Dean, i know that we marched into baghdad from the south and this facility was 1/2 hour south of the city. i also know that we were bombing locations all over iraq. this facility could have easily been a target on the first day of bombing. if we later determined that the powerful explosives were not blown up and weren't there, then we'd know more definitively, but we'd also know that we did what we could to keep the stuff out of the hands of the people who currently have it (and, they're not us).<br><br>further, see gary's post above this one.<br><br>--<br>one of the penalties for refusing to participate in politics is that you end up being governed by your inferiors. -Plato

Your Mission Impossible smoke and mirrors scenario would have a scintilla of possibility if the inspectors were a bunch of idiots. In fact, inspection was working, Saddam had no WMD and the inspectors knew what Saddam had.<br>Unfortunately Bush did not believe them.<br><br><br><br><br>luciferase is a four nineteener

Inspector David Kay just said on Lou Dobbs show that the timeline is accurate, that the depot with explosives was sealed by IAEA up to the time the US troops entered the compound on their way to Baghdad. The IAEA inspectors returned 6 weeks later and notified the DOD that the weapons had been looted.<br><br>

that's a good point. he also pointed out that the first troops arrived at this location on april 3rd and this was reported on april 4th in the NY Times. i figured i'd mention this because Dean asked about it a few posts above. so, like i said, they could (and did) reach this location earlier than they reached baghdad. <br><br><br>--<br>one of the penalties for refusing to participate in politics is that you end up being governed by your inferiors. -Plato

The IAEA thinks the explosives were there last on March 15, 2003 since the seals they had placed on the bunkers in January 2003 (when they actually physically saw the explosives)<br>We first arrive on April 4th. About three weeks to move the stuff.<br><br>The claim in the letter the Iraqi's presented to the UN and the IAEA claiming the stuff was looted after 4/9 has absolutely no back up proof. It's just a date on a paper. There has been zero proof that any person removed one ounce of the explosive after April 4, 2003. But we do have some evidence (not conclusive) that the stuff was not there.<br><br><br><br><br>No sig right now, waiting for the next Kerry flip-flop. .

This is from the "updated" NBC report...<br><blockquote><font size=1>In reply to:</font><hr><p>Then in March, shortly before the war began, the I.A.E.A. conducted another inspection and found that the HMX stockpile was still intact and still under seal. But inspectors were unable to inspect the RDX stockpile and could not verify that the RDX was still at the compound.<br><br>Pentagon officials say elements of the 101st Airborne did conduct a thorough search of several facilities around the Al QaQaa compound for several weeks during the month of April in search of WMD. They found no WMD. And Pentagon officials say it's not clear at that time whether those other elements of the 101st actually searched the Al QaQaa compound.<p><hr></blockquote><p>Hell, even on the March 15th inspection the IAEA couldn't even confirm 141 tons of the 380 were even still there!<br><br><br>No sig right now, waiting for the next Kerry flip-flop. .

<blockquote><font size=1>In reply to:</font><hr><p><br>You are also talking about the weight of a missile already made. <p><hr></blockquote><p>Nah, it's actually the warhead not the entire bomb. They use standard warheads, the guidance packages, etc are added on. You're correct that the weight of the explosives is actually less, a 200lb warhead contains roughly 950 pounds of tritonal. But, you're forgetting to remove the space required by the bomb casing and the void in the middle of the explosive so you don't get spotted anything. :)<br><br>Regardless, we're both just speculating without knowing the form it was in. Assuming it was for nuclear use, it'd have to be very dense, heavy and compact. I wish we could find out that information. <br><br>But I think everyone is missing something very obvious, that is it'd be damn near impossible to loot 380 tons of anything! This stuff wasn't looted off on foot, or even by pickup truck. Perhaps a tiny fraction of it was. But is everyone forgetting nearly every single bridge in Baghdad and it's surrounding cities was wired with high explosives? I don't think the stuff was looted, or that Saddam hid it, I think it was carted off by the Iraqi army and used to wire these bridges. Hundreds and hundreds of bridges wired up would be a good chunk of this explosives.<br><br>

<blockquote><font size=1>In reply to:</font><hr><p>But I think everyone is missing something very obvious, that is it'd be damn near impossible to loot 380 tons of anything! <p><hr></blockquote><p> Crikey, that was my point all along. Just like the large amounts of WMD that dissappeared you do not have 380 tons of stuf carried out in back packs. You need heavy trucks. Or a lot of time. It now seems that afteer the infantry stopped and took a look they left the place abandoned. Looters had 6 weeks to steal it.<br><br>Your idea that this high exposive was used within days to wire bridges in the area is even more farfetched than an overnight looting. This material would have taken a considerable amount of time to turn into satchle chargees for bridge demolition. Even if all the material, the blasting caps, wire, timers were there. The US forces showed up far more quicklly then expected. <br><br>All idle speculation. What is funny is the diffeerence in speculation between what happened to WMD and what happened to this cache of high expolisives and where it ended up. WMD in far greater amounts hip hopped to Syria like the Easter bunny although inspectors never reported it prior to the war and we did not find a trace after the war. This 380 tons of high explosivees which we knew existed because inspetor seals were on it and we screwed up royally not taking control of it must have been "used up" somehow.<br>Sadly, this stuff is likely being used to attack our forces today and may come to haunt us in the future.<br><br>Inspections were working. This debacle cannot be spun into anything more then the glaring example of why Bush's poicies from start to finish have been killing us while creating and arming more terrorists.<br><br><br><br><br><br>luciferase is a four nineteener

<blockquote><font size=1>In reply to:</font><hr><p>This 380 tons of high explosivees which we knew existed because inspetor seals were on it and we screwed up royally not taking control of it<p><hr></blockquote><p>Nice fantasy except there is not one shred of evidence showing that there was anything there on April 4th to take control of.<br>Not one shred of evidence this stuff has been used in any explosive device.<br>In fact the common wisdom is that it would be impratical to use this stuff in IED's. It's way over powered for a car or roadside bomb when the current devices available to the terrorists already come with the explosive, shrapnel and detonator combined in one nice package.<br>To use this stuff you'd want to pack it in some case then you'd have to rig your own detonator. No reason to go to all that trouble when you can get the job done cheaper and easier.<br><br>Iraqis has since mid-January of 2003 to cart out 140 tons of the stuff and about three weeks between March 15th, 2003 and April 4th, 2003 to cart away the rest not to mention any of the stuff that was blown up with bombs.<br><br>We don't even know what form it was stored in which makes a huge difference on how this stuff has to be transported.<br><br>Finally, on the outside chance the stuff was there on April 4th and we didn't secure it then it hardly speaks of the incompitence of Bush it would directly speak to the compitence of the military and the military planners.<br><br>You speak as if Bush sits in the Oval office waiting for calls from unit commanders... "Mr, President this is Capt. Smith. We just stopped for about 24 hours at a huge bunker complex should we search it for high explosives?"<br>"No, Capt. nothing to worry about there just move along to Bagdad".<br><br>I'm glad you don't conduct your scientific research like your political research. i.e. start with the premise (Bush is incompetent) and then interperate the "evidence" to fit into the premise.<br> <br>Your case of otter pops is being overnighted.<br><br>No sig right now, waiting for the next Kerry flip-flop. .

That's the whole point with smoke and mirrors - and they do fool even the intelligent, if they're set up right. How often do you watch a stage magician and think - well I know How he did that, but I didn't See him do it.<br><br>The point I was making (in my own way) was that everyone is speculating about what happened. The problem with many US politically charged folks and (sadly) the US media is that they work on the knee jerk reaction. They don't wait for facts, in fact they sometimes go for the jugular in playing on fears and emotion. We have a missing cache of 380 tons of explosive - so to you and me our immediate reaction is OMG what were they thinking?! But then you hear that the US forces have found and secured 480K tons, so this particular missing cache is less than 0.1% of that total - so in perspective I can't think of anyone who gets that level of success in assigned mission, I mean how large is the voting error rate expected to be in this election?<br><br>So we're basically down to: Lots of stuff that makes a big bang is missing, but we cannot say with absolute certainty when it went missing, or where it went. We don't know how thorough the weapons inspectors were - did they test the stuff or just count crates (or whatever the stuff was stored in) and make assumptions (god knows that never happens in any other inventory counting exercise </sarcasm>). The US military was looking for WMD's during the initial invasion, not regular explosives, once they got to the completion of stage 1 - overthown Mr Hussain, and secure possible WMDs) they went on to secure the other priority stuff (and we all remember the complaints that Museums weren't on that list too).<br><br>And then we have the US media, and Kerry, et al taking (at best) shady information, presenting it as fact, and trying to scare the US population to vote for Kerry - because he's going to lead the troops looking under every grain of sand to find these missing explosives?! And I don't remember Bush being present in Iraq to take control of this storage facility, so the only thing that Kerry and co are really saying is - the military screwed up because they couldn't protect 380tons of explosives from looters, and their commanders were clueless because they were concentrating on taking Bagdad and not securing explosives.<br><br>