HMX and RDX explosives for everyone!

That's just a bunch of scapegoating and CYA (cover your ass) going on.

But that article does state specifically that the US knew about the explosives before going to war with Iraq. We knew about them since 1995.

Regardless of what decisions the UN made about letting Iraq keep them or not, the US knew about them when going into war, and is responsible for them getting into the hands of the terrorists. Iraq, the UN, the IAEA was able to keep the explosives from getting stolen before we invaded.

This is the type of crap people are getting sick of. The US doesn't want to own up to any responsibility when something goes wrong. Instead we hear crap like "The war was won too fast." or "the UN shoulda got rid of them" What the hell is that? My little sister can do better with excuses.

 

This is a great article that has some interesting points the history of the storage site and the develpment of the story in the media.

http://www.slate.com/id/2108771/

While I'm growing more convinced that the IAEA is partly to blame, some people here are making it sound like its their job to guard the site. The IAEA inspects the sites too check whether then have been tampered with, but their job is not to prevent people from tampering with them. They don't stand outside keeping a 24 hour armed guard.

 

Point,

Thanks for posting that...

Another article floating around now is stating that Russian Special Ops also played a part in the "disappearance" of the explosives... I mean we've heard over and over "there is no WMD's in Iraq", and then components needed to build said WMD's keep being located in Iraq... Who's lying here? Who knows...?

Sera

When Charles Duelfer released the final WMD Reports on Iraq, he was cheered by the masses of anti-Bush people here in the US and abroad for being honest about the situation. Now that he agrees with the current administration on the explosives issue its "CYA"...

Like the old saying goes "timing is everything." When you look at the strategic timing of the release of this information who do you really believe is behind this?

This is partisan politics at its worst, Senator Kerry better hope this October surprise of his doesn’t turn into his November demise.

Sighs...

 

I understand very well the strategic timing of the issue. I am aware of all the games played around election time. It is October of an election year. My propaganda filter is running doubletime.

I was simply arguing that the UN was not responsible for the protection or loss of the explosives during our war, like another poster had implied.

"The chief American weapons inspector, Charles Duelfer, told The New York Sun yesterday that in 1995, when he was a member of the U.N. inspections team in Iraq, he urged the United Nations’ atomic watchdog to remove tons of explosives that have since been declared missing."


I wasn't talking against Duelfer. This is a straight fact. In 95 Duelfer urged the UN to remove the explosives. The UN didn't agree, but watched them.

The CYA and scapegoating I was talking about is when you use a fact like this to try and imply that it made th UN somehow responsible for us making a decision to go to war with, and not being able to secure explosives before they were looted.

Really, what Duelfer's quote tells me is that we majorily messed up on this one. We had known and been concerned about these explosives since 1995, why wern't they a priority to secure? Shouldn't something like that be considered in the planning of a war? Surely we could have taken some measure. And if we didn't, or our measure wasn't good enough, it was still our screw-up.

But you are right, the timing of the article is no coincidence.

 

Have you people gave any thought that the American goverment let the explosives fall into the wrong hands. I would not be surprised if they actually helped them fall in the hands of the so called enemy. This helps the goverment to be able to keep control and gives them and excuse to do what they want, in the so called guise to protect the homeland. We need terrorist and so called enemies to keep the machine running.

 

Just wanted to make sure we were on the same page here. I also find it very troubling, that this was reported to the UN and IAEA in 1995 and NO action was taken. But, then again we had Slick Willy in office then; his only concern was avoiding the Hillary, and playing pocket pool with interns...


This is the way I see it, lets place the blame where it belongs, the Clinton administration for not pressuring the UN to shit or get off the pot in 1995, the Bush administration for not taking the appropriate measures to secure this site sooner, Senator Kerry for using this as a political weapon, and the UN for turning a blind eye to the situation while the Oil for Guns Program( ) was ongoing ...

Politics as usual.

 

The explosives WERE there, and there is videotape to PROVE IT.

A reporter from KSTP-TV Minneapolis/St.Paul was "embedded" with the 101st airborne during the invasion of Iraq, and shot video of the unit uncovering the explosives cache, cutting off the locks and IAEA security seals, THEN LEAVING THE SITE UNPROTECTED!

http://www.kstp.com/article/stories/S3723.html?cat=1

, so if that is your "only point", then your post was completely POINTLESS!

 

Enough said.

By the way (for those of you who still choose to ignore reality), KSTP filmed this more than a month into the war. Sorry Bushies, the Penatgon, and Fox News, this is just another example of how this administration botched the handling post-war Iraq.

 

You can't possibly be serious about the timing of this. It was the Iraqis themselves who reported that this stuff was missing. I don't have the source, but I have read that the Bush administration pressured the Iraqis to keep quiet about this. If they could have only kept it quiet until November 3.

Shudders...

 

Nobody is denying that the facility had explosives when U.S. troops arrived onsite, the question that remains after watching the video that Ellis posted and reading the article is whether or not this is the HMX and RDX that is missing.

The news agency has even said

That does not say one way or another that this is in fact the HMX, & RDX that is missing. I may be wrong here, but I'll wait until munitions experts have a chance to review the film today to confirm whether or not these are the explosives in question. Until then I'll continue be "POINTLESS" as Ellis pointed out.

 

T.S.

First off I'm not a "Bushie" I voted for Nader in 2000, and plan on doing so again this year. What alternative do I have? Bush, Kerry... Sighs

Second, I agree 100% that this situation has turned into a cluster fuck, no doubt due to piss poor management of forces (or lack thereof) in the Iraqi theater.

What I'm arguing is that everyone involved is guilty in one way or another, Clinton for the lack of action in 1995 when this first came to light, the UN in 1995 when the Oil for Guns Program was ongoing also for lack of action. Bush for failing to put enough people on the ground to secure and stabilize this country after the initial invasion.

There are a lot of people out there who would like to simply put this all on the Bush administration when they know damn well the UN shares responsibility here as well, after the information about the covert nuclear weapons program was revealed to the UN and the world, three years before inspectors were booted from the country, the UN failed to destroy or confiscate the explosives that are now missing...

I say fuck it, Saddam was a GREAT guy, put him back in power, say were sorry and let him continue to bless his people with the love and affection he has shown them for decades now. :H

 

The UN inspectors were never "booted" from the country. This is again another lie perpetrated by Rumsfeld and others in this repeatedly exposed cabal of liars made into commonly accepted groupthink by our misinfroming corporate media.

The fact is that Richard Butler and UNSCOM withdrew the inspectors in advance of our 1998 bombing raid under Clinton.

http://www.fair.org/activism/newshour-iraq.html

http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?SectionID=15&ItemID=2552

 

First, the only reason that you would take offense to the term "Bushie" is if you somehow feel guilty about defending Bush's ridiculous policies.

Second, I am glad that we agree on this point; post-war Iraq is a cluster fuck because of piss-poor planning.

The problem here is this:

These weapons were where they were up until the invasion. Now we have video evidence that these explosives were there more than three weeks after the invasion began. We also know that these are not just ordinary ordinances; they are high-powered, very stable, hard-to-obtain, multi-use explosives that were worth watching by the IAEA since David Kay's group found them in the early 90s.

Now, these explosives (and countless other materials military and otherwise) were looted because we made little or no attempt to stop the looting that occurred after this misguided invasion. The U.N. was not "booted out," they left because the invasion was imminent.

Your final, sarcastic comment does not deserve comment; but simply put, there is no logical connection between my criticism of pathetic planning for post-war Iraq and your suggestion that I want to have Saddam back in power.

The point of this thread is that this administration created a situation that is FUBAR, and fixing it will be damned near impossible.