Why do you have to remove explosives from Al Qaa Qa bunkers to blow them

[AIJ Alom]

up ? Why not just simply set 4 well placed charges in each of the bunkers and let the damn things blow themselves up with secondary explosions (i mean the bunkers did contain high explosives, they'd light up immediately).

I understand removing munitions from residential areas, but why remove them from bunkers in a military facility in the desert ? Why not destroy it on sight ? Were we going to preserve the high explosives for use by the Iraqis or our soldiers later ? If so, then why were we not guarding these facilities ?

Why ? Because the major that just spoke at the Pentagon, did not remove barrels of high explosives. He removed tons and tons of ammunition, particularly phosphorous ammuntion which he was looking for. He also did not see the seals, the doors were already open according to the Pentagon official.

Fact of the matter: Securing the supposed material that was to be used for weapons of mass destruction, the reason we initially went to war was not the priority. The oil ministry was. Soldiers did not know anything about Al Qaa Qa or IAEA seals and were never briefed on the topic. The subsequent looting that followed put these destructive arms into the hands of insurgents and foreign terrorists.

[fob]

1. That's what I've been saying. If they truly witnessed trucks at the doors

of KNOWN weapons facility and took satellite pictures of THAT, why don't they have satellite pictures of the giant hole created by blowing that place up the next minute? I mean if the roll of film shows trucks at the door on picture 10, by picture 12 there should be some pictures of a smoking hole in the ground, right? I mean at that point in time they were gearing up to attack, isn't it just as plausible that saddam's army might be gearing up to? Why let it go? Hell even if you don't blow it up at that point, there better be a couple thousand pictures of those vehicles, tracked from that point on, right?

Right?

The only answer that fits is at best an inadewaute plan, at worst NO PLAN.

[AIJ Alom]

3. You're absolutely right, they had no plan. They thought that this would be

just like the First Gulf War, that the US would march in like liberators (Chalabi and Allawi hype), the Iraqis would retreat, try to torch the oil industry (that's why we needed to make guarding them a priority), and we would be able to have a turkey shoot as they retreated or they would simply surrender in droves.

And so Rummy and his neo-con group decided to fight the war cheaply. When generals recommended more troops were needed, they were hushed. And subsequently after we won the battle against Saddam's forces, we are now trapped in a battle against insurgents and foreign terrorists, the ranks of which continue to swell because we do not have enough troops on the ground.

[Kahuna]

2. that's what I'm saying. Why move them to blow them up. Especially...

when you claim you don't know what they are anyway. It's not like you moved them to make an inventory of what was disposed of.

[AIJ Alom]

4. it makes absolutely no sense. You should just look through it and blow it

up on site. The Bush adminstration was so moved by Chalabi and Allawi and the cakewalk concept, that they never anticipated the chaos. When Donald Rumsfield said he approved of the looting because that's what free people do, I knew we were in trouble.