Further update: Al-Qaqaa spokesman says no weapons search
By KIMBERLY HEFLING ASSOCIATED PRESS WRITER EVANSVILLE, Ind. -- The first U.S. military unit to reach the Al-Qaqaa military installation after the invasion of Iraq did not have orders to search for the nearly 400 tons of explosives that Iraqi officials say were stolen from the site sometime following the fall of Baghdad, the unit spokesman said Tuesday. When the troops from the 101st Airborne Division's 2nd Brigade arrived at the Al-Qaqaa base a day or so after Baghdad's fall on April 9, 2003, there were already looters throughout the facility, Lt. Col. Fred Wellman, deputy public affairs officer for the unit, told The Associated Press. The soldiers "secured the area they were in and looked in a limited amount of bunkers to ensure chemical weapons were not present in their area," Wellman wrote in an e-mail message. "Bombs were found but not chemical weapons in that immediate area. "Orders were not given from higher to search or to secure the facility or to search for HE type munitions, as they (high-explosive weapons) were everywhere in Iraq," he wrote. His remarks appeared to confirm the observations of an NBC reporter embedded with the army unit who said Tuesday that she saw no signs that the Americans searched for the powerful explosives during their 24 hours at the facility en route to Baghdad, 30 miles to the north. The disappearance, which the International Atomic Energy Agency reported Monday to the U.N. Security Council, has raised questions about why the United States didn't do more to secure the facility and failed to allow full international inspections to resume after the March 2003 invasion. On Tuesday, Russia, citing the disappearance, called on the U.N. Security Council to discuss the return of U.N. weapons inspectors to Iraq. But the United States said American inspectors were investigating the loss and that there is no need for U.N. experts to return. The White House has played down the issue, stressing that the U.S.-led coalition has destroyed hundreds of thousands of munitions in Iraq. But Democratic presidential nominee John Kerry's campaign has called the disappearance the latest in a "tragic series of blunders" by the Bush administration. The Al-Qaqaa explosives included HMX and RDX, key components in plastic explosives, which insurgents in Iraq have used in repeated bomb attacks on U.S.-led multinational forces and Iraqi police and national guardsmen. But HMX is also a "dual use" substance powerful enough to ignite the fissile material in an atomic bomb and set off a nuclear chain reaction. Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman said Monday that coalition forces were present in the vicinity of the site both during and after major combat operations, which ended on May 1, 2003. He said they searched the facility but found none of the explosives in question. "The forces searched 32 bunkers and 87 other buildings at the facility, but found no indicators of WMD (weapons of mass destruction)," Whitman said Monday. The Pentagon would not say whether it had informed the IAEA at that point that the conventional explosives were not where they were supposed to be. It was unclear whether the search to which Whitman was referring was conducted by a military unit other than the 101st Airborne Division's 2nd Brigade. Wellman, the army unit's spokesman, said the facility was in the 101st's sector at that time but that he does not know if any troops were left at the grounds of the facility once the combat troops from the 2nd Brigade left. The Pentagon spokesman's comments also raised the possibility the explosives disappeared before U.S. soldiers could secure the site in the immediate aftermath of the invasion. But if Iraqi officials are correct in saying the theft occurred sometime after Baghdad's fall, it would have had to have happened sometime before U.S. troops reportedly arrived the following day. The explosives were housed in storage bunkers at the facility. U.N. nuclear inspectors placed a fresh seal over the bunkers in January 2003. The inspectors visited Al-Qaqaa for the last time in March 2003 and reported that the seals were not broken. The team then pulled out of the country in advance of the invasion later that month. Iraq's Ministry of Science and Technology told the IAEA the explosives disappeared sometime after coalition forces took control of Baghdad on April 9, 2003. NBC News reporter Lai Ling Jew, who accompanied the 101st, said the unit seized Al-Qaqaa on April 10 and remained there for 24 hours before heading on to Baghdad. Wellman said the 101st troops flew by helicopters into the Al-Qaqaa facility on the way to Baghdad sometime between April 10-13, adding that he would have to check further to confirm the exact date. He confirmed that the troops from the 2nd Brigade spent one night at the facility when an assault into Baghdad was delayed, and then continued the assault into the capital the following day. "We still had Iraqi troops in Baghdad we were trying to combat," Wellman said. "Our mission was securing Baghdad at that point." Lai Ling told MSNBC, an NBC cable news channel, that "there wasn't a search." "The mission that the brigade had was to get to Baghdad," she said Tuesday. "As far as we could tell, there was no move to secure the weapons, nothing to keep looters away." She said there was no talk among the 101st of securing the area after they left. The roads were cut off "so it would have been very difficult, I believe, for the looters to get there," she said. Both HMX and RDX are key components in plastic explosives such as C-4 and Semtex, which are so powerful that Libyan terrorists needed just a pound to blow up Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, in 1988, killing 170 people. International Atomic Energy Agency chief Mohamed ElBaradei said Iraq told the nuclear agency on Oct. 10 that the explosives had vanished from the former military installation as a result of "theft and looting ... due to lack of security." Elements of the 101st helped conquer parts of Baghdad during major combat operations. The entire division based at Fort Campbell, Ky., later settled in northern Iraq. http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/apmideast_story.asp?category=1107&slug=Iraq%20Weapons ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~| Purchase from House of Fusion, a Macromedia Authorized Affiliate and support the CF community. http://www.houseoffusion.com/banners/view.cfm?bannerid=36 Message: http://www.houseoffusion.com/lists.cfm/link=i:5:132857 Archives: http://www.houseoffusion.com/cf_lists/threads.cfm/5 Subscription: http://www.houseoffusion.com/lists.cfm/link=s:5 Unsubscribe: http://www.houseoffusion.com/cf_lists/unsubscribe.cfm?user=11502.10531.5 Donations & Support: http://www.houseoffusion.com/tiny.cfm/54
