Al-Qaqaa Spokesman Says No Weapons Search

[maddezmom]

EVANSVILLE, Ind. - The first U.S. military unit to reach the Al-Qaqaa military installation after the invasion of Iraq (news - web sites) 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.

more: http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=540&ncid=718&e=5&u=/ap/20041026/ap_on_re_mi_ea/iraq_weapons

[Eurobabe]

1. just like the name, caca

something stinks about the WH version of this story...

[Barrett808]

2. Josh Marshall: Drudge/CNN spin "no longer operative"

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2004_10_24.php#003804

[Garbo 2004]

3. They weren't the first troops on the scene. 3 ID was a week before n/t

[notadmblnd]

4. In other words.. we go into Iraq to find the WMD's

and when we get there... we don't bother to even look?

[DoYouEverWonder]

6. We didn't need to look

we knew exactly what was at this site.

So we invaded Iraq to get rid of Saddam and his weapons and to make sure these weapons didn't end up in the hands of terrorists, when in reality we got rid of Saddam and gave the terrorists the keys to the stockpiles. With friends like Rummie and Bush in charge, who needs enemies?

[maddezmom]

5. NYT 10/27/04-Commander of Unit at Bunker Says It Made No Inspection

White House officials reasserted yesterday that 380 tons of powerful explosives may have disappeared from a vast Iraqi military complex while Saddam Hussein controlled Iraq, saying a brigade of American soldiers did not find the explosives when they visited the complex on April 10, 2003, the day after Baghdad fell.


But the unit's commander said in an interview yesterday that his troops had not searched the facility and had merely stopped there for the night on their way to Baghdad.

The commander, Col. Joseph Anderson, of the Second Brigade of the Army's 101st Airborne Division, said he did not learn until this week that the site, known as Al Qaqaa, was considered highly sensitive, or that international inspectors had visited there shortly before the war began in 2003 to inspect explosives that they had tagged during a decade of monitoring.

Colonel Anderson, who is now the chief of staff for the division and who spoke by telephone from Fort Campbell, Ky., said his troops had been driving north toward Baghdad and had paused at Al Qaqaa to make plans for their next push.

~snip~

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/27/politics/27bomb.html

[George_S]

7. So they could have moved WMDs if they had them!

Is that what Bush is trying to say? That we let them move what could have been WMDs before the war?

No matter how you look at it, this is a huge FUBAR.

[milkyway]

12. Good point. Not enough troops, and we never let the IAEA back in.

[Robbien]

8. The explosives were looted while we were on site!

Looters were loading up their pickup trucks and donkey carts with explosives right under the 101st's noses!

And we thought it bad when looters were just taking paintings and bathroom fixtures.

[progressivebydesign]

9. Utter incompetence. THAT is the sole reaason Bush has to go.

Forget evil, forget the corporate cronyism, forget the pandering. Bush and his group are clearly INCOMPETENT, and need to be fired. THAT is what is driving the republicans away from Bush. Sheer incompetence. That miserable failure has failed once again, but this time it's not an oil biz that Daddy can bail him out of.. it's our SECURITY he's failed, now. Ask those "security Moms" how they feel know that their man has bungled the handling of those explosives? Do they feel SAFER YET???

[milkyway]

13. It's bad enough they're crooks and liars, but they're fuck-ups also.

Sometimes we give these guys too much credit. The main reason they're in power isn't that they're evil geniuses--they are just a lot more viscious. They remind me of the Sopranos--a bunch of dimwitted thugs that can't outsmart anybody, so they have to brutalize them.

[ruggerson]

10. Well this definitively proves the Bush/Drudge angle an utter lie

[Cronus Protagonist]

11. What a load of QaQaa

[geek tragedy]

14. NYtimes DESTROYS Freeper fantasy

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/27/politics/27bomb.html?oref=login&oref=login&pagewanted=print&position=

<snip>White House officials reasserted yesterday that 380 tons of powerful explosives may have disappeared from a vast Iraqi military complex while Saddam Hussein controlled Iraq, saying a brigade of American soldiers did not find the explosives when they visited the complex on April 10, 2003, the day after Baghdad fell.

But the unit's commander said in an interview yesterday that his troops had not searched the facility and had merely stopped there for the night.
<snip>

<snip>
A few days earlier, some soldiers from the division thought they had discovered a cache of chemical weapons that turned out to be pesticides. Several of them came down with rashes, and they had to go through a decontamination procedure. Colonel Anderson said he wanted to avoid a repeat of those problems, and because he had already seen stockpiles of weapons in two dozen places, did not care to poke through the stores at Al Qaqaa.

"I had given instructions, 'Don't mess around with those. It looks like they are bunkers; we're not messing around with those things. That's not what were here for,' " he said. "I thought we would be there for a few hours and move on. We ended up staying overnight."
<snip>