MB - Clarification of earlier posts where you alluded to nasty things about Guido - Dan and I have a side bet on the election, 500 points from the loser to the winner, and all the loser's vbookie points if the winner takes more than 52% of the total vote.
Now go do 3 Hail Marys (the football must travel at least 30 yards through the air) and wash out your keyboard with soap. The Padre has spoken. Don't make me go Latin on you...
Poor NbaDan. He lives by the Dem-o-craps and he dies by the Dem-0-craps.
Padre, he has no idea of what you speak. God is not allowed in his world.
Kerry is the poorest excuse for a man that has ever existed. I thought Carter
was bad, heck he looks like a world leader compared to Kerry. Just maybe,
maybe, he, Kerry, knows how to hit the nail on the head while being Carter's
helper. Nawh, asking too much. The rich lady, his wife, wouldn't allow that.
P.S. Dan, the mouth, Rather must reallly feel good, he nows has company,
"The New York Times" the paper of record.
http://www.nationalreview.com/kerry/kerryspot.asp
WHAT ODD TIMING BY MR. ELBARADEI! [10/26 03:04 PM]
Well, isn’t this interesting?
Agence France Presse, Sep 27, 2004:
A new board of governors of the UN nuclear watchdog met in Vienna Monday to draw up procedures for electing a new director general, with current chief Mohamed ElBaradei seeking a third term despite US opposition.
ElBaradei put his hat into the ring for a third term as director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) earlier this month despite opposition from the United States and possibly other top UN funding states.
His current four-year term expires on November 30 next year, and US officials have said the United States, the largest contributor to the United Nations, supports the position of the Geneva group of top 10 contributors that heads of international organizations should not serve more than two terms.
"This policy has nothing to do with the director general's qualifications. The United States thinks that he's done a very good job leading the agency at a very difficult time, but it's simply a matter of principle and good governance," a Western official familiar with the US position said...
Applications for candidacies will close by December 31 and the board will seek to have the new director general named by a meeting in June 2005, in order to be formally elected at the next IAEA general conference in September
The director's general's new term would begin on December 1, 2005.
(ElBaradei has had this job since 1997 — hey, wasn’t that a year before India and Pakistan announced they had the bomb? And since then we’ve seen North Korea dishonor its treaties and get nukes, the A.Q. Khan network try to sell nuclear material to any and all buyers, and Iran is on the nuclear doorstep. This is a “very good job”? How bad do you have to be to get fired around here? What is this, “Mary Mapes rules”?)
Anyway, so in late September, the United States makes clear it doesn’t want a third term for ElBaradei. We read in the New York Times story that started all this:
“In May, an internal I.A.E.A. memorandum warned that terrorists might be helping "themselves to the greatest explosives bonanza in history…
Early this month, Dr. ElBaradei put public pressure on the interim Iraqi government to start the process of accounting for nuclear-related materials still ostensibly under I.A.E.A. supervision, including the Qaqaa stockpile.
"Iraq is obliged," he wrote to the president of the Security Council on Oct. 1, "to declare semiannually changes that have occurred or are foreseen."
The agency, Dr. ElBaradei added pointedly, "has received no such notifications or declarations from any state since the agency's inspectors were withdrawn from Iraq in March 2003."
Gee! In late September the U.S. says no third term for ElBaradei, and Oct. 1 he writes to Iraq demanding answers about this old weapons depot!
Then, in a memo that appears to be dated Oct. 10, the Iraqis respond that the explosives are missing… and it just happens to show up on the front page of the New York Times eight days before Election Day. An article that quotes a European diplomat as saying “Dr. ElBaradei is "extremely concerned" about the potentially "devastating consequences" of the vanished stockpile.”
I’ll bet he is! He’s so concerned, he felt a need to make this issue that he’s been quiet about since spring 2003 and press the Iraqi government for an immediate answer that he knows will make the Bush administration look bad!
One has to wonder - has John Kerry or a member of his staff indicated they would keep ElBaradei around for another term? We know ElBaradei wants a change in U.S. policy on his third term.
ElBaradei is doing everything he can to help Kerry. What’s in it for ElBaradei?
http://www.nationalreview.com/kerry/kerryspot.asp
MORE QUESTIONS ABOUT IAEA COMPETENCE IN IRAQ [10/26 03:20 PM]
Hmm. We read from MSNBC that Mohamed ElBaradei is making a full-court press, insisting these explosives were taken by looters after the invasion (how can he know for certain?):
In a letter to the U.N. Security Council on Monday, IAEA head Mohamed ElBaradei attributed the disappearance to a “lack of security” at Al-Qaqaa after the U.S.-led war in Iraq broke out in March 2003...
ElBaradei told the council the IAEA had kept the theft quiet since learning of it from Iraqi authorities on Oct. 10 to give the U.S.-led multinational force and Iraq’s interim government “an opportunity to attempt to recover the explosives before this matter was put into the public domain.”
But since the disappearance was reported by the New York Times on Monday, he said he wanted the Security Council to have the letter that he received from Mohammed J. Abbas, a senior official at Iraq’s Ministry of Science and Technology, reporting the theft of the explosives.
The materials were lost through “the theft and looting of the governmental installations due to lack of security,” the letter said.
ElBaradei’s cover letter to the council said that the HMX had been under IAEA seal and that the RDX and PETN were “both subject to regular monitoring of stock levels.”
“The presence of these amounts was verified by the IAEA in January 2003,” he said.
Ah, but the thing is, according to the IAEA itself, things under IAEA seal in Iraq had a tendency to disappear. Let's take a look at this report from 1997:
Iraq has returned high explosives it had removed from the Al Qa Qaa facility, according to the Director-General of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).
In a letter to the United Nations Secretary-General, Mohamed Elbaradei says that in accordance with its notification of IAEA, Iraq had removed IAEA seals from five of the six high-explosive bunkers at the Al Qa Qaa facility and dispersed approximately 50 tonnes out of a total of 228 tonnes of high explosives (HMX) to other locations at Al Qa Qaa. Mr. Elbaradei says that IAEA inspectors have witnessed the return of this material to its original storage location and have taken measures to account for the original inventory. "There are no indications that any of this material has been diverted", the IAEA Director-General says.
In addition to these activities, other IAEA personnel and experts from United Nations Member States have serviced and upgraded the video surveillance systems at two facilities. They have also carried out an extensive campaign for the collection of environmental samples...
Following an impasse caused by Iraq's objection to the United Nations weapons inspectors, IAEA inspectors returned to Baghdad on 21 November and resumed their inspections the following day.
Notice that this message doesn't say anything about why the Iraqis broke the seal and moved these explosives. The tough, watchful eyes of the IAEA state, "Don't worry, we found it and the Iraqis put it back."
All of this comes as Captain Ed and one of his readers, retired Army Reserve Captain Ian Dodgson have used simple logic to determine what it would take to remove all of these explosives.
They conclude this operation would take the resources of approximately 100 men, for a period longer than two weeks, the intelligence to know exactly where the "right" explosives were hidden and a means of breaching steel doors and concrete of an Army Supply Plant.
But all this was pulled off by a bunch of looters, right under the noses of the coalition forces in the area. Right.
MB - Clarification of earlier posts where you alluded to nasty things about Guido - Dan and I have a side bet on the election, 500 points from the loser to the winner, and all the loser's vbookie points if the winner takes more than 52% of the total vote.
Now go do 3 Hail Marys (the football must travel at least 30 yards through the air) and wash out your keyboard with soap. The Padre has spoken. Don't make me go Latin on you...
FYI - vBookie $$ can't be transferred from one account to another, it has to be set up as an actual vBookie event.
I've been looking for that link forever.
Must learn to be patient and not over react.
Anyone see NBC News backtracking on their story today? Told ya so.
Get yourself outta here!! Are you serious?
Not to my knowledge, but then again, I'm not sitting at home watching TV.
NBC recanting their story? I looked on MSNBC and it seems they are sticking with their original claims that the 101st stopped off at the base and then moved on shortly thereafter. I might be missing something, but it doesn't look like a reversal.
Link
WASHINGTON - The whereabouts of nearly 380 tons of high-powered explosives that vanished in Iraq remained a mystery Tuesday, even as the timing of their disappearance was becoming an issue in the final days of the U.S. presidential election.
In reporting the theft on Monday, the International Atomic Energy Agency said that the explosives had been looted from the sprawling Al-Qaqaa military base, about 30 miles south of Baghdad, since January 2003 due to a “lack of security” at the former Iraqi military facility.
An NBC News crew that accompanied U.S. soldiers who seized the Al-Qaqaa base three weeks into the war in Iraq reported that troops discovered significant stockpiles of bombs, but no sign of the missing HMX and RDX explosives.
Reporter Lai Ling Jew, who was embedded with the Army’s 101st Airborne, Second Brigade, said Tuesday on MSNBC TV that the news team stayed at the Al-Qaqaa base for about 24 hours.
‘No move to secure the weapons’
“There wasn’t a search,” she said. “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 headed 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.”
There was disagreement among U.S. officials over when the explosives might have disappeared.
At the Pentagon, an official who monitors developments in Iraq said U.S.-led coalition troops had searched Al-Qaqaa in the immediate aftermath of the March 2003 invasion and confirmed that the explosives, which had been under IAEA seal since 1991, were intact. The site was not secured by U.S. forces, the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity.
But other Pentagon officials, also speaking on condition of anonymity, suggested that the explosives could have been hidden elsewhere before the war. They also stressed that there is no evidence HMX or RDX have been used against coalition forces in Iraq.
Secretary of State Colin Powell, in an exclusive interview with NBC News on Monday during a visit to South Korea, refused to comment on the timing of the disappearance.
Powell: Facts of disappearance unclear
"I don't know that we know what happened to it or the exact disposition," he said. "And I'll wait for those looking into this to come up with the answer as to what was there, when it was discovered missing, and where it might be."
State Department spokesman Adam Ereli said that coalition forces searched 32 bunkers and 87 other buildings at Al Qaqaa facility after the war, looking for weapons of mass destruction. He said the troops found none, but did see signs of looting.
HMX and RDX can be used to demolish buildings, down jetliners, produce warheads for missiles and detonate nuclear weapons. HMX and RDX are key ingredients in plastic explosives, such as C-4 and Semtex — substances so powerful that Libyan terrorists needed just 1 pound to blow up Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, in 1988, killing 170 people.
Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry seized on the disappearance of the explosives in a campaign speech on Monday, calling it “one of the greatest blunders” of the war in Iraq.
“George W. Bush, who talks tough ... and brags about making America safer, has once again failed to deliver,” he told supporters in Dover, N.H. “After being warned about the danger of major stockpiles of explosives in Iraq, this president failed to guard those stockpiles.”
White House spokesman Scott McClellan said that Bush had ordered an investigation of the disappearance shortly after being notified by the IAEA on Oct. 15 and that officials had quickly ascertained that no nuclear material was involved.
Investigation under way
“Remember, at the end of Operation Iraqi Freedom there was some looting, and some of it was organized,” McClellan said. “There were munitions caches spread throughout the country, and so these are all issues that are being looked into by the multinational forces and the Iraqi Survey Group.”
He also emphasized that coalition forces have seized vast amount of munitions in Iraq.
“We have destroyed more than 243,000 munitions,” he said. “We’ve secured another nearly 163,000 that will be destroyed.”
http://www.nationalreview.com/kerry/kerryspot.asp
MIKLASZEWSKI'S NEW REPORT [10/26 03:56 PM]
Marshall says Miklaszewski's report from last night is "no longer operative" based on the Pentagon correspondent's recent comments on MSNBC. I'd say that is an overstatement. To use one of Kerry's favorite words, let's say Miklaszewski's account is more nuanced.
Following up on that story from last night, military officials tell NBC News that on April 10, 2003, when the Second Brigade of the 101st Airborne entered the Al QaQaa weapons facility, south of Baghdad, that those troops were actually on their way to Baghdad, that they were not actively involved in the search for any weapons, including the high explosives, HMX and RDX. The troops did observe stock piles of conventional weapons but no HMX or RDX. And because the Al Qaqaa facility is so huge, it's not clear that those troops from the 101st were actually anywhere near the bunkers that reportedly contained the HMX and RDX. Three months earlier, during an inspection of the Al Qaqaa compound, the International Atomic Energy Agency secured and sealed 350 metric tons of HMX and RDX. Then in March, shortly before the war began, the I.A.E.A. conducted another inspection and found that the HMX stockpile was still intact and still under seal. But inspectors were unable to inspect the RDX stockpile and could not verify that the RDX was still at the compound.
Pentagon officials say elements of the 101st Airborne did conduct a thorough search of several facilities around the Al QaQaa compound for several weeks during the month of April in search of WMD. They found no WMD. And Pentagon officials say it's not clear at that time whether those other elements of the 101st actually searched the Al QaQaa compound.
Now, Pentagon officials say U.S. troops and members of the Iraq Survey Group did arrive at the Al QaQaa compound on May 27. And when they did, they found no HMX or RDX or any other weapons under seal at the time. Now, the Iraqi government is officially said that the high explosives were stolen by looters. Pentagon officials claim it's possible — they're not sure, they say, but it's possible that Saddam Hussein himself ordered that these high explosives be removed and hidden before the war. What is clear is that the 350 metric tons of high explosives are still missing, and that the U.S. or Iraqi governments or international inspectors, for that matter, cannot say with any certainty where they are today.
I have a question about that first comment, that "it's not clear that those troops from the 101st were actually anywhere near the bunkers that reportedly contained the HMX and RDX."
A gentleman sending me e-mail from a ".mil" address writes:
But I was there at Al QaQaa on April 10th with the 101st, I can rest assure you that [NBC producer interviewed on MSNBC earlier today] Lai Ling Jew is lying about it, she seems to be expressing a convenient contrary opinion of the time. The very first thing we do when we move into an area is clear it of any enemy combatants, including going inside warehouses full of ordinance, which we did immediately when we reached there.
Another gentleman sending me e-mail from a ".mil" address writes:
Operational plans in modern warfare are continually rolling and are available to combat commanders in a real time network environment. The original pre-invasion Operation Plans listed the Al-QaQaa weapons depot as a priority security site. After the 101st Airborne Division inspected the site, the security priority was downgraded and the Operational Plan was modified.
So first, I would assume that before the 101st stopped at the site for 24 hours, they would at least send guys with guns through to make sure there weren't any hostile forces at al-QaQaa. I don't care how big the site is, no commanding officer is going to leave a bunch of buildings unchecked for badguys who might try to attack his guys. Also, wouldn't "securing" this site mean checking for booby traps? Wouldn't our guys want to know what's in these buildings that they're walking around?
And I would assume that the process of securing al-QaQaa — "a priority security site" would include checking for explosives in all these buildings they're securing. So that the message, "hey, guys, careful if we get attacked and have to defend this position - there are 350 tons of high-grade explosives over in that storage bunker over there" gets to everybody who needs to hear it.
Yahoo NewsNEW YORK - An NBC News reporter embedded with a U.S. army unit that seized an Iraqi installation three weeks into the war said Tuesday that she saw no signs that the Americans searched for the powerful explosives that are now missing from the site.
Reporter Lai Ling Jew, who was embedded with the Army's 101st Airborne, Second Brigade, said her news team stayed at the Al-Qaqaa base for about 24 hours.
"There wasn't a search," she told MSNBC, an NBC cable news channel. "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."
100 men over 2 weeks to move 380 tons? One man can move several tons in a day, but it depends on how it was packaged and how far it needed to be moved.
No one seems to know when the stuff got moved. It seems that the area wasn't thoroughly searched until May 2003, If it was moved before the war, you would think that we could find out from the top former leaders they have captured. You would think we would have some clues, but instead it has to become a campaign issue to become important and to try to reconstruct what happened.
Security was bad during and after the invasion. Security is still bad now. Horrible decisions have been made that screwed things up. First, we were seriously undermanned and still are. Second, we disbanded the Iraqi army instead of coopting it. Third, we are punchdrunk slow training a replacement force.
Since the invasion, the US has done a good job with a lot of the weaponry, but a lot has disappeared too due to poor security and control. We have delivered a lot of weapons to our true enemy, AQ.
That's assuming that all of the material was even there when the troops first arrived. The IAEA can't fully confirm that:
Removing that material would have required a significant number of personnel, the requisite equipment, a significant number of truckloads, and a significant amount of time. It also would have required the ability to open up the storage areas to begin with. The most logical explanation is that Hussein ordered the removal of the material after the IAEA inspectors left but prior to the invasion and that this story has resurfaced again because there is a presidential election in a week.Following up on that story from last night, military officials tell NBC News that on April 10, 2003, when the Second Brigade of the 101st Airborne entered the Al QaQaa weapons facility, south of Baghdad, that those troops were actually on their way to Baghdad, that they were not actively involved in the search for any weapons, including the high explosives, HMX and RDX. The troops did observe stock piles of conventional weapons but no HMX or RDX. And because the Al Qaqaa facility is so huge, it's not clear that those troops from the 101st were actually anywhere near the bunkers that reportedly contained the HMX and RDX. Three months earlier, during an inspection of the Al Qaqaa compound, the International Atomic Energy Agency secured and sealed 350 metric tons of HMX and RDX. Then in March, shortly before the war began, the I.A.E.A. conducted another inspection and found that the HMX stockpile was still intact and still under seal. But inspectors were unable to inspect the RDX stockpile and could not verify that the RDX was still at the compound.
because there is a presidential election in a week.
Give me a in break. What the did Saddam care about hiding this until the Presidential election? You really think that Saddam somehow crafted this so that the U.S. would keep this from the Iraqi Iterm Government, so that they didn't have to report it to the Internation Atomic Agency until late October? And you accuse me of being a conspiracy theorists.
Dan!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! take your medicine.
This is not a new story. I didn't say Hussein moved it because of the 2004 US presidential election. Seeing as how the IAEA head is the likely source for this old story it's quite relevant to point out his motivations.
And yes, you are a ing weirdo.
Anyways, more holes in the NBC 'recantation':
http://www.nationalreview.com/kerry/kerryspot.asp
YET ANOTHER SERVICEMAN REFUTES THE TIMES ACCOUNT [10/26 05:23 PM]
From yet another Kerry Spot reader with a ".mil" e-mail address:
You are correct in your bottom line conclusion. Here is a second follow up.
I was serving as a [identifying information removed by the Kerry Spot] staff member during the time in question. The Commander on the site had complete real time intelligence on what to expect and possibly find at the Al-QaQaa depot. The ordinance in question was not found when teams were sent in to inspect and secure the area. When this information was relayed, Operational plans were adjusted and the unit moved forward. Had the ordinance in question been discovered, a security team would have been left in place.MORE FROM A KERRY SPOT READER WHO WAS THERE [10/26 05:07 PM]
More from a Kerry Spot reader with a ".mil" e-mail address, stating he was among the soldiers who secured Al QaQaa on April 10th with the 101st:
I can tell you what happened at my squad level. When we arrived there, humvees with Mark-19's and other mounted weapons immediately secured the parameter with appropriate manpower backup. On the foot level we broke up into squads and went building to building and cleared them; mind you, we couldn't do them all. But we found what had been typical finds, caches of AK-47's, artillery rounds and bullets. There was absolutely no talk of a big find, and what I could sense no worries of anything that should have been there. Of course, we were still worried about the possibilities of chemical weapons but they never panned out.
I am a little perturbed at the gross mischaracterization of what went on there. From what I remember of the NBC crew, they did not go out with us, and they may have in fact been asked to not to go on the search with us, due to the dangers that may have possibily come up. Now this part is my opinion, but don't you think that if they had gone out with us they would have video?
Thanks to this guy for what he did, and sharing what he could.
You read words like this, from a guy who has put it on the line for his country, and wonder who heck thinks they have the right as a Monday Morning Quarterback to tell guys like him they botched the job.
Did you hear him use the lords name in vein today on his show? Can't wait till this bas is sitting next to Martha Stewart rotting in jail.
1. I don't listen to "Rush Limpballs". Apparently you do. Poor bas .
2. Given what you think are worthy sources to post in this forum what I have posted is the Gospel Truth.
3. Speaking of being "pathetic", you have the market cornered on that considering your history.
I don't think he said Saddam planned that it would show up now. I don't think anyone can exactly tell you when and where those explosives were at any one time. Saying that inspectors saw them there is pretty sketchy considering the fact that Saddam had been dodging various inspections for WMD for so long. Then there is the fact that the goverment under Saddam was not the most stable and the military not the most loyal. That said, it would have been nice to have control over such dangerous stuff. I highly doubt that it was still there when the US troops came to it's supposed location.
Of course you do, because if you admited that W and his Bushiveks royally ed up in Iraq that would create such cognitive dissonance that would force you to back-track and re-investigate every questionable claim this administration has every made, and your not gonna do that because your in denial.
Sorry kiddo, I don't listen to talk radio for my news just like I don't rely on the obviously partisan election year reporting of the supposedly objective New York Times or the extremist "democraticunderground". If you want to accuse me of having a subscription to The Economist and National Review, then perhaps you might actually be correct.
Until then, shut the up already. If you aren't really this stupid in real life then the joke ceased being funny a few years ago.
Christian Science MonitorIn a story headlined "Bombs for Bush," The Independent calls news that nearly 380 tons of explosives went missing from an Iraqi weapons base after the war "a massive pre-election embarrassment for the Bush administration."
The New York Times, which first reported the story late Sunday, wrote that the Al Qaqaa weapons facility (30 miles south of Baghdad) "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."
......
Salon quotes Joseph Cirincione, director of the Non-Proliferation Project at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, as saying: "This is thousands and thousands of potential terrorist attacks. ... It's like they knocked off the Fort Knox of explosives."
The Boston Globe quotes another expert on the significance of the Al Qaqaa site.
"This is not just any old warehouse in Iraq that happened to have explosives in it; this was a leading location for developing nuclear weapons before the first Gulf War," said Gary Milhollin, director of the Wisconsin Project, a nonprofit organization that has followed Iraq's attempts to procure weapons of mass destruction for more than a decade. "The fact that it had been left unsecured is very, very discouraging. It would be like invading the US in to order to get rid of and not securing Los Alamos or Livermore ."
Right, which is why the troops searched it when they got there and the commanders had the info on what they were supposed to be looking for. Duh.
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