I am angry about the big lie that Bush/Cheney used to mislead us into Iraq; and for diverting attention from Osama and the real terrorists. Now we have given them the training ground for new terrorists... and given them the explosives.
That angers me as much as the fact that Bush/Cheney ignored the UN. The UN weapons inspectors were begging them to tell where the alleged "slam-dunk" WMDs were so they could go for a look-see and start watching them. They had already located, inventoried, sealed, and were monitoring the conventional weapons... and they told Bush/Cheney about them, through the UN Security Council, where, how much and what kind of high explosives (HE) were in the desert bunkers south of Baghdad.
Bush/Cheney hate the UN (which is the problem with appointing Bolton from the US, but that is a tangential issue), and did not want the UN to get any credit for helping to deal with 9/11. They certainly did not want the UN involved in their oil dealings in Iraq, or elsewhere for that matter. So they ignored the UN, didn't give the Pentagon enough time to plan out what to do... they barely had time to tell the troops to look for "germs, chemicals, and radiation"... remember day after day the news was, "Nope no WMDs today... but we know they are somewhere." Even Bush made a lame joke about it by looking under a table when asked where the WMDs were.
So when the troops are driving toward Baghdad and run across bunkers of munitions, they looked for "germs, chemicals, and radiation", but only found conventional military grade HE... so on to the Oil Ministry in Baghdad (another tangential issue).
With in a few weeks the HE bunkers were looted... completely emptied of munitions. When I was over an arms room in Vietnam, I could have been court marshaled for losing a weapon or other munitions. In the Army, arms are sacrosanct; you don't lose your weapon. I could replace a ¾ truck easier than a 45, the accounting is different, more rigorous. Yet Bush/Cheney just don't get it.
Now those 350+ tons of military grade HE is being disseminated throughout the world. And it wasn't the troops fault; it was a failure of leadership. Have you heard Bush/Cheney gang say anything about where those explosives went? Neither have I... but I am sure the looters didn't eat them.
I'll bet that the 7-7 London bombings were done with the Iraqi HE... read on.
http://www.cbc.ca/story/world/national/2004/10/25/iraq_explosives_missing041025.html
"350 tonnes of explosives looted in Iraq, UN says
Last Updated Mon, 25 Oct 2004 16:43:48 EDT
CBC News
UNITED NATIONS - "Hundreds of tonnes of high explosives are missing and probably looted from a former Iraqi military facility, the United Nations nuclear watchdog said on Monday.
International Atomic Energy Agency chief Mohamed ElBaradei is expected to report the missing explosives to the UN Security Council on Monday, a spokesperson told the Associated Press.
Melissa Fleming said the Iraqi Ministry of Science and Technology had told the agency that about 350 tonnes of material was missing from the former Al Qaqaa military installation - once a key facility in Saddam Hussein's efforts to build a nuclear bomb. Included in the missing material are HMX and RDX, the New York Times reported on Monday. Those explosives can be used to demolish buildings, but can also be used to produce warheads for missiles and detonate nuclear weaponry."
New York Times, July 17, 2005, page 9.
July 17, 2005
A Black Market for Bomb Materials Is Said to Flourish in Europe
By HEATHER TIMMONS
LONDON, July 16 - With experts now suspecting that the London suicide attackers used crude homemade bombs made from common commercial products, the spotlight has shifted to the wide availability of black-market explosives in Europe....
Nearly four years after the Sept. 11 attacks, it is easier than ever to obtain these materials in Europe, security experts say. A glut of undocumented, military-quality explosives emanating in large part from the former Eastern bloc countries, combined with more porous borders, has left a wide variety of these materials washing through Europe, say current and former military officers and police in Britain and Europe....
The glut of sophisticated black-market explosives is not confined to Europe. Israeli intelligence officials have been saying since 2002 that Palestinian militants are adding more powerful, military-grade explosives like RDX, another plastic explosive, to their arsenal. In Iraq, more than 300 tons of HMX, another plastic explosive, disappeared after the fall of Saddam Hussein.
This last article starts out talking about "crude homemade bombs made from common commercial products" but they are talking about the washing machine timers and wiring, not the HE... read the reports 2 days after 7-7 and all anyone said was "military grade explosives."
AP AND AFP , LONDON
http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/front/archives/2005/07/10/2003262897
Sunday, Jul 10, 2005,Page 1
The three bombs that exploded on the London underground railway were made of high explosives, not homemade material -- and blew up within seconds of each other in a near-simultaneous attack, police said yesterday.
Forensic evidence was still being examined, but the type of explosives suggested a degree of sophistication. The material could have been military or commercial.
"It is high explosive," Deputy Assistant Commissioner Brian Paddick said at a Metropolitan Police briefing yesterday. "That would tend to suggest that it is not homemade explosive, but whether it is military explosive, whether it's commercial explosive, whether it's plastic explosive, we don't want to say at this stage."
This is Bush/Cheney/Rumsfeld/Wolfawitz/Rove/Rice, et al's fault... and they need to answer for their lies.
PeaceVet