October 25, 2004
More Iraqi Weapons fall Into the Hands of Terrorists
In a recent post here I pointed out that since Bush’s execution of the war in Iraq has never had enough boots on the ground, as a consequence, if there had been WMD in Iraq, they’d probably be in the hands of terrorists right now. Today’s headlines unfortunately support that argument. The IAEA confirmed recently that several hundred tons of conventional explosives are missing from a former Iraqi military facility.
The story is quite similar to the one I posted earlier, but a little scarier. The earlier disappearance was industrial materials that "could be turned to use in a nuclear weapons program", according to the CNN story. The latest disappearance was of "dual-use" high explosives - explosives that had industrial uses, but could also be used conveniently for bombs, or as a detonator for a nuke.
From the latest story:
A Western diplomat close to the IAEA, who declined to be named, said it was difficult to understand why the U.S. military had failed to secure the facility despite knowing how sensitive the site was. "This was a very well known site. If you could have picked a few sites that you would have to secure then ... Al Qaqaa would certainly be one of the main ones," the diplomat said.
But of course, this is the good news. The bad news is that if Saddam really had been running a WMD program when we invaded, then terrorists would have access to more than just the detonators.
Posted by William Cohen at October 25, 2004 09:07 AMExcellent post William. I also never understood why Bush invaded Iraq without enough troops to guard the WMD sites as they were bypassed. It was weeks before some of them were inspected, and they were already looted.
And don’t forget about the Iraqi long-range rocket engines that were found in Jordan after being looted and sold as scrap under Bush’s nose. And the looted yellowcake that was found in a shipment of Iraqi scap in Amsterdam. And most recently, looted equipment and the removal of entire facilities for building nuclear weapons that Bush left unguarded,
In a letter to the U.N. Security Council on Monday, Mohamed El Baradei the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) warned that whole buildings had suffered “systematic dismantlement” and that sensitive equipment previously subject to U.N. verification and monitoring had disappeared.Posted by: American Pundit at October 25, 2004 09:29 AM
My Aunt recently told me she’d vote for a monkey before she voted for George Bush. I’m pretty sure a monkey would have done a better job with the Iraq occupation. This is pathetic.
How could your aunt be sure the monkey she was voting for wasn’t Bush? I have a hard time telling monkeys apart.
Posted by: Alejo at October 25, 2004 09:47 AMI haven’t seen Bush slinging his own feces around. Yet. It looked like he really wanted to during that first debate, though.
This is way way off topic, but has anyone noticed that Bush’s face has changed recently? The left side of his mouth has drooped a LOT in the last year or so. Look at pictures of him just last year and compare to this year. He actually looks like he might have had a stroke and has partial facial paralysis.
Posted by: Alejo at October 25, 2004 10:50 AMI think this all shows yet another failure of the Bush Doctrine, or at worst, that the Bush administration was, in fact, lying about its reasons to invade Iraq. From what I understood, we invaded Iraq to prevent this very thing from happening, didn’t we? Wasn’t that what all that talk of WMD and connections to al Qaeda was all about? Either way, utter failure of specious pretext, Bush has no way to redeem this debacle.
Posted by: Joseph Briggs at October 25, 2004 10:51 AMAP said:
“Excellent post William. I also never understood why Bush invaded Iraq without enough troops to guard the WMD sites as they were bypassed. It was weeks before some of them were inspected, and they were already looted.”
WHAT WMD”S????
WC
Nice info.
Thanks for the links inside the main post. Maybe it will help at least some on the right to see some of the mistakes in a new light.
At least one can hope it will.
An interesting part of the story that leads me to think that something smells funny here, I suspect more to the story will come out soon.
“However, given the nature of the use of high explosives, it may well be that the IAEA will be unable to reach a final conclusion on the end use of this material,” ElBaradei warned at the time.
>>>
bnorth.
Posted by: brad at October 25, 2004 05:20 PM> WHAT WMD”S????
LOL, good. What do you wanna bet that the Bush Administration will call this site proof that Saddam had WMDs!
Anyway, AP was talking about the WMD sites that we suspected were there. Not only did we not secure this extremely-well-known storehouse of massive amounts of explosives, we didn’t even bother to secure the sites which the Bush Administration told us over and over again actually contained WMD’s. Thank God there weren’t any WMDs, because Bush’s strategy would have led to the insurgency using them against our troops, too.
-Cf
Posted by: Christopher Fahey at October 25, 2004 08:23 PMWilliam,
Thanks for getting this important development before WatchBlog readers.
I think the conspicuous absence of Bush apologists descending to discredit this story (or anyone connected to it), is a direct result of the White House currently choosing to ignore it.
Monday’s news cycle was dominated by this story, the return of Bubba, 50 dead Iraqi soldiers and the Chief Justice with cancer.
Any good news for Bush in there?
Posted by: Bert M. Caradine at October 25, 2004 08:39 PM> Any good news for Bush in there?
I think the last item counts as “good” news for Bush insofar as he might actually squeeze in one Supreme appointment before he’s booted out of office.
-Cf
Posted by: Christopher Fahey at October 25, 2004 08:55 PMSilly wmd, don’t you know conventional explosives are not considered WMD? Only nukes and chemical agents capable of killing ten and hundreds of thousands or millions of people, not mere hundreds or thousands.You’ve got to get more into the spirit of our military industrial complex way of thinking, you piker. Kill!! and Kill a lot!!!MMMMM I love the smell of naplalm in the morning!! It smells like….victory!!!
Posted by: Greg at October 25, 2004 10:23 PM
