Talk:Al-Qaqaa weapons facility

Contradictory reports in Las Vegas Sun

• 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, under IAEA seal since 1991, were intact. Thereafter, the site was not secured by U.S. forces, the official said, also speaking on condition of anonymity. [1]

• Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman said coalition forces were present in the vicinity of the site both during and after major combat operations, which ended May 1, 2003 - and searched the facility but found none of the explosives material in question. That raised the possibility that the explosives had disappeared before U.S. soldiers could secure the site in the immediate invasion aftermath. [2]

More quotes

The Pentagon disclosed yesterday that the Al-Qaqaa facility was defended by Fedayeen Saddam, Special Republican Guard and other Iraqi military units during the conflict. U.S. forces defeated the defenders around April 3 and found the gates to the facility open, the Pentagon said in a statement yesterday. A military unit in charge of searching for weapons, the Army's 75th Exploitation Task Force, then inspected Al-Qaqaa on May 8, May 11 and May 27, 2003, and found no high explosives that had been monitored in the past by the IAEA. [3]

John A. Shaw, the deputy undersecretary of defense for international technology security, said in an interview that he believes the Russian troops, working with Iraqi intelligence, "almost certainly" removed the high-explosive material that went missing from the Al-Qaqaa facility, south of SBaghdad. [4]

Iraqi officials may be overstating the amount of explosives reported to have disappeared from a weapons depot, documents obtained by ABC News show. [5]

ABC News, citing IAEA inspection documents, reported Wednesday night that the Iraqis had reported 141 tons of RDX explosives at Al-Qaqaa in July 2002, but that the site held only three tons when it was checked in January 2003. []

Minneapolis TV videotape

ABC's KSTP

A 5 Eyewitness News crew in Iraq may have been just a door away from materials that could be used to detonate nuclear weapons. The evidence is in videotape shot by Reporter Dean Staley and Photographer Joe Caffrey at or near the Al Qaqaa munitions facility.

The video shows a cable locking a door shut. That cable is connected by a copper colored seal.

A spokesperson for the International Atomic Energy Agency told 5 Eyewitness News that seal appears to be one used by their inspectors. "In Iraq they were used when there was a concern that this could have a, what we call, dual use purpose, that there could be a nuclear weapons application." [6]

Note that someone touted this as "having seen the explosives". It just shows a sealed door. Let's not get carried away.

Cut from Current Events:

• A KSTP-TV St. Paul, Minnesota television reporter embedded with U.S. 101st Airborne Division troops, displayed a videotape shot at the Al-Qaqaa ammunition dump on April 18th, 2003 clearly displaying the ammunition cache of explosives and other weapons supplies, sealed with the IAEA seals which were reported 18 months ago. MSNBC carried this evidence that the weapons cache was in place after the invasion of Iraq.

Actually, it shows only a door, sealed form the outside. It cannot show any "cache" unless they broke the seal.

I watched the news story at the KSTP website, and took notes:

• on or very near al QaQaa
• Our crew did not enter this sealed bunker
• April 18th - "finds the weapons are not secured" (and clip suddenly ends)

I'm racking my brains trying to understand how a news crew cand "find" that weapons are not secured.

You must not have seen the same video I did. It's pretty unmistakable that they saw high explosives. Look at the video here: http://kstp.com/article/stories/S3740.html?cat=1 and click the "video" link next to the dateline at the top. Nysus 02:17, 29 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Um, the clearly labeled explosives canisters?

merge with Al Qa'qaa high explosives controversy?

There is another article (slightly older) which covers the controversy from a slightly less political angle. It includes an overview of the controversy, and a timeline of verifiable events. It's here: Al Qa'qaa high explosives controversy Also there is an article about Al Qaqaa here: Al Qa'qaa. They don't have to be merged, but they should at least be crosslinked, and this article would perhaps be more appropriately titled "Al Qaqaa explosives politics" or something of that nature. Since it seems what's here is mostly a discussion of the rhetoric and claim / counter-claims. Sbwoodside 02:18, 29 Oct 2004 (UTC)

It's not slightly less political: it's totally one-sided and makes the POLITICAL claim that the first US troops to arrive at Qaqaa DID NOT search the facility -- which is the entire point of Kerry's claim. Just because it's buried as one sentence amoung countless paragraphs doesn't make the article non-political. It's a snow job.

The article should be neutral, giving equal prominence to US Democratic Party claims that the 3rd ID didn't search and US Republican Party claims that (a) they did search, and (b) the weapons had almost certainly been moved before that search.

Are you kidding? NPOV doesn't just mean that you give both sides their shot. It also means that you report the FACTS. As I said in the other talk page, I didn't write the Summary section and I don't have time At the moment to edit it. But I think that the Timeline section is NPOV and it doesn't go into any kind of who said what style argumentation at all.

It's much more interesting IMO to find out what really happened, rather than just writing about what the current rhetoric from the Democrats and the Republicans happens to be.

Suspiciously, my original article on Missing explosives in Iraq has been irretrievably deleted. --Uncle Ed (El Dunce) 16:05, 29 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Thanks to Proteus for finding it. --Uncle Ed (El Dunce) 17:26, 29 Oct 2004 (UTC)