380 TONS? or 3 Tons?

[LoraJ]

So how do you guys feel about your hero Rudy Giuliani being on the Today Show today blaming the TROOPS and not the administration for the looting?

 

[Laz]

Originally posted by LoraJ
So how do you guys feel about your hero Rudy Giuliani being on the Today Show today blaming the TROOPS and not the administration for the looting?

Did not see it. I was too busy at work.

 

[Rokkitsci]

Originally posted by LoraJ
So how do you guys feel about your hero Rudy Giuliani being on the Today Show today blaming the TROOPS and not the administration for the looting?

Shameful - if it occurred

 

[ThAnswr]

Originally posted by Geoff_M
I saw this yesterday and thought of you...

Oh my ................. you were thinking of me.

 

[Nancy]

Originally posted by bsnyder
Who knows who's finger prints are all over it? I certainly don't, and I'd wager to guess I've read just about every word that's been printed on it so far.

The bottom line is we don't know, the New York Times doesn't know, and the Kerry campaign certainly doesn't know.

Yet he's spent the better part of two days in the closing hours of the campaign blaming Bush for this?

Yep..he jumped on it pretty fast..even get a commercial on the air in less then 1 day.

 

[Nancy]

Originally posted by LoraJ
So how do you guys feel about your hero Rudy Giuliani being on the Today Show today blaming the TROOPS and not the administration for the looting?

Never been a big fan of rudy..but I feel the same way I feel when I hear Kerry jumping and using a news report as 100% truth and facts...disgusted!

 

[Jennifer S]

Last night on Fox Dick Morris said that this mistake (about the weapons) could very well cost Kerry the election. I don't know why he is so quick to point blame. Why doesn't he take the time to dig a little more into it?

 

[dmadman43]

Originally posted by LoraJ
So how do you guys feel about your hero Rudy Giuliani being on the Today Show today blaming the TROOPS and not the administration for the looting?

quote and link, please.

But, last I remember Giuliani is not applying for the CiC job

 

[gothmog]

The latest drudge fiction/departure from reality is contradicted by actual video from an US news crew who visted the site before it was looted. http://www.kstptv5.com/article/stories/S3723.html?cat=64

A 5 EYEWITNESS NEWS crew in Iraq shortly after the fall of Saddam Hussein was in the area where tons of explosives disappeared, and may have videotaped some of those weapons...

During that trip, members of the 101st Airborne Division showed the 5 EYEWITNESS NEWS news crew bunker after bunker of material labelled "explosives." Usually it took just the snap of a bolt cutter to get into the bunkers and see the material identified by the 101st as detonation cords.

"We can stick it in those and make some good bombs." a soldier told our crew.

There were what appeared to be fuses for bombs. They also found bags of material men from the 101st couldn't identify, but box after box was clearly marked "explosive."

In one bunker, there were boxes marked with the name "Al Qaqaa", the munitions plant where tons of explosives allegedly went missing.

Once the doors to the bunkers were opened, they weren't secured. They were left open when the 5 EYEWITNESS NEWS crew and the military went back to their base.

"We weren't quite sure what were looking at, but we saw so much of it and it didn't appear that this was being secured in any way," said photojournalist Joe Caffrey. "It was several miles away from where military people were staying in their tents".

Officers with the 101st Airborne told 5 EYEWITNESS NEWS that the bunkers were within the U.S. military perimeter and protected. But Caffrey and former 5 EYEWITNESS NEWS Reporter Dean Staley, who spent three months together in Iraq, said Iraqis were coming and going freely.

"At one point there was a group of Iraqis driving around in a pick-up truck,"Staley said. "Three or four guys we kept an eye on, worried they might come near us."

There were clearly more than three tons on the video and the materials were not secured even though the military knew about these materials.

 

[dmadman43]

Originally posted by gothmog
The latest drudge fiction/departure from reality is contradicted by actual video from an US news crew who visted the site before it was looted. http://www.kstptv5.com/article/stories/S3723.html?cat=64
There were clearly more than three tons on the video and the materials were not secured even though the military knew about these materials.

So, some guys in a pick up truck managed to cart away 380 tons of weapons material right under the military's noses? Someone get the brand of that pick up truck! That would make some commercial!!!!

 

[gothmog]

It was not just one pick up truck. The site was left open for weeks for the looters. http://nytimes.com/2004/10/28/inter...&en=b50b42da5ffd60de&ei=5094&partner=homepage

BAGHDAD, Iraq, Oct. 27 - Looters stormed the weapons site at Al Qaqaa in the days after American troops swept through the area in early April 2003 on their way to Baghdad, gutting office buildings, carrying off munitions and even dismantling heavy machinery, three Iraqi witnesses and a regional security chief said Wednesday.

The Iraqis described an orgy of theft so extensive that enterprising residents rented their trucks to looters. But some looting was clearly indiscriminate, with people grabbing anything they could find and later heaving unwanted items off the trucks.

Two witnesses were employees of Al Qaqaa - one a chemical engineer and the other a mechanic - and the third was a former employee, a chemist, who had come back to retrieve his records, determined to keep them out of American hands. The mechanic, Ahmed Saleh Mezher, said employees asked the Americans to protect the site but were told this was not the soldiers' responsibility.....

But a chemical engineer who worked at Al Qaqaa and identified himself only as Khalid said that once troops left the base itself, people streamed in to steal computers and anything else of value from the offices. They also took munitions like artillery shells, he said.

Mr. Mezher, the mechanic, said it took the looters about two weeks to disassemble heavy machinery at the site and carry that off after the smaller items were gone.

Over a period of weeks or months everything was looted from the facility including the explosives.

 

[Funkyzeit mit Bruno]

Originally posted by gothmog
Over a period of weeks or months everything was looted from the facility including the explosives.

How do you know the explosives were there at the time of the looting?

 

[gothmog]

The explosives were filmed by a US news crew. There is video. Look at the prior page.

 

[gothmog]

Here is another report of the looting. http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2004/10/28/1098667915337.html?oneclick=true

Looters stormed the weapons site at Al Qaqaa in the days after US troops swept through the area in early April last year on their way to Baghdad, gutting office buildings, carrying off munitions and even dismantling heavy machinery, Iraqi witnesses said.

The Iraqis on Wednesday described an orgy of theft so extensive that enterprising residents rented their trucks to looters. But some looting was clearly indiscriminate, with people grabbing anything they could find and later heaving unwanted items off the trucks.

Two witnesses were Al Qaqaa employees and the third was a former employee who had come back to retrieve his records, to keep them out of US hands.

A mechanic, Ahmed Saleh Mezher, said employees asked the Americans to protect the site but were told this was not the soldiers' responsibility.

The accounts show that looting was triggered by the arrival of US troops, who did not secure the site after persuading the Iraqi forces to abandon it. "'The looting started after the collapse of the regime," said Wathiq al-Dulaimi, a regional security chief, who was based in nearby Latifiya.

The looting started after the US gained "control" and more than one pick up truck was used to carry away the explosives.

 

[Geoff_M]

gothmog,

Did you miss this section from the link you posted?:

The accounts do not directly address the question of when 380 tons of powerful conventional explosives vanished from the site sometime after early March, the last time international inspectors checked the seals on the bunkers where the material was stored. It is possible that Iraqi forces removed some explosives before the invasion.

Give it up, this story is an ex-parrot! Even better, Kerry has (to make an analogy to The Song of The South) punched the "tar baby" square in the nose.

 

[ThAnswr]

Bottom line: The Bush administration hasn't the foggiest idea where those explosives are.

The Bush administration failed to tell the troops going through Al-Qaqaa to be on the lookout for the explosives or even what Al-Qaqaa was even though they had been told about the significance of Al-Qaqaa from both the UN weapons inspectors and the IAEA.

Here's the real kicker: Al-QaQaa has turned out to be the "caca" that's hit the fan for George Bush.

 

[gothmog]

The explosives were there when Saddam fell and the looting started. The UN records indicate this and a US film crew actually filmed multiple bunkers filled with the material. The same crew even saw some small scale looting.

After the fall of Saddam, there was wide spread looting and the entire facility was stripped. The explosives are no longer there. The NYT article on looting was just one of the articles cited. The fact is that loories and trucks were driven up to this facility and they took away something because now the facility is empty.

Whatever the US news crews saw and filmed is gone.

Bush was the one who went to war without adequated number of troops and did not give the necessary orders to protect and secure amno dumps. This is just an example of a horrible Bush mistake that is costing our troops lives as the missing explosives are used for car bombs and IEDs.

 

[supermom2]

Originally posted by Geoff_M
gothmog,

Did you miss this section from the link you posted?:.......

Are you saying gothmog selectively edited an article he posted?

 

[supermom2]

Originally posted by gothmog

This is just an example of a horrible Bush mistake that is costing our troops lives as the missing explosives are used for car bombs and IEDs.

Yep, that was the only source where terrorists could get explosives.

 

[dmadman43]

Originally posted by gothmog
Here is another report of the looting. http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2004/10/28/1098667915337.html?oneclick=true The looting started after the US gained "control" and more than one pick up truck was used to carry away the explosives.

So, MORE than one pick up truck was able to cart away 380 TONS!!! of weapons material??? Really??? All AFTER the US had entered Bagdhad?? And you find this even remotely possible? 380 Tons???? With pick up trucks???? without any detection???? Really?