past spring so the timing was right.

 

link

[SilverNRed]

Or maybe not.

[Kelly the Dog]

Or maybe not.

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This article answers those questions pretty clear. Excluding the Pentagon pictures which the Pentagon itself says proves absolutely nothing.

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/29/politics...artner=homepage

 

Furthermore, to easily refute the main crux of that article you posted, that the boxes in question that were found may not have held HMX but some other materials, the report I saw said that the IAEA put ONLY the HMX under seal at that site. And the video clearly showed the seal on the boxes.

[SilverNRed]

This article answers those questions pretty clear. Excluding the Pentagon pictures which the Pentagon itself says proves absolutely nothing.

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/29/politics...artner=homepage

 

Furthermore, to easily refute the main crux of that article you posted, that the boxes in question that were found may not have held HMX but some other materials, the report I saw said that the IAEA put ONLY the HMX under seal at that site. And the video clearly showed the seal on the boxes.

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In other words....conflicting reports.

 

It's still not conclusive. What exactly was in those boxes and how much of it was there? How would 'looters' move that much explosives and to where? Is there evidence the explosives in question have been used against our troops yet? I don't think there is and that might indicate that they weren't hijacked by 'insurgents.' Also, why not just find someone from the 101st and just ask them? Hannity and Colmes (a horrible show) had someone from the 101st last night and he claimed they didn't find anything when he was there. Was he lying? Ill-informed? Maybe. And here's a crazy idea, why doesn't the mainstream media actually prove its stories before they are published, rather than try to support them days later? Oh, because they're rushing these things out there in the last week before the election.

 

From your link:

The Pentagon also notes that it has destroyed 400,000 tons of munitions from thousands of sites across Iraq, and that the explosives at Al Qaqaa account for "one-tenth of 1 percent" of that amount.

 

So that's the big deal? That's the big campaign issue now?

 

Good grief, huge mistakes are made in *every* war. This isn't the Battle of the Bulge or Pearl Harbor, people.

[Kelly the Dog]

In other words....conflicting reports.

 

It's still not conclusive.  What exactly was in those boxes and how much of it was there?  How would 'looters' move that much explosives and to where?  Is there evidence the explosives in question have been used against our troops yet?  I don't think there is and that might indicate that they weren't hijacked by 'insurgents.'  Also, why not just find someone from the 101st and just ask them?  Hannity and Colmes (a horrible show) had someone from the 101st last night and he claimed they didn't find anything when he was there.  Was he lying?  Ill-informed?  Maybe.  And here's a crazy idea, why doesn't the mainstream media actually prove its stories before they are published, rather than try to support them days later?  Oh, because they're rushing these things out there in the last week before the election.

 

From your link:

So that's the big deal?  That's the big campaign issue now?

 

Good grief, huge mistakes are made in *every* war.  This isn't the Battle of the Bulge or Pearl Harbor, people.

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What is conflicting about those reports? The guy from your article postulated that there could be several different kinds of explosives with a certain marking on them that were on the boxes from the video. But he didnt explain that not only was HMX the only kind of explosive that had the IAEA seals on them (so it must have been the HMX and not other explosives), and these boxes of explosives did, but that David Kay and the other weapons guys that watched the tape said those explosives were identical to the pictures of the explosives that the IAEA has of those dumps. There isn't any conflicting reports, there is only your article's attempt at refuting something and his attempt refuted.

 

The article also debunks that accusation that the ABC story showed that some tons were removed previously. That was apparently not the case and a clear explanation was given for why that wasn't the case by the IAEA. They weren't accusations that needed to be disproven, or conflicting reports, it was the jumping to conclusions you're accusing the media of (in this case that the ABC news report on documents was proof that some munitions were moved. Those documents were not proof.)

[SilverNRed]

More

 

WASHINGTON - The infantry commander whose troops first captured the Iraqi weapons depot where 377 tons of explosives disappeared said Wednesday it is "very highly improbable" that someone could have trucked out so much material once U.S. forces arrived in the area.

 

Two major roads that pass near the Al-Qaqaa installation were filled with U.S. military traffic in the weeks after April 3, 2003, when U.S. troops first reached the area, said Col. David Perkins. He commanded the 2nd Brigade of the 3rd Infantry Division, the division that led the charge into Baghdad.

 

Perkins and others in the military acknowledged that some looting at the site had taken place. But he said a large-scale operation to remove the explosives using trucks almost certainly would have been detected.

 

Perkins described Iraq as littered with weapons and Al-Qaqaa as one munitions depot among many. Many other depots his forces found had been cleaned out, with weapons scattered, presumably so they would not be destroyed by airstrikes.

 

Plenty of questions left. And, again, why is this a story?

[SilverNRed]

More

[Terry Tate]

In particular my eyes bugged out as I recognized my friend's son - or someone who's his spitting image - from the 101st Airborne, who I intend to contact if I can for a little more info.  I'm pretty sure it's him, he got out sometime this past spring so the timing was right. 

 

link

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What six degrees of separation? With you, it's more like one. Seems like every other post of yours is peppered with a friend or a relative who's intimately involved with whatever current event is taking place in the world.

 

I swear, they ought to transfer you to missing persons.

[SilverNRed]

Paula Zahn hits The New York Times with friendly fire....

 

Transcript

 

ZAHN: Let's check in with Michael for a moment here.

 

What do you make of these highly conflicting stories? You hear Dean's account. We know the date is on that tape. It's encrypted on the tape. So, on one hand, that would seem to indicate that some of those weapons were there after the war began, and yet, the Pentagon today releases a satellite photo that they claim was taken two days before the war got under way showing activity which appear to be trucks perhaps maybe moving some of these materials away from the site.

 

MICHAEL LYSOBEY, FORMER WEAPONS INSPECTOR: Well, the materials at that site or the materials that I saw in the video are not necessarily the HMX, which is the high explosive used in a nuclear implosion device.

 

What we saw in the tape were a bunch of barrels and a bunch of explosive caps. Al Qa Qaa is an explosives facility. So that's what we'd expect to see. The explosives that we're worried about, we don't know. This isn't definitive proof that those explosives were there.

[nobody]

We all know that the video filmed 9 days after the fall of Bagdad showing the munitions still there was filmed on a soundstage on the moon. Lies, lies, flip flop, flip flop!

[Paco]

Thank God this ammo came up missing.

 

It gives Kerry something to talk about since he's obviously done telling everyone why he'd make a great president.

[nobody]

Thank God this ammo came up missing.

 

It gives Kerry something to talk about...

 

 

The last week of campaigns is usually just get out and vote speeches.

[Gavin in Va Beach]

Thank God this ammo came up missing.

 

It gives Kerry something to talk about since he's obviously done telling everyone why he'd make a great president.

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[sarcasm]What really sold Kerry for me was the campaigning he did on all the wonderful things he accomplished during his time in the Senate...[/sarcasm]

[Paco]

[sarcasm]What really sold Kerry for me was the campaigning he did on all the wonderful things he accomplished during his time in the Senate...[/sarcasm]

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Kerry served in the Senate?

[nobody]

Proof that sound-byte campaigning works.

[erynthered]

Kerry served in the Senate?

90875[/snapback]

 

What did he do there?

[Alaska Darin]

Let me preface by saying I haven't seen the tape.

 

Once again, people are trying to blame the President for something that has AT LEAST 15 levels of bureaucracy before it would ever get to his desk. You could put the guy in charge of the agency (pick the right one, I'll give you a dollar), make him President, and this stevestojan would still happen.

 

Our government is so big it's apparently impossible for people to understand. This situation is just more proof that no matter how much money we spend annually (current year: $2,500,000,000,000.00) things will be screwed up at the lowest level.

[SilverNRed]

Let me preface by saying I haven't seen the tape.

 

Once again, people are trying to blame the President for something that has AT LEAST 15 levels of bureaucracy before it would ever get to his desk.  You could put the guy in charge of the agency (pick the right one, I'll give you a dollar), make him President, and this stevestojan would still happen.

 

Our government is so big it's apparently impossible for people to understand.  This situation is just more proof that no matter how much money we spend annually (current year: $2,500,000,000,000.00) things will be screwed up at the lowest level.

91079[/snapback]

 

What? You mean the President wasn't directly commanding both the 3ID and 101st at Al QaQaa last April? That's nuts, you'd think someone who only had experience in TANG would be very hands on when it comes to planning the invasion of Iraq.

[SilverNRed]

And from Drudge:

 

FLASH 10.29.01 11:36:56 ET /// Soldier to brief reporters at Pentagon within the hour that he was tasked with removing explosives from al Qaqaa and he and his unit removed 200+ tons... Developing...

 

Let's see if Drudge can go 2 for 2 this week with big stories....