WASHINGTON, D.C. -- (OfficialWire) -- 10/30/04 -- New evidence emerged in the United States on Friday that appears to contradict claims by George W. Bush and his administration that some 360 tons of explosives previously located in Iraq were looted before U.S. troops occupied the country. Nine days after the fall of Baghdad, on April 18, 2003, a news crew from Minneapolis-St Paul station KSTP-TV, embedded with U.S. troops from the 101st Airborne Division, entered bunkers at the facility, south of Baghdad.
At one of the bunkers, troops broke what appears to be an International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) seal to get inside and found barrels filled with powdered explosives, said Dean Staley, then a reporter at the Minnesota station. The film seems to suggest that explosives were present after U.S. troops had seized control of the city-explosives that are now missing. Earlier on Thursday, Melissa Fleming, a spokeswoman for the IAEA, said that U.S. officials were cautioned directly about what was stored at Al-Qaqaa, the main high explosives facility in Iraq. Whether the explosives were moved from the facility by the Iraqi regime before the war began, or looted after the facility came under U.S. control, has become a major issue in the presidential campaign. IAEA Director-General Mohamed ElBaradei told the UN Security Council in his report in February last year that he was concerned about the explosives, which Iraq's Science and Technology Ministry reported as missing on October 10, 2004. The explosives, which were sealed by IAEA inspectors two months before the war in Iraq, could be used to demolish buildings, make missile warheads and detonate nuclear weapons. U.S. military commanders estimated last year that Iraqi military sites contained anywhere between 650,000 tons and one million tons of explosives, artillery shells, aviation bombs and other ammunition. The Bush administration cited these official figures this week confirming that about 400,000 tons had destroyed or were in the process of being eliminated. That leaves the whereabouts of more than 250,000 tons unknown. "We didn't find the stockpiles we thought would be there-that we all thought would be there. But Saddam Hussein had the capability of making weapons, and he could have passed that capability on to the enemy. And that is a risk we could not afford to take after September 11, 2001. Knowing what I know today, I would have made the same decision," Bush said at a recent campaign rally in Washington. The problem with that rationale, if one can use that terminology when referring to the utterances of the current U.S. president, is that with more than 250,000 tons of weapons of all descriptions missing (whereabouts unknown) it would appear that invading Iraq has actually had the net effect of putting the weapons into the hands of terrorists more effectively than Saddam Hussein would or could ever have dreamed of...Nice one Mr. President! ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~| Purchase from House of Fusion, a Macromedia Authorized Affiliate and support the CF community. http://www.houseoffusion.com/banners/view.cfm?bannerid=37 Message: http://www.houseoffusion.com/lists.cfm/link=i:5:133423 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
