[read this slowly, especially the bottom]
OK guys and gals, I have a theory.
I could work it alone and win all sorts or praise if I blew the story sky high… But I’m far more interested in proving it/disproving this theory. A bottle of Champaign for anyone proving it and a big attaboy for disproving it. I’d love to bust this before before the big media even thinks about it.
The Background
Link from my post below, I’m going to highlight some things so nobody gets confused. (Spoons you can stop reading now 😉
The information on which the Iraqi Science Ministry based an Oct. 10 memo in which it reported that 377 tons of RDX explosives were missing
Here is a summary of inspections from Nov 2002 to March 2003. http://www.nti.org/d_newswire/issues/newswires/2003_3_19.html
From the menu on the right click on “Iraq III: Summary of Inspections.”
The news media, a group we can always count on to use a minimum amount of intelligence, are using terms such as weapons, bombs, etc. when we are talking about military-grade explosives. That alone should alert anyone with half a brain (which excludes most Liberals) that they don’t know what they’re talking about. Also, even if we go with the UN figure of 141 tons, that is a drop in the bucket of what existed in Iraq. The US military, I understand, destroyed thousands upon thousands of tons of explosives, weapons, etc. And the Libs are squawking about a few tons? They weren’t worried about all those explosives when Saddam was in power. If Kerry were president, Saddam would still be in power and the weapons and explosives still under his control. What a bunch of freaking wash women? The Libs conjure up visions of a fat, ugly housewife with a wooden rolling pin haranguing her husband.
BTW, here’s how underhanded the Dems are: They looked about the tracking polls in Pennsylvania and find they may be in trouble. So now, the governor of PA has sent a memo to prison wardens asking them to look into having inmates vote. Is that a bitch or what: the Dems want the criminal vote. And why shouldn’t they — many are criminal-enablers from way back. An appropriate constituency for the Democrat Party.
BTW, here’s how underhanded the Dems are: They looked at the tracking polls in Pennsylvania and find they may be in trouble. So now, the governor of PA has sent a memo to prison wardens asking them to look into having inmates vote. Is that a bitch or what: the Dems want the criminal vote. And why shouldn’t they — many are criminal-enablers from way back. An appropriate constituency for the Democrat Party.
PS: This is the same PA governor who’s trying to suppress the military vote because of his work to eliminate Ralph Nader from the ballots. So let me see if I get this right: In the wacky world of the Democrat party it’s okay to discount votes by the men and women who protect us (because of the governor and his party hacks), but it’s perfectly alright to include votes by convicts who prey upon us? I’m getting angrier by the minute.
Use of HMX
Raw Data: Text of Blix’s Report
Friday, February 14, 2003
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,78632,00.html
The IAEA has continued to investigate the relocation and consumption of the high explosive HMX. As I reported earlier, Iraq has declared that 32 tonnes of the HMX previously under IAEA seal had been transferred for use in the production of industrial explosives, primarily to cement plants as a booster for explosives used in quarrying.
Great find, Bruce.
?RDX never at alQQ? And never sealed?
IAEA spokeswoman Melissa interview on ABC (Australia – ) – “IAEA inspectors visited Al-Mahaweel on Jan. 15, 2003, and verified the RDX inventory by weighing sampling,” Fleming said. She said the RDX at Al-Mahaweel was not under seal [emphasis added – JSA] but was subject to IAEA monitoring.”
Al-Mahaweel?
“The bulk of the RDX was stored at another site that was under Al Qaqaa’s jurisdiction,” IAEA spokeswoman Melissa Fleming said.
She says that the report seen by ABC only covers the Al Qaqaa site itself.
The second site, Al Mahaweel, is roughly 45 kilometres from Al Qaqaa.
Inspectors did not return to Iraq until November 2002, so the July 2002 declaration is clearly Saddam’s declaration.
Fox News has released the confidential IAEA report from January 2003 which gives the total of HMX and RDX explosives as 221 tons, not 377 tons. The bunkers containing the explosives were sealed in January 2003, but it was noted that “the sealing on the bunkers was only partially effective because each bunker had ventilation shafts on the sides of the buildings. These shafts were not sealed, and could provide removal routes for the HMX while leaving the front door locked.” When the inspectors returned in March 2003 they observed the seals still on the bunkers but did not open them to verify the contents.
Personally I find the October 10 letter from Abbas highly suspicious for the following reasons:
1) He states that the materials were lost after 4/9/2003. Since the last inspectors were at the Al Qa Qaa facility on March 15, 2003 HOW DOES HE KNOW THEY WERE LOST AFTER 4/9?
2) How does he know they were lost through “theft and looting?” To state such an assumption as fact is irresponsible at best.
3) He uses Saddam’s declaration as the difinitive source of the amount of material at the facility in spite of the fact that the IAEA reported a different amount in January 2003. At best that’s very sloppy. At worst…well, connect the dots.
Just saw a Satellite photo on Fox from Bret Baier. According to the Pentagon, it was taken, I believe a few days before the start of the war. Shows 2-3 Semis, forklifts, etc parked in front of 2 of the bunkers. Bunkers were obviously not “sealed” anymore, and obviously things were being moved. Whats NYT gonna say about this?
Wednesday on Rush Limbaugh’s show he said that Saddam had told the UN that 35? tons of the rdx or hmx had been “transferred” to civillian use in a near by quarry. I can’t find the link but I think he said that was from a New York Times story several years ago. If anyone has a lexisnexis account they could probably find the story. The UN inspectors had found 35 or so tons missing.
From the January 27, 2003 report by the IAEA to the UN Security Council:
53. The relocation and consumption of HMX [has been investigated by the IAEA]. Iraq stated that, between 1998 and 2002, it had transferred 32 of the 228 tonnes of HMX which had been under IAEA seal as of December 1998 to other locations. In addition, Iraq stated that a very small quantity (46 kg) of HMX had been used at munitions factories for research and development. At the request of the IAEA, Iraq has provided further clarification on the movement and use of the HMX. In that clarification, Iraq indicated that the 32 tonnes of HMX had been blended with sulphur to produce industrial explosives and provided mainly to cement plants for quarrying, and that the research and development using the small quantity of HMX had been in the areas of personnel mines, explosives in civilian use, missile warhead filling and research on tanks.
IAEA inspectors have been able to verify and re-seal the remaining balance of approximately 196 tonnes of HMX, most of which has remained at the original storage location. The movement of the blended HMX and the other small quantity of HMX has also been documented by Iraq. However, it has not been possible to verify the use of those materials, as all of it is said to have been consumed through explosions and there are no immediately available technical means for verifying such uses. The IAEA will continue to investigate means of verifying the Iraqi statements about the use of the HMX and blended HMX.
that’s from the daily kos
“IAEA inspectors visited Al-Mahaweel on Jan. 15, 2003…”
All sources that I can find indicate that the ONLY time IAEA inspectors visited Al-Mahaweel between Nov. 2002 and March 2003 was on December 14, 2002. From the IAEA website regarding that visit, “An inspection of a military site south of Baghdad turned out to be an after dark inspection. The Mahaweel military base stores certain high explosives requiring verification by the IAEA. The team also inspected bunkers holding small ground-to-ground rockets to verify their intended use. ”
http://www.iaea.or.at/search97cgi/s97_cgi?action=View&VdkVgwKey=http%3A%2F%2Fwww%2Eiaea%2Eorg%2FNewsCenter%2FFocus%2FIaeaIraq%2Fchrono%5Fdec%5Fi%2Eshtml&QueryZip=mahaweel&&viewTemplate=Iaea%2Fiaeacvw_smpl.hts&collection=IaeaSite
The IAEA press statement for activities on January 15, 2003, states: “The IAEA inspected three sites: the Isakandariya State Enterprise for Mechanical Industries, the Al Mutaz Technical Institute, both approximately 70 km south of Baghdad and the Hatteen State Company approximately 80 km southeast of Baghdad. The Isakandariya State Enterprise is a general-purpose heavy equipment engineering plant. The Al Mutaz Technical Institute specializes in mechanical engineering, and the Hatteen State Company is an ammunitions and armourments organization.”
http://www.globalsecurity.org/wmd/library/news/iraq/un/unmovic-030115.htm
This, of course, is not PROOF that the claim that the IAEA inspected Al-Mahaweel on Jan. 15 is wrong, it just means that it can’t be verified by the websites carrying the logs of their inspection activities.
Instapundit:
THEN AGAIN, those explosives at al Qa Qaa may have gone missing after Saddam’s regime fell. Here are some screen shots of videotape taken April 18, 2003, which may show the cache of explosives in question.
Let me know if you think that an IBM Selectric stamped IAEA on those seals. Otherwise get used to Springstein being the headliner at the Inauguration Ball.
as noted elsewhere on wizbang
As reported on FOX
The bunkers containing the explosives were sealed in January 2003, but it was noted that “the sealing on the bunkers was only partially effective because each bunker had ventilation shafts on the sides of the buildings. These shafts were not sealed, and could provide removal routes for the HMX while leaving the front door locked.” When the inspectors returned in March 2003 they observed the seals still on the bunkers but did not open them to verify the contents.
That would render intact seals a non issue.
msl
Woops, that was Elisa that offered that just above…
I was reading the .pda page thinking it was another thread.
Well, if anyone is still reading this far down in the thread, the following may explain all the mysterious arithmetic: from the associated press:
Middle East – AP
IAEA Says It Warned U.S. About Explosives
2 minutes ago Middle East – AP
By WILLIAM J. KOLE, Associated Press Writer
VIENNA, Austria – U.S. officials were warned about the vulnerability of explosives stored at Iraq (news – web sites)’s Al-Qaqaa military installation after another facility
It appears that the facts are coming into view on the explosives. I wanted to comment on two points:
1. Why didn’t the US stop the trucks when they were moving the explosives?
Assuming the US saw the trucks (and I’ll leave the questionable nature of that assumption to those who posted earlier and who know far more than me about satellites), there was at least one immediate reason: If the trucks were there 48 hours prior to the invasion, then the US would have held off because the President very publicly told the world that Saddam had 48 hours to relent. I think it would have been very bad to renege on the 48 hours. If the trucks were there before 48 hours, it still would have been politically difficult, particularly in early 2003, to take action because of the tense international politics going on. Finally, if the stories that some of the explosives weren’t even there in January are true, then obviously we’re not talking a convoy, but probably discreet shipments over time, which would be hard to detect. I suspect this last thought is closest to the truth.
2. Why didn’t the administration tell the public about the missing explosives? Two reasons. First, the administration probably had some national security reasons for this. Potentially (and I doubt this one) if the story about Russia aiding the movement of the explosives is true, the admin. didn’t want to cause an ugly international incident. Finally, the facts likely are not clear and the admin. felt it was better not to talk about it until they got the facts together first. One other point, there’s a heck of a lot of news and information about Iraq. It’s possible the admin. didn’t talk about it because it wasn’t deemed important enough. Recall the post above saying that even the amount of material that the Times alleges was pilfered was just a drop in the bucket.
Great thread and great job.
Mark S.
>1. Why didn’t the US stop the trucks
>when they were moving the explosives?
I think this appears reasonable to ask only because many, especially some media, are approaching this in the context of what is known now, not at the time.
Less than 400 tons of explosives was strategically unimportant compared to the actual amount of explosives and weapons inside the country. The primary concerns were chemical and biological weapons being used on the troops and securing the oil facilities. Secondary concerns were conventional weapons. Way down on the list of concerns were explosives that could possibly be converted into weapons, which means they weren’t going to launch the invasion early because of this. It was likely happening all over the country anyway.
The media seems to look at this in the context of how easy major operations ended up being, not in the context of how it was expected to go. Yes, the US would win, but there were expectations of chemical and biological weapons casualties and higher conventional weapons casualties. Only in the context of how easy it appears to have gone can the media analyze 400 tons of explosives and call not securing it an operational failure.
The US went in planning to secure chemicals and biologicals, and the possibility of nuclear. Just imagine if they had left units along the way to secure this facility and others like it, and then troops on the front lines were killed in chemical attacks. The media would then be questioning, and rightly so, why vital troops were in the rear guarding mere construction explosives when there were chemical weapons that needed securing. And they would be at least positing that had those vital troops been available, would the chemical attacks have succeeded?
Given how the invasion was expected to proceed, I can only see incompetence in the hypothetical situation where units were dispatched in the rear to secure explosives that were clearly unimportant in context.
http://www.foxnews.com/projects/pdf/alqaqaa_documents.pdf
Somewhat transcribed from the PDF for clarity
HMX was stored in bunkers 34, 35, 37, 38, 41, 49, 50, 51, and 59.
RDX and PETN were stored in bunker 47. Neither bunker had a seal.
The storage containers for HMX came in 25, 30, and 35 kg boxes/catons and 50 kg drums. No record for PETN storage containers beyond that they are wooden boxes (Chinese). RDX was stored in 40 kg drums
Aside: The pictures of the 40kg boxes and those of the plastic cases from the KTSP video (I’ve only seen stills) are not HMX or RDX. No knowledge if the drums in the video stills are HMX or RDX. The wooden boxes may still be PETN, but doubtful as the Iraqi PETN was of Chinese manufacture.
Total inventories: HMX 194741kg, RDX 3080kg, PETN 3500kg. A total of 201.321 metric tons of stuff catelogued on 14.1.2003.
Disposition of PETN: Visual observation only no item counting – no knowledge of storage medium
Disposition of RDX: 77 Drums from Yugoslavia
Disposition of HMX: (all sealed)
Bunker 34: 24,950 kg – 499 drums
Bunker 35: 24,815 kg – 20 drums – 508 30kg & 245 35 kg boxes
Bunker 37: 19,668 kg – 627 25 kg & 1 3 kg (?) & 114 35 kg boxes
Bunker 38: 25,075 kg – 842 25 kg & 115 35 kg boxes
Bunker 50: 20,715 kg – 394 drums – 29 35 kg boxes
Bunker 41: 25,030 kg – 200 drums – 501 30 kg boxes
Bunker 49: 23,488 kg – 450 drums – 28 35 kg & 1 8kg (?) boxes
Bunker 51: 27,000 kg – 500 drums – 80 25 kg boxes
Bunker 59: 4,000 kg – 80 drums (sample was taken of white powder on floor)
http://globalsecurity.org/wmd/world/iraq/al_qa_qaa-imagery4.htm
Shows that the DOD picture was Site 2 Bunker 45. Bunker 41 (HMX) would be the top left bunker. So yes, they were operating in the area – no it’s not conclusive.
Though it should be said that at a rough 20-25 metric tons per bunker that emptying any given bunker would be relatively trivial with tractors as shown in the DOD picture. Ask any trucker how long it takes him to hump his load solo to get an idea of the time involved (Don’t know specifically, but it’s a pretty short amount of time).
On July 15, 2002, there were no inspectors in Iraq. We, the USA, were building up our forces, we had a vote in Congress Aug.-Sept. 2002, we had our forces building up after that, and it wasn’t until Dec. 8, 2002 that SH allowed any inspectors back into his ex-country! The link to the UN is http://www.un.org/Depts/unmovic/documents/1441.pdf here-go to page 6 of 8. It is dated Oct. 8, 2002. They have not yet entered Iraq. They are still meeting in Vienna! I may be wrong, but I seriously doubt it! That’s what they all say, right?! LOL You can find it there. If my link didn’t work, I can be reached at http://MyNewznIdeas.blogspot.com. Thanks.
http://www.iaea.org/OurWork/SV/Invo/statements.html#onsite. This is where the IAEA is hiding. http://www.iaea.org/OurWork/SV/Invo/reports/s_2002_367.pdf. Page 3 of 4 should be the one of most importance. There has been NO inspection of Iraq. Where did IAEA get there info. from, you ask? Try the people of Fallujah. That would be my guess.