Rumsfeld Suggests Explosives Were Moved (spin baby spin) [View All]

[maddezmom]

WASHINGTON - Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld suggested Thursday that the removal of 377 tons of explosives from an Iraqi munitions base probably took place before U.S. forces arrived, saying any large effort to loot the material afterward would have been detected.



"We would have seen anything like that," he said in one of two radio interviews he gave Thursday at the Pentagon (news - web sites). "The idea it was suddenly looted and moved out, all of these tons of equipment, I think is at least debatable."


The Pentagon also declassified and released a single image, taken by reconnaissance aircraft or satellite just days before the war, showing two trucks outside one of the dozens of storage bunkers at the Al-Qaqaa munitions base.


The particular bunker is not one known to have contained any of the missing explosives, and Pentagon spokesman Larry Di Rita said the image only shows that there was some Iraqi activity at the base when it was taken, on March 17. Di Rita said the image says nothing about what happened to the explosives.

more: http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=540&ncid=736&e=1&u=/ap/20041028/ap_on_re_mi_ea/us_iraq_weapons

A single image....KTSP has video!!!

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - ABC News on Thursday showed video that appeared to confirm that explosives that went missing in Iraq (news - web sites) did not disappear until after the United States had taken control of the facility where they were stored.


The disappearance of the hundreds of tons of explosives from the Al Qaqaa storage facility has become a hotly contested issue in the U.S. presidential campaign.


Democrat John Kerry (news - web sites) said it was an example of President Bush (news - web sites) bungling the Iraq war. Bush countered that Kerry was making wild accusations without knowing the facts.


Vice President Dick Cheney (news - web sites) said it was possible that the explosives had been removed from the site before the U.S. forces arrived there.


ABC said the video was shot by an affiliate TV station embedded with the 101st Airborne Division when members of the division passed through the facility on April 18, nine days after the fall of Baghdad.

more: http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=578&ncid=578&e=3&u=/nm/20041028/ts_nm/iraq_explosives_abc_dc