This can't be true...Iraq had no WMDs.  The UN inspectors told us this.  

JL



At 03:19 PM 10/28/04 -0400, Michael Baier wrote:
>http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?
>tmpl=story&cid=540&e=5&u=/ap/20041028/ap_on_re_mi_ea/iraq_weapons_iaea
>
>
>IAEA Says It Warned U.S. About Explosives
>
>By WILLIAM J. KOLE, Associated Press Writer
>
>VIENNA, Austria - The U.N. nuclear agency said Thursday it warned the
>United States about the vulnerability of explosives stored at Iraq's Al-
>Qaqaa military installation after another facility — Iraq's main nuclear
>complex — was looted in April 2003.
>
>Melissa Fleming, a spokeswoman for the International Atomic Energy Agency,
>told The Associated Press that U.S. officials were cautioned directly about
>what was stored at Al-Qaqaa, the main high explosives facility in Iraq.
>
>Some 377 tons of high explosives — HMX and RDX and PETN — are now missing
>from the facility, and questions have arisen about what the United States
>knew about Al-Qaqaa and what it did to secure the site.
>
>Iraqi officials say the materials were taken amid looting sometime after
>the fall of Baghdad to U.S. forces on April 9, 2003, though the Pentagon is
>suggesting the ordnance could have been moved by Saddam Hussein's regime
>before the United States invaded on March 20, 2003.
>
>Fleming did not say which officials were notified or exactly when, but she
>said the IAEA — which had put storage bunkers at the site under seal just
>before the war — alerted the United States after the Tuwaitha nuclear
>complex was looted.
>
>"After we heard reports of looting at the Tuwaitha site in April 2003, the
>agency's chief Iraq inspectors alerted American officials that we were
>concerned about the security of the high explosives stored at Al-Qaqaa,"
>she told the AP.
>
>"It is also important to note that this was the main high explosives
>storage facility in Iraq, and it was well-known through IAEA reports to the
>Security Council," Fleming said.
>
>IAEA chief Mohamed ElBaradei informed the United Nations (news - web sites)
>in February 2003, and again in April of that year, that he was concerned
>about HMX explosives, which were stored at Al-Qaqaa.
>
>The explosives' disappearance has become a flashpoint in the final week of
>the U.S. presidential campaign, with Democratic nominee John Kerry accusing
>the Bush administration of ignoring the threat.
>
>IAEA inspectors last confirmed that the agency's seals on the explosives
>were in place and intact in early to mid-March 2003, days before the
>invasion began March 20.
>
>The IAEA sought Thursday to clarify reports that the amount of missing
>explosives may have been far less than what the Iraqis said in an Oct. 10
>report to the nuclear agency.
>
>ABC News, citing IAEA inspection documents, reported Wednesday night that
>the Iraqis had declared 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.
>
>The network said that could suggest that 138 tons were removed from the
>facility long before the U.S.-led invasion in March 2003.
>
>But Fleming said most of the RDX — about 125 tons — was kept at Al-
>Mahaweel, a storage site under Al-Qaqaa's jurisdiction located outside the
>main Al-Qaqaa site. She also said about 10 tons already had been reported
>by Iraq as having been used for non-prohibited purposes between July 2002
>and January 2003.
>
>"IAEA inspectors visited Al-Mahaweel on Jan. 15, 2003, and verified the RDX
>inventory by weighing sampling," Fleming said. She said the RDX at Al-
>Mahaweel was not under seal but was subject to IAEA monitoring.
>
>"IAEA inspectors were in the process of verifying this statement ... and
>would have proceeded later had they stayed in Iraq," Fleming said. The
>nuclear agency's inspectors pulled out of Iraq just before the U.S.-led
>invasion and have not been allowed to return for general inspections
>despite ElBaradei's requests that they be allowed to finish their work.
>
>The agency became involved at Al-Qaqaa because of the presence of 214 tons
>of HMX, which — like RDX — is a key component in plastic explosives but
>also can be used as an ignitor on a nuclear weapon. Fleming said it was the
>HMX that was the agency's main focus.
>
>ABC said the inspection report noted that the seals at Al-Qaqaa may have
>been useless because the storage bunkers had ventilation slats on the sides
>that could have been removed to give looters access to the explosives.
>
>But Fleming said the inspectors had also checked the ventilation slats to
>ensure they had not been tampered with, and that they concluded "the
>confinement was sufficient" as long as the site was regularly checked. They
>could no longer do that once they pulled out just before the invasion.
>
>IAEA inspectors last saw the explosives in January 2003 when they took an
>inventory and placed fresh seals on the bunkers. Inspectors visited the
>site again in March 2003, but didn't view the explosives because the seals
>were not broken, she said.
>
>Agency inspectors who have returned twice to Iraq since the war focused
>only on Tuwaitha, a sprawling nuclear complex 12 miles south of Baghdad.
>
>In June 2003, inspectors investigated reports of widespread looting of
>storage rooms at Tuwaitha, and they returned in August 2003 to take
>inventory of several tons of natural uranium that had been stored there.
>They have not been allowed back to Al-Qaqaa.
>
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