Mosul dining hall massacre/missing 350-tons of explosives ...

[DemoTex]

Where is the outrage? Why have I not yet heard one question on whether the Mosul tragedy and the missing explosives scandal are, perhaps, linked? Chances are fairly good that the Mosul explosives came from the ammo dump that the US military failed to secure early in the war. If not, it is just a matter of time before those missing explosives are used against our troops. The missing explosives scandal has been very effectively (I smell Rove) relegated to the memory-hole. Let's get it back on the front burner. Let's argue that many more Mosuls might occur because of this regime's incompetence. Call Al. Call Randi. Call Mike. Hell, call Ru$h. Do it now.

And while I am on my high-horse, WTF has happened to the Plame case?

[trotsky]

1. That whole missing explosives story

got dropped like a rock immediately after the election. As if it didn't even matter anymore. Why doesn't anyone care?!? :mad:

[DemoTex]

3. Actually, I think the story was killed before the election.

It was so potentially ... er, what's the word? ... oh yeah, EXPLOSIVE!.

There is a term that any Boeing 727 flight engineer knows: protect essential. It has to do with the engineer's responsibility to maintain electrical current to essential services during a malfunction. Evidently, the main-stream press in the US has bastardized this concept to: protect Bu$h.

[trotsky]

5. Yeah, I remember, my local station had footage

proving the explosives were still present when the US assumed responsibility for the area. The film was immediately shuffled away to "verify" it. And then, *poof* - nothing more.

[Must_B_Free]

23. The story was killed by yet another "new" Bin Laden tape, remember?

as always, old Sammy Bin Laden popped up at the perfect moment to save his arch enemy Bush.

[No Mandate Here.]

2. If 'A', then 'B'

The SCLM media are complicit in the theft of our country.

[DemoTex]

6. What is SCLM?

Pardon my ignorance.

:shrug:

[Jacobin]

7. "So-Called Liberal Media?"

Just a guess, but I'm thinking this fits

[Wilber_Stool]

4. Your damn right

It would have to be a very exotic explosive to kill over twenty people with just a vest pack. C4 or the like wouldn't do that much damage unless it was packed into something like a serving cart.
And if you can smuggle a bomb that size into a mess all, well, we're doomed.

[uncle ray]

14. on national propaganda radio i heard

a military medic say he was walking across the spot where the explosion took place, he said he slipped and fell on something slipery on the floor, according to him, something slippery like the residue left from a C4 explosion...hmmm.

just passing on what they said, i don't know enough about C4 to know about this slickness he speaks of, but my jaw dropped when i heard him mention C4!

[annabanana]

8. I keep waiting to hear someone make that link......

I know I made it the instant I heard it might have been a suicide bomber. .............shameful lack of press balls in this country

[buddysmellgood]

9. That is an excellent point.

[DemoTex]

10. Shameless kick. This shit is important.

Get involved.

[Bluebear]

11. Sorry, liberals are taking the Christ out of Christmas.

This is what makes the news.

[BrotherBuzz]

12. American Sheeple don't care

because Bush* et al will continue to spin the terrorist connection and that resources supporting the rebels are coming in from Syria, Jordan, and Iran. Time to start bombing the the Ho Chi Minh Trail (Persian trail?) before it is even established, and B-52 runs into downtown Hanoi Tehran. Soon we'll be hearing of secret bombing strikes into Cambodia and Laos Syria and Jordan. Who says that history doesn't repeat itself?

[DemoTex]

13. BrotherBuzz .. love you comments.

I actually flew 250+ combat missions in Vietnam, most at night over the Ho Chi Minh Trail in Laos. We were "alone, unarmed, and scared shitless." Spooks. Electronic, radio-research, spooks.

[DemoTex]

15. Kick this shit again.

Sorry, I've got to keep this in the spotlight.

[Bluebear]

16. Kicked and nominated

[DemoTex]

18. Thanks BlueBear

We appreciate that!

[BrotherBuzz]

20. Hmmm, any connection with NKP in Thailand?

My section Intel Officer spun some whopping stories of his work in an underground air-conditioned bunker in Thailand, communicating with airplanes that were monitoring the Ho Chi Minh trail. Electronic troop movement movement sensors, and the like, all hush-hush. He lost me on the urine sensors! LOL, I thought he was pulling my leg until I read a book by Robert Coran on Colonel John Boyd that spelled it out. Some really weird stuff was going on over there!

[DemoTex]

22. My "unit" had a "unit" at NKP. They were total "silver birds."

They picked up the slack on high Laos and upper North Vietnam missions. They were "silver" A/C (no markings) with totally sanitized pilots. Dirty, dirty biznizz!

[KG]

17. because nobody that matters cares.

[jmowreader]

19. I heard Mosul was a 122mm rocket

At least the local newspaper (which picks up the AP feed) claimed that it was a 122mm rocket.

The only real problem with believing that a 122mm rocket did Mosul is that those rockets are fired from multiple rocket launchers like the BM-21, which has 40 tubes. Read about the BM-21 at http://www.fas.org/man/dod-101/sys/land/row/bm-21.htm

Now let me ask you something: if you had a BM-21 and you were assigned the mission of blowing the shit out of a mess hall, would you fire one rocket--or would you fire one for registration, make sure you were hitting the mess hall, then ripple-fire the rest of the rack? BM-21s are better for area fire than point fire anyway, meaning that if you fired the whole rack at the Mosul army garrison you'd probably kill four or five hundred people with that one barrage.

[Blue_Tires]

21. good points...thanks

so far i didn't make that connection since the media completely forgot about that stolen explosives story

[Octafish]

24. Wasn't this an election issue? Really, it's just politics.

Those durn French.



How many tons? That makes an awful lot of bombs. And too many martyrs and victims.

Interested DUers: Here's what Rove got Corporate McPravda and their Presstitute horde to ignore just before the election.

TRACKING THE WEAPONS

Huge Cache of Explosives Vanished From Site in Iraq

By JAMES GLANZ, WILLIAM J. BROAD and DAVID E. SANGER
October 25, 2004

BAGHDAD, Iraq, Oct. 24 - The Iraqi interim government has warned the United States and international nuclear inspectors that nearly 380 tons of powerful conventional explosives - used to demolish buildings, make missile warheads and detonate nuclear weapons - are missing from one of Iraq's most sensitive former military installations.

The huge facility, called Al Qaqaa, was supposed to be under American military control but is now a no man's land, still picked over by looters as recently as Sunday. United Nations weapons inspectors had monitored the explosives for many years, but White House and Pentagon officials acknowledge that the explosives vanished sometime after the American-led invasion last year.

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."

Administration officials said Sunday that the Iraq Survey Group, the C.I.A. task force that searched for unconventional weapons, has been ordered to investigate the disappearance of the explosives.

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 produce bombs strong enough to shatter airplanes or tear apart buildings.

CONTINUED (may need registration)....

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/25/international/middleeast/25bomb.html?ex=1103864400&en=bbfc774559de6e4e&ei=5070&oref=login&oref=login&hp&ex=1098676800&en=61cf6e1aa29b7871&ei=5094&partner=homepage

[BrotherBuzz]

25. Iraq's unsecured ammo dumps providing explosives for insurgency

It's much bigger problem than anyone would have thought. This is a sobering read that indicates our troops are in for a lot more trouble down the road...really, no end in sight. And to think the Pentagon initially claimed that none of this happened before the election.

http://www.kansascity.com/mld/kansascity/news/politics/10478260.htm?1c

Iraq's unsecured ammo dumps providing explosives for insurgency

BY JIM LANDERS
The Dallas Morning News

WASHINGTON - (KRT) - Twenty-one months after the war in Iraq began, the U.S. military is still
struggling to secure Iraqi ammo dumps - and more arms caches are discovered every week.

The dumps are rifled by insurgents for explosives used in the improvised roadside and suicide bomb attacks that are causing most of the war's casualties.

Tuesday's devastating attack of a mess hall tent in Mosul highlights the concerns over the abundance of explosives in Iraq. After initial speculation that the blast was caused by a rocket or mortar, military officials Wednesday said a suicide bomber was likely to blame.

U.S. efforts to secure Iraqi munitions stockpiles began in earnest in September 2003. But by then, looters had picked over many of the ammo dumps.

<snip>

Much of this ammo wound up buried in the desert rather than stored in bunkers or warehouses. Those involved in the search have no confidence that they've found all of these hidden munitions dumps, said the manager, who asked not to be identified for fear of damaging his relations with the Corps of Engineers.

"Those Iraqi army officers were the only ones who knew where they'd hidden all this stuff. It's like trying to figure out where the squirrels hid the nuts," he said. "The whole thing was dysfunctional."

Earhart agreed that the Iraqi military's ammunition storage system made no apparent sense.

"There were bunkers of bombs not near any air bases, projectiles, mortars and mines located in areas not even close to where you would place mines or artillery installations," he said. "They were located everywhere - in bunkers, laying on the ground, piled in buildings, with no rhyme or reason for munitions being close to their delivery systems."

<more>

[leftchick]

26. my only question is...

which ammo dump? None of them were secured!