(ABC) Report: Video Shows Explosives Went Missing After War

[maddezmom]

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

My bet is ABC set them up after the terror tape fiasco with this article!!!

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=102&topic_id=938238

Alleged Terror Tape Gives ABC Pause


http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A3742-200...

It has all the makings of an incendiary story: a chilling pre-election videotape featuring a supposed member of al Qaeda, declaring in English that "blood will run red in the streets of America."

The problem, say ABC News executives, is that they can't determine whether the tape, obtained by a producer, involves a real threat -- or even the identity of the figure on it, a man wearing an ammunition belt and a headdress that obscures his face. The network enlisted the aid of the FBI and CIA but still can't authenticate the 75-minute videotape. ...

Ross and other ABC staffers say they believe that a Bush administration official leaked the story to Internet gossip Matt Drudge as a way of pressuring the network into airing the tape, which would heighten concerns about terrorism in the final week of the president's reelection campaign. They note that whoever gave the information to Drudge had a transcript of the tape.

[JuniorPlankton]

1. Nice!

Cream the bastards!

:kick:

[katusha]

2. everybody vote it up n/t

[Beetwasher]

3. I So Want To Believe That This Is Game Over, Lights Out Charlie!

Man-Oh-Manishewitz!

[wicket]

4. amen to that!

[Fed Up]

5. We got the bastards. I had doubts this story would get legs.

[Shakespeare]

6. I can't WAIT to see how they try to spin it now.

Karl Rove's gonna pull a muscle if the contorts himself any more....

[leftchick]

7. Woo Hoo it made Yahoo!!

Thanks MM! Rate it Up Folks and let's see it in the NYT and Wapo tomorrow!!

[maddezmom]

8. Its current average rating is 3.84 with 648 vote(s).

keep rating it :)

[BUSHOUT]

16. Check out reply 15. That's wierd, huh? I double checked my number....

are freepers hitting it? Last desperate attempt!

As if it's going to keep it out of the news.

[juliagoolia]

10. its rated low.. rate it up freepers are hitting it

[whosinpower]

9. Can we say the kaka (qaqaa) just hit the fan!!!!!!!

The missing weapons story is blossoming into a full fledged scandal of "gate" proportions.....even moreso that they were just this morning blaming the russians....

[Cooley Hurd]

11. Olbermann has it!!!

Coming up shortly...

[maddezmom]

12. it's a great piece....hope everyone is watching. :)

[maddezmom]

13. cheney calls it a cheap shot, Rudy says it's the troops fault

BBBWAAAHH! :)

[legally blonde]

14. SWEET!

:kick: :kick:

Byebye Bush!:nuke:

[BUSHOUT]

15. GO RATE THE YAHOO STORY!!! 3.84 w/1022 votes n/t

[maddezmom]

17. Avg Rating: 3.84, 2007 votes - Your Rating: 5

[BUSHOUT]

19. Hmmm. Rating don't change I guess...n/t

[BUSHOUT]

18. This is Yahoo, can you edit and add in ABC report?

The mods closed the ABC one, and it's a different story and a good one.

Here it is:
http://abcnews.go.com/WNT/story?id=206847

[George_S]

20. Kick

[maddezmom]

21. it's too late to edit, sorry...but everyone should click and read it

Oct. 28, 2004 — The strongest evidence to date indicates that conventional explosives missing from Iraq's Al-Qaqaa installation disappeared after the United States had taken control of Iraq.

Barrels inside the Al-Qaqaa facility appear on videotape shot by ABC television affiliate KSTP of St. Paul, Minn., which had a crew embedded with the 101st Airborne Division when it passed through Al-Qaqaa on April 18, 2003 — nine days after Baghdad fell.


"I talked to a former inspector who's a colleague of mine, and he confirmed that, indeed, these pictures look just like what he remembers seeing inside those bunkers," said David Albright, president of the Institute for Science and International Security in Washington.

The barrels were found inside sealed bunkers, which American soldiers are seen on the videotape cutting through. Inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency sealed the bunkers where the explosives were kept just before the war began.

"The seal's critical," Albright said. "The fact that there's a photo of what looks like an IAEA seal means that what's behind those doors is HMX. They only sealed bunkers that had HMX in them."

[chuckhoward]

22. Keep the timeline in mind...

...when discussing this. The video is shot on 4/18/03, which means those explosives were in the bunkers when our first troops arrived on or about 4/3/03. Our troops specifically searched the site for high explosives on 5/27/03 and found the seals broken and the explosives missing. Here is the timeline: http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/news/world/10030513.htm

[maddezmom]

23. WTF..the US gov't was warned in advance

you keep it in mind, I'll keep posting thanks.

[SoCalDem]

24. So.. if they knew it was missing in May of 2003,

why are we just finding out in OCTOBER of 2004?

THAT is the question.. Why knew, and when did they know it?

[maddezmom]

25. a couple of DU links for ya :)

Vast amounts of weapons-related material missing, official says
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x940932

Iraq: Coalition Ignored Warnings on Weapons Stocks
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x940680

Rumsfeld Suggests Explosives Were Moved (spin baby spin0
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x940753

Imagery of storage bunkers at Al Qa Qaa (DoD image does not match)
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x940878

[maddezmom]

26. hey, where'd ya go??

[Dcitizen]

27. Just watched ABC channel 5 news video

[maddezmom]

28. am AP link:

WASHINGTON - Videotape shot by a Minnesota television crew traveling with U.S. troops in Iraq (news - web sites) when they first opened the bunkers at the Al-Qaqaa munitions base nine days after the fall of Saddam Hussein (news - web sites) shows what appeared to be high explosives still in barrels and bearing the markings of the International Atomic Energy Agency.


The video taken by KSTP of St. Paul on April 18, 2003, could reinforce suggestions that tons of explosives missing from a munitions installation in Iraq were looted after the U.S. invasion and occupation of Iraq. The video was broadcast nationally Thursday on ABC.


"The photographs are consistent with what I know of Al-Qaqaa," David A. Kay, a former American official who directed the hunt in Iraq for unconventional weapons and visited the site, told The New York Times. "The damning thing is the seals. The Iraqis didn't use seals on anything. So I'm absolutely sure that's an IAEA seal."


The question of what happened to the tons of explosives has become a major issue in the closing days of the presidential campaign.

more: http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=540&ncid=716&e=3&u=/ap/20041029/ap_on_re_mi_ea/us_iraq_weapons