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"Making Things Worse"

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Posted by: 97silverlsc

Making Things Worse

Published: October 26, 2004

President Bush's misbegotten invasion of Iraq appears to have achieved what Saddam Hussein did not: putting dangerous weapons in the hands of terrorists and creating an offshoot of Al Qaeda in Iraq.

The murder of dozens of Iraqi Army recruits over the weekend is being attributed to the forces of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, who has been identified by the Bush administration as a leading terrorist and a supposed link between Iraq and Al Qaeda. That was not true before the war - as multiple investigations have shown. But the breakdown of order since the invasion has changed all that. This terrorist, who has claimed many attacks on occupation forces and the barbaric murder of hostages, recently swore allegiance to Osama bin Laden and renamed his group Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia.

The hideous murder of the recruits was a reminder of the Bush administration's dangerously inflated claims about training an Iraqi security force. The officials responsible for these inexperienced young men sent them home for leave without weapons or guards, at a time when police and army recruits are constantly attacked. The men who killed them wore Iraqi National Guard uniforms.

A particularly horrific case of irony involves weapons of mass destruction. It's been obvious for months that American forces were not going to find the chemical or biological armaments that Mr. Bush said were stockpiled in Iraq. What we didn't know is that while they were looking for weapons that did not exist, they lost weapons that did.

James Glanz, William J. Broad and David E. Sanger reported in The Times yesterday that some 380 tons of the kinds of powerful explosives used to destroy airplanes, demolish buildings, make missile warheads and trigger nuclear weapons have disappeared from one of the many places in Iraq that the United States failed to secure. The United Nations inspectors disdained by the Bush administration had managed to monitor the explosives for years. But they vanished soon after the United States took over the job. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld was so bent on proving his theory of lightning warfare that he ignored the generals who said an understaffed and underarmed invasion force could rush to Baghdad, but couldn't hold the rest of the country, much less guard things like the ammunition dump.

Iraqi and American officials cannot explain how some 760,000 pounds of explosives were spirited away from a well-known site just 30 miles from Baghdad. But they were warned. Within weeks of the invasion, international weapons inspectors told Washington that the explosives depot was in danger and that terrorists could help themselves "to the greatest explosives bonanza in history."

The disastrous theft was revealed in a recent letter to an international agency in Vienna. It was signed by the general director of Iraq's Planning and Following Up Directorate. It's too bad the Bush administration doesn't have one of those.

Posted by: MonsterMark

So why didn't the UN confiscate the weapons?

And aren't these weapons of mass destruction?

Posted by: 97silverlsc

Asking questions like these, though they are valid questions, does not diminsh the gravity of the mistakes made by Shrub and his administration on this issue.

Posted by: MonsterMark

What mistake. You can't guard something that wasn't there!

And why is this a big deal???

If we didn't invade, Saddam would still have these weapons to do as he pleases with them. Your argument is so idiotic I don't even want to respond anymore.

First there were weapons
Then we didn't find them
Then they were there
But we didn't guard them

Don't you see how stupid the left sounds?

They MOVED them. Go look for them in Syria and get off Bush's back. Without Bush, many of us would probably already be dead.

Posted by: 97silverlsc

Quote:

Originally Posted by MonsterMark

What mistake. You can't guard something that wasn't there!

And why is this a big deal???

If we didn't invade, Saddam would still have these weapons to do as he pleases with them. Your argument is so idiotic I don't even want to respond anymore.

First there were weapons
Then we didn't find them
Then they were there
But we didn't guard them

Don't you see how stupid the left sounds?

They MOVED them. Go look for them in Syria and get off Bush's back. Without Bush, many of us would probably already be dead.

SOUNDS LIKE IT'S TIME FOR THE REPUBLICAN OSTRICHES TO PUT THEIR HEADS BACK IN THE SAND!!!!!

"Today, the New York Times revealed that the Bush Administration failed to secure nearly 380 tons of high-grade explosives in Iraq shortly after the United States took control over the country, despite being informed of their exact location. The failure to secure the explosives has led to three major concerns:

1) The weapons could end up or have already ended up in the hands of a terrorist group;

2) The explosives might be used against our troops on the ground; and

3) The explosives could be used to carry out a deadly attack against America or our allies.

NEW REVELATION: Failure To Secure Iraqi Explosives May Mean that Powerful Explosives are in Hands of Terrorists
Bush Administration Remained Silent About the Disappearance of Explosives. "The White House said President Bush's national security adviser, Condoleezza Rice, was informed within the past month that the explosives were missing. It is unclear whether President Bush was informed. American officials have never publicly announced the disappearance, but beginning last week they answered questions about it posed by The New York Times and the CBS News program ?60 Minutes.?" [NYT, 10/25/04]

Explosives May Help Terrorists Create Chaos. "In May, an internal I.A.E.A. memorandum warned that terrorists might be helping ?themselves to the greatest explosives bonanza in history.?" [NYT, 10/25/04]

Explosives Could Be Used For Nuclear Weapon. "The explosives could also be used to trigger a nuclear weapon, which was why international nuclear inspectors had kept a watch on the material." [NYT, 10/25/04]

NEW REVELATION: Bush Administration Was Warned About Possible Looting of Explosives But Failed To Act

Bush Administration Ignored Warnings of Leaving Explosives Unsupervised. "A European diplomat reported that Jacques Baute, head of the I.A.E.A.'s Iraq nuclear inspection team, warned officials at the United States mission in Vienna about the danger of the nuclear sites and materials once under I.A.E.A. supervision, including Al Qaqaa. But apparently, little was done. A senior Bush administration official said that during the initial race to Baghdad, American forces ?went through the bunkers, but saw no materials bearing the I.A.E.A. seal.? It is unclear whether they ever returned." [NYT, 10/25/04]

Kerry called on Bush to secure Iraq from looting
"Yesterday, Kerry took issue with the Bush administration's post-war policies in Iraq. ?I think they wasted a month,? Kerry said. ?They lost a serious amount of time because they didn't have a plan. They have allowed looting to take place that has done more damage to the infrastructure than any bomb.?" [Providence Journal-Bulletin, 5/23/03]

Bush / Administration Played Down Looting at the Time:

Bush Was Unconcerned About Looting. When asked in April 2003 about concerns of looting, Bush said: "The statue comes down on Wednesday, and the headlines start to read, ?Oh, there's disorder.? Well, no kidding? But just like the military campaign was second-guessed, I'm sure the plan is being -- but we will be successful." [Bush, 4/13/03]

Rumsfeld on Looting: "Stuff Happens". "?Freedom's untidy, and free people are free to make mistakes and commit crimes and do bad things,? Rumsfeld said. ? Looting, he added, was not uncommon for countries that experience significant social upheaval. ?Stuff happens,? Rumsfeld said." [CNN, 4/12/03]

White House Said Looting Was Part of Liberation Process. In April 2003, asked about looting in Iraq, White House Spokesman Ari Fleischer said: "Clearly, anything that involves looting is not desirable. It is worth noting that what you are seeing is a reaction to oppression. ? It's also a situation the world has seen before when oppressed people find freedom. For a short period of time, these actions have occurred in history. You saw it in Sierra Leone, you saw it in the Soviet Union with the collapse of the Soviet Union. And nobody likes to see it, but I think it has to be understood in the context of people who have been oppressed, who are reacting to the oppression?" [WH Press Briefing, 4/11/04]

White House Said Stories About Looting Were Overblown. Asked about the widespread looting in Iraq, Fleischer said: "This is almost starting to remind me of the stories that said our forces were bogged down, as people watched 24, 36 hours? worth of people reacting to the oppression from which they suffered. ?but there's no question, in the President's judgment, that what's happening is people are finding liberation, are finding freedom." [WH Press Briefing, 4/11/04]

NEW REVELATION: Explosives May Be Used Against Our Troops

Immediate Concern Is Weapons Could Be Used Against Troops. "American weapons experts say their immediate concern is that the explosives could be used in major bombing attacks against American or Iraqi forces: the explosives, mainly HMX and RDX, could be used to produce bombs strong enough to shatter airplanes or tear apart buildings." [NYT, 10/25/04]

Same Type of Explosives Have Been Used By Terrorists Before. "The bomb that brought down Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, in 1988 used less than a pound of the material of the type stolen from Al Qaqaa, and somewhat larger amounts were apparently used in the bombing of a housing complex in November 2003 in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, and the blasts in a Moscow apartment complex in September 1999 that killed nearly 300 people." [NYT, 10/25/04]

Bush Said He Would Do Everything To Keep U.S. Soldiers Safe.

Bush: "Look, we just need strong support for our troops. And I have a solemn duty to say to you as squarely as I can, we will do the very best we possibly can to make your loved one safe. That's what we owe the family members, and that's what we owe the troops." [Bush, 5/4/04]

ARE YOU THAT DELUSIONAL THAT YOU CAN'T MAKE THE CONNECTION BETWEEN STOLEN EXPLOSIVES AND THE SUICIDE BOMBINGS/ROADSIDE BOMBINGS THAT OUR TROOPS FACE EVERY DAY IN IRAQ?

Posted by: 97silverlsc

Latest Bush Excuse on Weapons Dump Evaporates

A BUZZFLASH NEWS ALERT

From the Kerry-Edwards Campaign:

George Bush's continuing efforts to avoid responsibility for failing to secure 380 tons of highly dangerous explosives in Iraq just took another blow. The reporter who was actually traveling with the 101st Airborne in the report cited by the Bush campaign has clarified that the unit was not there to secure the massive weapons complex and it was merely a 'pit stop' on their way to Baghdad.

Try as it might, the Bush spin machine can not change the truth: the President is responsible for his catastrophic failures in Iraq and needs to personally address this issue.

LINK TO VIDEO

MSNBC, 10/26/04 (Transcript):

Amy Robach: And it's still unclear exactly when those explosives disappeared. Here to help shed some light on that question is Lai Ling. She was part of an NBC news crew that traveled to that facility with the 101st Airborne Division back in April of 2003. Lai Ling, can you set the stage for us? What was the situation like when you went into the area?

Lai Ling Jew: When we went into the area, we were actually leaving Karbala and we were initially heading to Baghdad with the 101st Airborne, Second Brigade. The situation in Baghdad, the Third Infantry Division had taken over Baghdad and so they were trying to carve up the area that the 101st Airborne Division would be in charge of. As a result, they had trouble figuring out who was going to take up what piece of Baghdad. They sent us over to this area in Iskanderia. We didn't know it as the Qaqaa facility at that point but when they did bring us over there we stayed there for quite a while. We stayed overnight, almost 24 hours. And we walked around, we saw the bunkers that had been bombed, and that exposed all of the ordinances that just lied dormant on the desert.

AR: Was there a search at all underway or did a search ensue for explosives once you got there during that 24-hour period?

LLJ: No. There wasn't a search. The mission that the brigade had was to get to Baghdad. That was more of a pit stop there for us. And, you know, the searching, I mean certainly some of the soldiers head off on their own, looked through the bunkers just to look at the vast amount of ordnance lying around. But as far as we could tell, there was no move to secure the weapons, nothing to keep looters away. But there was ? at that point the roads were shut off. So it would have been very difficult, I believe, for the looters to get there.

AR: And there was no talk of securing the area after you left. There was no discussion of that?

LLJ: Not for the 101st Airborne, Second Brigade. They were -- once they were in Baghdad, it was all about Baghdad, you know, and then they ended up moving north to Mosul. Once we left the area, that was the last that the brigade had anything to do with the area.

AR: Well, Lai Ling Jew, thank you so much for shedding some light into that situation. We appreciate it.