26-10-2004 17:16									#121
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So which is it? Is NBC or the Pentagon right?

	26-10-2004 17:20									#122
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The crazy thing is that MSNBC doesn't actually have an article about this on their site. So either, they're not finished writing the story or the story was aborted (after being leaked to Drudge) due to factual problems. I'm guessing the latter since the leak doesn't mention that there are actual sources, and given the various contradictiosn from official sources..

	26-10-2004 17:24									#123
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This is the only story about this that I could find on their site:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6323933/

And it doesn't mention the claims Drudge cited.

	26-10-2004 17:43									#124
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Guess that's what happens when you read the Drudge Report.

	26-10-2004 17:46									#125
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There's no way NBC could be right. The inspectors confirmed that the explosives were all there a month before the US rolled into Baghdad. It would've taken a huge number of really big trucks to truck out that much stuff in a month. To think that one of the higher-priority sites could've had that much stuff trucked out of it without US satellites noticing is absurd.

	26-10-2004 17:48									#126
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The best analysis of the issue that I've found has been on www.talkingpointsmemo.com. http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/ar...0_24.php#003800 is the most recent article and its very informative but so are a lot of the other one's that've been posted recently.

	26-10-2004 18:12									#127
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quote: Originally posted by Boshko There's no way NBC could be right. The inspectors confirmed that the explosives were all there a month before the US rolled into Baghdad. It would've taken a huge number of really big trucks to truck out that much stuff in a month. To think that one of the higher-priority sites could've had that much stuff trucked out of it without US satellites noticing is absurd.

And yet we are to believe that it was all removed from right under the noses of the US military.

	26-10-2004 18:14									#128
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They weren't removed under the noses of the US military; we didn't bother to secure the place.

	26-10-2004 18:34									#129
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quote: Originally posted by Ramo They weren't removed under the noses of the US military; we didn't bother to secure the place.

Yes, but as Boshko pointed out, it would be impossible for the US not to know that the explosives were being shipped out. Even if we did not have people on the ground, we still would have satellite reconnaissance to see what was going on.

So, supposely 1) we did not secure the sites and 2) we knew what was going on and did nothing.

There is only 1 conclusion: the US military deliberately allowed the explosives to be taken or through gross incompetence, allowed the explosives to be taken.

The conclusion is absurd. There is no way that the US military would allow, either deliberately or through negligence, that much explosives to be removed illegally.

	26-10-2004 18:39									#130
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That would only be true if everything were moved in a short period of time. There's absolutely no reason to think that's the case.

	26-10-2004 18:46									#131
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Why are you people arguing a meaningless point?

If this disappared little by little during the occupation, that is a mayor screwup by this admin. If it disappeared before troops got there, and the National Security Advisor just learnt of it about 3 months ago, THAT isd a mayor screwup by the administration- anyway you cut it, this was a screwup by this administration- the question is of what magnitude and where the incompetence lies.

	26-10-2004 18:47									#132
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And again, the administration should have allowed the IAEA immidiately back into Iraq to inspect all sites it had been monitoring, as opposed to keeping them out and having the IAEA force the interim Iraqi government to start disclosing info.

Yet another ideologically drive idiocy by this admin.

	26-10-2004 18:48									#133
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Oh, and can someone link to the story where NBC News itself says this- like whom at NBC News?

	26-10-2004 18:55									#134
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quote: Originally posted by GePap Why are you people arguing a meaningless point? If this disappared little by little during the occupation, that is a mayor screwup by this admin. If it disappeared before troops got there, and the National Security Advisor just learnt of it about 3 months ago, THAT isd a mayor screwup by the administration- anyway you cut it, this was a screwup by this administration- the question is of what magnitude and where the incompetence lies.

You seem to be starting on the false assumption that the Bush Admin is incompetent and it is just a matter of finding where and how they screwed up.

There is no screw-up. The explosives were taken before our troops arrived.

If there was a screw-up, it was wasting so much time going to the UN thereby giving Saddam ample time to hide or evacuate illegal weapons.

Maybe if we had invaded sooner and not wasted so much time debating new resolutions in the UN, our troops would have arrived in time to secure all these illegal weapons.

	26-10-2004 18:57									#135
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Lets see what NBC News is actually saying about the incident, ON THEIR OWN SITES:

from the link provided:

quote: ElBaradei told the council the IAEA had been trying to give the U.S.-led multinational force and Iraq’s interim government “an opportunity to attempt to recover the explosives before this matter was put into the public domain.” But since the disappearance was reported in the media, he said he wanted the Security Council to have the letter dated, Oct. 10, that he received from Mohammed J. Abbas, a senior official at Iraq’s Ministry of Science and Technology, reporting the theft of the explosives. The materials were lost through “the theft and looting of the governmental installations due to lack of security,” the letter said. The letter informed the IAEA that since Sept. 4, 2003, looting at the Al-Qaqaa installation south of Baghdad had resulted in the loss of 214.67 tons of HMX, 155.68 tons of RDX and 6.39 tons of PETN explosives.

It would be nice for the credibility of this Sludge piece to actually point out the reporters involved, and show were NBC News itself has said this- I find it strange that such a big report would not actually be reported by NBC News itself....

	26-10-2004 18:59									#136
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quote: Originally posted by The diplomat illegal weapons

????

	26-10-2004 19:12									#137
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quote: Originally posted by The diplomat You seem to be starting on the false assumption that the Bush Admin is incompetent and it is just a matter of finding where and how they screwed up. There is no screw-up. The explosives were taken before our troops arrived. If there was a screw-up, it was wasting so much time going to the UN thereby giving Saddam ample time to hide or evacuate illegal weapons. Maybe if we had invaded sooner and not wasted so much time debating new resolutions in the UN, our troops would have arrived in time to secure all these illegal weapons.

Man, you are deluded!

1. You don't know your first claim, and that claim is:
a. Condraticted by the US and Iraqi interim governments
b. based on a yet unsubstantiated claim, since the organization that supposedly first made it has yet to publicly make it

2. The materials were there whent he IAEA was inpsecting them- in fact, had the IAEA been allowed to keep inspecting, we would know exactly where the material were- the exact opposite of your BAM is true.

But that is a common condition with your claims.

	26-10-2004 19:13									#138
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quote: Originally posted by Chemical Ollie ????

He seems to be under the same delusion that these explosives were banned...

the diplomat is a poster child for that survey Boshko posted about Bush supporters, it seems.

	26-10-2004 19:18									#139
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All evidence indicates that even if a NBC news group was there are the 10th of April, that facility was so large, the expertise of the military personel there so lacking, and the time so relatively short that they couldn't have done a thorough search and probably don't know what they are talking about. So just because a group says they didn't see it out of the part of the facility they did see, doesn't mean they could recognize it or that they searched the whole facility.

3 weeks is also precious little time to move so much tonnage of high explosives around. 40 large trucks are going to be noticed by out recon, and they weren't. If the explosives had been moved before we went in, we would have seen it; 40 large trucks are simply too hard to hide, even if you spread them out over the 2 week period.

Additionally, the administration said earlier in the day they knew *nothing* about this until the last 10 days. Then they say they've known about it since April. They are just changing their story to make it seem like they've known about this when they actually haven't. All sources indicated they knew nothing about this until the last 10 days until they start talking about this NBC story; if everyone is that uninformed then the Administration really is very incompetent and can't handle information at all. Can you trust that lack of ability to deal with intel against terrorism?

This NBC story simply doesn't jive with everything else that has been said. Even if it was true, that hardly puts the Bush team in a good light.

-Drachasor

	26-10-2004 19:20									#140
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quote: Originally posted by The diplomat And yet we are to believe that it was all removed from right under the noses of the US military.

Well it would've been damn hard to get the stuff trucked out in a month (the window between when inspectors last saw the stuff and then the US got there) while it was under satellite surveilance. Getting the stuff out of the complex via a process of piecemeil looting going on for well over a year while the US is busy elsewhere is far far more likely.

And if Saddam trucked the stuff out, where the hell did he put it? Having the stuff be looted is the only reasonable explanation.

Also if the stuff was missing when US troops showed up then White House Spokesman McClellan a bare-faced liar since he said that nothing was known about the disappearance until ten days ago.

quote: There is only 1 conclusion: the US military deliberately allowed the explosives to be taken or through gross incompetence, allowed the explosives to be taken.

Sounds like the answer to me.

quote: The conclusion is absurd. There is no way that the US military would allow, either deliberately or through negligence, that much explosives to be removed illegally.

The administration has already admitted that the securing of weopon caches was not a top priority. The top priority was high-level government officies and oil infastructure. And with the amount of looting that went on in even the highest-level government offices after the fall of Baghdad, why should anything less be the case when it comes to the looting of stuff that the US made less effort to guard.

quote: There is no screw-up. The explosives were taken before our troops arrived.

How?!??!?! How do you get 380 tons of stuff out of there in a MONTH without anyone noticing??? It being removed gradually over the course of more than a year is far more credible.

And now we can thank Bush yet again for making us all safer, its oh so very good to know that tons and tons of stuff that only takes a pound to blow up an airplane is god knows where.

	26-10-2004 19:24									#141
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quote: The administration has already admitted that the securing of weopon caches was not a top priority. The top priority was high-level government officies and oil infastructure. And with the amount of looting that went on in even the highest-level government offices after the fall of Baghdad, why should anything less be the case when it comes to the looting of stuff that the US made less effort to guard.

More to the point Boshko, the administration has innadvertently admitted they don't have enough troops in Iraq. That was one of the initial reasons they gave about how this happened; they can't guard all the facilities.

-Drachasor

	26-10-2004 19:27									#142
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380 tonnes is "just" 10-20 truckloads. While it could be detected by satelite, it's could as well go undetected if the people watching the monitors are focusing their attention elsewere.

	26-10-2004 19:30									#143
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You are saying somoene would truck out 10 tons of explosive at a time in a single vehicle?

	26-10-2004 19:32									#144
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quote: Originally posted by Chemical Ollie 380 tonnes is "just" 10-20 truckloads. While it could be detected by satelite, it's could as well go undetected if the people watching the monitors are focusing their attention elsewere.

But al-Qa Qaa was one of the places central places where a nuke program would've been if there had been one (or at least so the Bushies said), if it wasn't watched carefully via satellite that would've been a mark of monumental incompetance.

	26-10-2004 19:33									#145
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It's more likely the stuff was shipped out after the U.S. stopped paying attention to it.

	26-10-2004 19:34									#146
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quote: Originally posted by Chemical Ollie 380 tonnes is "just" 10-20 truckloads. While it could be detected by satelite, it's could as well go undetected if the people watching the monitors are focusing their attention elsewere.

Mind showing me the truck that can carry 38 tons?

Heck, just show me one that can do 20 tons.

As far as I can tell you can only get loads that high by overloading the truck; not a terribly good idea with explosives.

-Drachasor

	26-10-2004 19:47									#147
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Does the Swedish military move arounds its munitions like that, Ollie?

	26-10-2004 19:51									#148
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Also US military sources have previously been stating that explosives used against US have been largely coming from artillery shells, which doesn't make much sense since apparently those things are damn hard to defuse and extract the explosives from. Caches like al-Qa Qaa seem like a much more likely source.

And damn was I an idiot back during the early days when I was complaining that the Iraqi National Museum wasn't secured and had has old Mesopotamian artifacts looted when apparently massive weopon caches weren't even being guarded.

	26-10-2004 19:57									#149
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quote: Originally posted by Boshko Also US military sources have previously been stating that explosives used against US have been largely coming from artillery shells, which doesn't make much sense since apparently those things are damn hard to defuse and extract the explosives from. Caches like al-Qa Qaa seem like a much more likely source.

Actually, what they said is that artillery shells were being used- not explosives from them, but the very shells (like you stick a 155mm shell in a hole and rig it to blow)

quote: And damn was I an idiot back during the early days when I was complaining that the Iraqi National Museum wasn't secured and had has old Mesopotamian artifacts looted when apparently massive weopon caches weren't even being guarded.

Well, it would have been nice for that embedded NBC News crew to have done a report about substantial sums of explosives missing, no?

	26-10-2004 21:24									#150
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quote: Originally posted by Ramo They weren't removed under the noses of the US military; we didn't bother to secure the place.

"ElBaradei told the United Nations in February 2003 that Iraq had declared that “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.”"

Are you calling the Iraqis liars?