Monday, October 25, 2004

380 tons of Qaqaa

The big story today is that shortly after we took control of Iraq, 380 tons of powerful conventional explosives were stolen form an Iraqi military facility near the area known as Al Qaqaa. Read about it here. This has actually been a well known secret for a short time now. It's entered the news cycle today because the "Iraqi Government" finally reported the missing stockpiles to the International Atomic Energy Agency.

(Side note: You might ask, why would the IAEA by interested in missing stockpiles of conventional explosives? For one, while not nuclear in nature themselves, these explosives could be used to detonate a nuclear device. Second, because the IAEA had control of this particular stockpile prior to the US invasion. After the invasion, US forces took ownership at which point the explosives went missing.)

Shortly after Major Operations ended, US forces discovered the evidence of looting. So why was this news held back for so long? As reported by CNN:

The discovery was not made public sooner because standard intelligence practice
is not to let enemies know such information, said a senior administration
official. There are hundreds of tons of other weapons and munitions missing
around the country, and it is impossible for the United States to track down all
of them, the official said.

I thought the purpose of this war was to keep weapons out of the hands of terrorists. So tell me how this war makes us safer? How many troops have died because we failed to properly secure these areas during the initial invasion? Who is in control of these explosives now? Where will they end up? Security moms for Bush??

posted by bkopec @ 3:48 PM   1 comments