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]
