Missing Explosives - Rowback Watch Continues

We continue our Al QaQaa rowback watch: this Saturday Times story tells us that "Mr. Bush has been on the defensive all week over reports that the United States might have failed to secure nearly 400 tons of high explosives in Iraq after the invasion last year.

Here is Monday's story - find the subtle qualifiers that led to "might have failed". I looked for them in this rowback watch.

And let's look for John Edwards use of a qualifier:

And in Toledo, Mr. Kerry's running mate, Senator John Edwards, was hitting the same notes, telling a crowd, "It is reckless and irresponsible to fail to protect and safeguard one of the largest weapons sites in the country. And by either ignoring these mistakes or being clueless about them, George Bush has failed. He has failed as our commander in chief; he has failed as president."

Gregory Djerejian recaps a week of fun at the Times. To his criticism we would add the following:

First - Buried Story Lines - The Times never told us that IAEA head ElBaradei is seeking a third term, and is being opposed by the US. They also ignored their own reporting of Oct. 20, in which they described Saddam's plan to disperse munitions in anticipation of an insurgency.

Second - Hey Dude, Where's My RDX? The Times piece on Friday is all about HMX. But of the 380 tons of missing explosives, 154 tons were RDX. Que pasa?

UPDATE: Ah ha! In the finest tradition of announcing bad news on Friday, the Times has a huge rowback piece by Sanger and Broad, hidden on p. A12 of the Saturday edition. Golly, the initial story was front-paged on a Monday - go figure.

I will excerpt all of the questions they address, and cherry-pick their answers:

If the whole country was an ammunitions dump, how could anyone expect to secure it all?

In Iraq, commanders say it would be an impossible job...

The officers also note that weapons were not just in depots. Much was dispersed by Mr. Hussein before the war, or in its early days. Much has been looted since. And the arms still in the depots might not alter battle on the ground, since the insurgents already are well armed.

Moreover, the HMX and RDX at Al Qaqaa may be available elsewhere in the country. "There's probably a lot of stuff that is chemically identical to this all around Iraq, but it wasn't under seal because it wasn't located at a place previously associated with nuclear work," said one senior administration official.

[That touches on the Saddam-dispersal theory]

Why didn't the international energy agency blow this material up in the 1990's?

[They didn't. Who cares?]

Who saw it last?

[IAEA inspectors, Pentagon photos of trucks, Army ordnance teams, news crews - all inconclusive.]

Does the satellite photo that the Pentagon released show Iraqi trucks removing high-grade explosives from Al Qaqaa before the American invasion?

[No, and the Penatagon did not claim that.]

Is there any reason that the coalition troops should have known to look for the explosives?

[Yes, no, maybe, so what - we were looking for WMDs, we had many missions.]

Is anyone looking for the explosives now?

It is unclear. Many explosives are being rounded up. But identifying HMX takes experience, and in granular form it can be easily divided up and hidden.

Isn't there a huge discrepancy between the nearly 350 metric tons of high explosives that the energy agency claimed were at Al Qaqaa and what was actually there, especially for the explosive known as RDX?

[This is the "Hey Dude, Where's My RDX question"]

No, weapons experts say. A Iraqi government letter of Oct. 10 identified the lost stockpile as containing 194.7 metric tons of HMX, 141.2 metric tons of RDX, and 5.8 metric tons of PETN.

On Wednesday, ABC News reported that it had obtained a confidential document from the energy agency showing that its inspectors in January 2003, had reported the existence of a little more than three tons of RDX explosives at Al Qaqaa - not the 141.2 metric tons in the Iraqi letter.

Melissa Fleming, an agency spokeswoman, said Friday that the confusion about the quantities arose because Al Qaqaa had more than one site for RDX storage. Three tons were kept at Al Qaqaa, she said, while 125 tons under Al Qaqaa administrative control were kept at Muaskar al Mahawil, about 30 miles away. So the total recent RDX inventory was 128 tons - 13 tons less than the Iraqi ministry wrote in their letter this month.

While Mr. Hussein was still in power, Ms. Fleming said, Iraq told agency inspectors before the war that it had used 10 tons of the RDX between late 1998 and late 2002, when the United Nations did not monitor Al Qaqaa. So the discrepancy, she said, boiled down to three tons.

"We were in the process of verifying and reconciling the three missing tons when the war erupted," she said.

[Oh, so when the Times says at the start of this paragraph that there is no discrepancy, what they mean is, there is no discrepancy once you adjust their original story to account for different locations and different amounts. Whatever.]

Why is this coming out in the week before the election?

[This is the buried story line about ElBaradei. Finally.]

The answer depends on whom you ask. The memorandum from the Iraqi interim government to the energy agency was dated Oct. 10. It was sent in response to a request from the agency for an accounting of missing materials. The Bush administration says it smells a political motive: the head of the agency, Mr. ElBaradei, was told a few months ago that the United States would not support him for another term. They suspect an effort at retribution.

[The Bush Administration? The WaPo smelled a rat in this editorial, and even asked ElBaradei about it. BTW, his response is a joke.]

Mr. Bush's political strategist, Karl Rove, said this week that he believed The Times deliberately published the story the week before the election in an effort to harm Mr. Bush's candidacy. Bill Keller, executive editor of The Times, said that the paper first obtained a copy of the Iraqi letter early in the week of Oct. 18, and that its reporters and CBS began asking questions about the explosives in Baghdad, Vienna and Washington during that week. The article was published on Oct. 25. The White House said President Bush was told of the Iraqi warning to the energy agency around Oct. 16.

MORE: Howard Fineman on the strategy of each campaign for the final week. Kerry made a quick shift to Al QaQaa, and this tells why.

Comments

[John Anderson]

Where's the RDX? Well, it's known where it WAS, which is not where everyone is looking.
=================
. I first started posting this 10.27 with little or no response, probably because I did not include links and noone could find the story - I stumbled across it by accident and had trouble finding it again, so I've added the links and how to find it on Google. Is that better?
.
10.25.2004 [10.24 US?] ?RDX never at alQQ? And never sealed?
. text http://www.abc.net.au/am/content/2004/s1227830.htm
. audio Real player http://www.abc.net.au/reslib/200410/r34182_85029.ram
. audio WIndows player http://www.abc.net.au/reslib/200410/r34182_85034.asx
.
IAEA spokeswoman Melissa Fleming interview on ABC (Australia) - "IAEA inspectors visited Al-Mahaweel on Jan. 15, 2003, and verified the RDX inventory by weighing sampling," Fleming said. She said the RDX at Al-Mahaweel was NOT UNDER SEAL [emphasis added - JSA] but was subject to IAEA monitoring."
.
Al-Mahaweel?
"The bulk of the RDX was stored at ANOTHER SITE that was under Al Qaqaa's jurisdiction," IAEA spokeswoman Melissa Fleming said.
She says that the report seen by ABC only covers the Al Qaqaa site itself.
The second site, Al Mahaweel, is roughly 45 kilometres from Al Qaqaa.
.
Well, so much for about 140 of the 372 tons? Or what?
.
10.29.2004 3ID says "I did not see any IAEA seals at any of the locations we went into," Maj. Austin Pearson said.
Search google for "Mahaweel" - http://www.dailyherald.com/news_story.asp?intid=38289156 is the only one in the US to have this?
. But search "Melissa Fleming" and you find the Australian ABC entry.
. What KSTP video? pics of a seal on the ABC/KSTP are of a "sample" seal, not from the video! http://instapundit.com/archives/018748.php
. and from "r-dubya" comment at the Captain's place "The close up picture from KSTP is a cropped photo that is available at the IAEA site. http://www.iaea.org/NewsCenter/News/2002/31012002_news01.shtml It is not a close up of the seal that the news crew may have viewed at whatever bunker they had filmed.
. Another paper has done the story! http://www.timesdispatch.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=RTD/MGArticle/RTD_BasicArticle&c=MGArticle&cid=1031778817576 but thinks it was the 28th: guys, it was the 25th!
. OK, the video is available, my bad - http://kstp.dayport.com/viewer/viewerpage.php?Art_ID=159669 but at least one thing said raises a warning flag, the claim that the 3ID did not search alQQ between the 3rd and the 13th: funny, at the time (the 4th for CBS, the 6th for NYT), it was reported that the 3ID did search, finding explosives and documents.

[BumperStickerist]

Thanks, Tom, for pulling this information together.

[d-man]

Hey, I was in Iraq for the end of last year almost until the turnover in June, and Al-Qaqaa is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to unguarded explosives.

There were huge ammo dumps all over the country. There were several south of Baghdad, in the Multinational CS sector, that were completely unguarded, or "guarded" by an inadequate Iraqi Facilities Protection Service force, for months.

These dumps were huge and had thousands of 122 mm artillery shells, rockets, anti-aircraft missiles with large warheads and aerial bombs.

A bridge on the main highway (Rt. 1) between Basra and Baghdad was destroyed by two 500 lb bombs tied under it.

[Karl]

TM,

Good work (as usual), though I would take issue with this part:

"Why didn't the international energy agency blow this material up in the 1990's?

[They didn't. Who cares?]"

I care. The Bush Administration pushed for these explosives to be destroyed, but the IAEA refused. The reason offered by the IAEA was that the regime claimed the explosives could be used for civilian purposes, like mining. That the IAEA accepted this rationale tells us one of two things.

It may suggest that the IAEA were either dumb or willing dupes of the regime. If so, it is highly relevant in deciding whether to vote for a Presidential candidate who says we should have left the job to international inspectors. Had the IAEA listened to the Administration, there would be no story here at all.

It also may suggest that the IAEA did not view these explosives as much more dangerous than ordinary explosives and put them under seal solely due to their location. If so, the NYT acted with even greater malice or stupidity in hyping the story than would be the case otherwise.

Moreover, these points are not mutually exclusive; both may be true.

Someone reading this analysis may think that we must take the world as we find it, which leaves the U.S. with the responsibilty for securing the site. We certainly must take the world as we find it, but we need not accept the IAEA/NYT frame as the only one through which this story can be viewed.

If the NYT were not so thoroughly biased, the story could have been equally reported as one example of the daunting task of trying to secure a country awash in arms and explosives -- a task made more daunting by the IAEA's own inaction. It could have reported that the IAEA's idea of security was to "seal" a bunker that was still completely accessible through the ventilation shafts.

A less biased NYT might have paired that story with a review of the crumbling U.N. sanctions, or the corruption of the Oil-For-Food program, which allowed Saddam to collect $11 Billion for rearmament.

Of course, had they done that, the casual reader might have surmised that the international inspection regime was inadequate. It might have led a reader to view The Administration's policy in a more favorable light. And we can't have that, can we?

[SteveoBrien]

Where ARE the satellite photos of the explosives being removed prior to invasion of Iraq? We were all over Iraq search every square inch for dozens of different things? But we missed the large 30 or 50 trucks (whatever) hauling the stff to (Syria?), not exactly a hop, skip and a jump away.

The ABC news affiliate which has been in the news all week, embedded with the 101st Airborne, eventually found the photos they needed (some of the earlier ones were just plain stupid and exposed the fact they didn't have a clue what to search through). They promised early on (Monday or Tuesday) they were going to retain some explosives experts. Fast forward to Thursday. Their photos show what virtually everyone agrees (I''m still looking for a credible authority that doesn't) that they had indeed filmed the explosives. Badgdad had fallen. Neither the 3rd Army or 101st Airborne had any instructions what to do with the stuff. It had the UN seals on it. It was the "missing explosives."

Presumably they had some experts with them who knew how to look for chemical weapons, explosives etc. which might be of special danger to the American army. Destroying explosives may not have been a priority, but the organization you denigrate has been verified by the Pentagon as providing a warning well in advance of the invasion.

Slam dunk. Game over. The explosives were clearly identified as being present after the fall of Baghdad. Your best point is that was it realistically possible to destroy those munisitions? (1) the Pentagon had notice, especially the nature (suitable for use in atomic weapon to ignite it (2) the ABC affiliate camera crew had nice tour guides to show them around. Too bad, given the knowledge of what they were looking at, they didnt toss a grenade in each one as they departed.

(Figre of speech with the grenade. The point is they saw them, should have known what they were, and if the inspectors were so worried maybe they should have done something. Or maybe the Pentagon never told them. They didn't care.)

All your misc sidebars about election of the president of the agency and a good many more are interesting, but useful speculation. Look at the hard facts.

(1) no satellite photos of all those trucke? OK, didn't get any. Little strange, but let's say that didn't work out.

(2) but what about those photos of Thursday (big surprise, the NYT had a story then which is glossed over here and/or ignored.

All this talk of subtle meanings, all the speculations of hundreds of kinds last week, don't add up to anything in the face of physical evidence.

Slam dunk. Game over. (oops, already said that)

[antimedia]

All this talk of slam dunk, game over is stupid, childish and ignorant. Grow up. The truth is, we don't know the facts, and we won't know them for some time to come. You talk about "physical evidence", SteveoBrien, where is your physical evidence? Everybody is speculating about photos and paper reports, and no one who is doing the speculating has been there and investigated. (Not even David Kay, so don't even bring up his name.)

This whole "story" is stupid.

[Stephen Stewart]

As a 22 year vet let me tell you that RDX- HMX were the least to be worried about. It is like going to a gun store and being concerned about the gun powder in the reloading section. This stuff is too much work, especially when you have 155 and 80mm rounds laying all over the place and various and sundry other types of HE Ammo. Add to that you are spending all of your time in MOPP3 or MOPP 4 ( Military Oriented Protective Posture) NBC suit. You are briefed and have a mission. So what do we do? Without giving it all away. The coalition forces had specifics units looking for WMD. Othe MI units Guarded these large Ammo storage areas with UAV's. When anyone came near and started looting or nosing around, they were greeted by a team of Apache gunships.

My only wish would be to see John Kerry and John Edwards in MOPP4 in the desert for 72 hours.

1SG Stephen W. Stewart
USA (RET)

[Mark]

Thanks, good roundup/recap.

Reading this made me realize that this was an awful lot of explosives that were removed in a very short period of time. I hadn’t realized that the time period for the removal was less than two months. Doing a back of the envelope calculation, that’s something on the order of a pickup truck every hour and a half, all day every day.

To get that number I had to make some rough assumptions (that’s why it’s “back of the envelope”).
If the explosives were removed using vehicles similar to those ubiquitous white pickup trucks that we see on the news, and about they can each haul about half a ton (this is a guess on my part, I’ve no idea how bulky this stuff is, but it’s not an unreasonable guess for the capacity of a 10 year old small pickup), then that’s 760 trucks for 380 tons.
If the explosives were removed between the time the troops left in April, and the time the Iraq Survey Group got to the site in May there wasn’t much time. I’m guessing that it’s probably more than 30 days, but less than 60, split the difference and call it 45 days to move it all (if anyone has more exact time, let me know).
So divide 760 trucks by 45 days and you get 16.9 trucks per day which converts to 0.704 trucks per hour, or 1.42 hours per truck. That’s a pickup truck, on average, every hour and a half, 24/7.

Like I said, back of the envelope, but still, no matter how you look at it, a lot of trucks and not much time.

[M. Simon]

Steveo,

Are you saying that Saddam had an atomic weapons program in the waiting (at minimum)?

A real WMD program that the explosives were a part of?

Slam dunk game over.

[TM]

The correct talking point is "Game. Set. Match". And if repeating something makes it true, then lots of other things are true as well.

The Thursday story was covered on Thursday, and ties in quite nicely to the "Where's My RDX". On Monday, we had 380 tons of Fear. By Thursday, some of the HMX was visibly there, and almost all of the RDX was elsewhere (the rest was not under seal). And that "proved" the Times story was accurate? Actually, it proved the opposite.

Re the IAEA and my "who cares". Karl has a good point. I was not caring only in a very literal and unimaginative sense - somebody made a mistake in 1995, but that does not in itself explain what happened in 2003.

However, it does impugn the IAEA a bit, and they are a part of the current story.

[Cecil Turner]

"The correct talking point is "Game. Set. Match"."

Well, I don't disagree, but there might be some nuance here. BruceR's original use of the phrase was to dispute allegations the explosives had been moved prior to US forces' arrival--and it seems correct. Probably ought to've said "game"--because "set and match" would be the larger picture of what happened to the explosives and the political effect of the issue, respectively--which is still in dispute, but seems likely to go the other way.

"However, it does impugn the IAEA a bit, and they are a part of the current story."

I think it's more than a bit. It's deeply hypocritical of the IAEA to claim this is a major issue now, but wasn't important enough to destroy in 1995 (or 2002 after several tons had gone missing).

[Max B. Sawicky]

Take a rest, Tom. Iraq is worse and getting worser. You've done more than anyone could ask.

G. Bush

[TM]

Tom - Disregard previous message - that Colin Powell is such a kidder!

Remember, sometimes things have to get worserer before they get betterer.

W.

[poll troll]

OT

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http://www.weeklyreader.com/election_vote.asp

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Since 1956, Weekly Reader students in grades 1-12 have correctly picked the president, making the Weekly Reader poll one of the most accurate predictors of presidential outcomes in history.

[sophy]

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