Thu. Oct 28, 2004
All Ka Ka
There have been a lot of people going off half cocked recently. Quarter cocked. I guess it’s the excitement of the home stretch, right? Everybody is swinging for the fences. But when you make strident partisan statements about factual events, it can sure bite you in the ass. People have offered up oh-so-many examples in the past 48 hours or so.
Witness Ralph Peters, whose column appears under the screaming headline, THE MYTH OF THE ‘MISSING EXPLOSIVES’: A SHAMELESS LIE
The IAEA claims its inspectors visited the ammo dump at Al-Qaqaa on March 9, 2003, and found the agency’s seals intact on bunkers containing sensitive munitions. Unverifiable, but let’s assume that much is true.
...Our 101st Airborne Division assumed responsibility for the sector as the 3ID closed on Baghdad. None of the Screaming Eagles found any IAEA markers — even one would have been a red flag to be reported immediately.
...At the end of May, military teams searching for key Iraqi weapons scoured Al-Qaqaa. They found plenty of odds and ends — the detritus of war — but no IAEA seals. And no major stockpiles.
Mr. Peters stridently asserts an IAEA marker … “even one” ... would have been a red flag to the 101st, the second unit on the scene in April, 2003. Surely at least one of the hundreds of troops who passed through there would have seen the tags and seals if they existed. So they simply must not have existed.
Oops. Photo Caption: “A seal on an Iraqi bunker door videotaped by a 5 EYEWITNESS NEWS crew on April 18, 2003 (bottom).” And, “‘The photographs are consistent with what I know of Al Qaqaa,’ said David A. Kay, a former American official who led the recent hunt in Iraq for unconventional weapons and visited the vast site. ‘The damning thing is the seals. The Iraqis didn’t use seals on anything. So I’m absolutely sure that’s an I.A.E.A. seal.’ One weapons expert said the videotape and some of the agency’s photographs of the HMX stockpiles ‘were such good matches it looked like they were taken by the same camera on the same day.’”
So, is this yet another “shameless lie”? I pick on Ralph because he’s a published columnist, but I could offer up a dozen examples from around the blogosphere that are as bad or worse. And sometime Saturday or Sunday, there will be yet another twist in this bizarre story that causes the Bush Boys to yell “Ah-HAAA!” Maybe another 180 on Monday. Electoral Twister.
Somewhat lost in all of this bickering over when the tonnage went missing (as well as the timing of this whole story) is an undeniable underlying flaw. Let’s start with the first troops in the neighborhood, the 3rd Infantry Division.
The first U.S. military units to reach the Al-Qaqaa installation did not have orders to search for the explosives.
“We were still in a fight,” said the commander of the unit that was first to arrive in the area, in an interview with Martin.
“Our focus was killing bad guys,” he continued, adding that he would have needed four times as many troops to search and secure all the ammo dumps his troops came across during the push into Iraq.
CBS News: “Iraq Site: Mystery Trucks Eyed”
It seems understandable that the first wave of troops would be primarily concerned with “killing bad guys,” not securing facilities that weren’t even tactical targets in their operational plan. So a couple of weeks later, along comes the 101st Airborne.
The commander, Col. Joseph Anderson, of the Second Brigade of the Army’s 101st Airborne Division, said he did not learn until this week that the site, Al Qaqaa, was considered sensitive, or that international inspectors had visited it before the war began in 2003 to inspect explosives that they had tagged during a decade of monitoring.
“We happened to stumble on it,” he said. “I didn’t know what the place was supposed to be. We did not get involved in any of the bunkers. It was not our mission. It was not our focus. We were just stopping there on our way to Baghdad. The plan was to leave that very same day. The plan was not to go in there and start searching. It looked like all the other ammunition supply points we had seen already.”
The New York Times: >Missing Explosives: No Check of Bunker, Unit Commander Says
Contradicting Mr. Peters assertion that an IAEA seal would have been a red flag, the commander on the scene says they weren’t even told it was a sensitive site. Besides, it wasn’t his mission to search or secure the bunkers.
One has to wonder, exactly whose mission was it? If these two units are to be held blameless because their orders did not include this site or this task, what … was … the … plan?
Someone, somewhere had to know, “hey, last we heard, there was some dangerous stuff there we need to lock down.” The IAEA claims the seals were intact about a week before the invasion began. And Mr. Peters himself says, “At the end of May, military teams searching for key Iraqi weapons scoured Al-Qaqaa.” The end of May.
The 101st Airborne left the site on April 19, unsecured, and the plan had qualified people check out the site again … over five weeks later, seven weeks after the regime fell.
Nevermind what disappeared, or when it disappeared. That’s a hell of a plan. Our biggest baddest units will pass through, leaving a total vacuum behind them, and the simple passage of our troops and trucks on nearby roads will ensure that vacuum is filled by nothing but puppy dogs and butterflies … for seven weeks. Meanwhile, we’ll make it clear that looting will be viewed as simply a messy symptom of democracy.
And this was just one of dozens of major weapons depots all over Iraq. Yes, it was one of the biggest ones. And we see the special attention it got. It was typical of the experience these military follow-on teams had at these sites in May, June, and July of 2003. They found them empty of weapons, with signs of large scale looting. Huh. Go figure.
But here’s the final point most have missed. Some embedded media guys from Minneapolis/St. Paul clearly found those IAEA markers. Filmed them. Let’s find them and pillory them for not bringing it to the attention of their armed escorts, and other proper authorities. Surely that can be the only explanation for this mystery. Why didn’t they stick around and guard them? Maybe they could have at even filmed the culprits as they took the goods!
If only the embedded media had done their job, Iraq would be safe today, and we wouldn’t be wasting our time talking about these missing explosives.
(sorry, I’ve seen such a festival of threadbare explanations and laughable excuses over the past couple of days, I had to contribute my own)
Published 11:55PM, Thu, Oct 28 2004
Category: Iraq
Previous: «« Tora Bora Revisionism ««
Next: »» Sound and Rational Catblogging »»
Peanut Gallery
Oh, it’s even worse than that. Col. David Perkins of the 3rd ID (one of the guys who unfurled a Bulldogs flag on Saddam’s front lawn) has admitted that after about 9 of his troops got injury by some caustic agent while poking around in some depot bunker earlier in the war, he explicitly didn’t want his troops messing around with the bunkers … at all.
He seemed to take the safety of his troops and the completion of his assigned mission above some off task treasure hunt. What kind of leadership is that? Didn’t he know the President’s reelection would one day pivot on the fate of these bunkers?
Seriously, one can hardly blame the 3rd ID (or the 101st). Their orders seem pretty clear, from what we’ve heard. It would seem the logical thing would have been to have some follow-on forces close on the tail of that initial surge, to establish a presence at those sites until properly trained personnel could examine them in detail.
But that would have taken, um, more troops up front. Simply wasn’t an option, and was unneeded anyway. It might have inhibited democracy from being messy, as it’s apparently supposed to be.
And when it comes to messy democracy, ain’t it great to be Number One!?
I love the messy democracy crack—not being ironic, without anyone being able to see my eyebrows I try to avoid irony. I mean I love it! Why I read you. Thanks.
The explosives story is the looted Baghdad Museum of the present day. (crime against civilization!) Small story of messy war—will only get smaller with time as facts unfurl. Should be looked into—maybe some colonel or some planner or some general (like LTG Sanchez who wasn’t keeping a close enough eye on his not-so-spiffy MP Brigade and its weak commander) screwed up. And, like LTG Sanchez, appropriate action will be taken.
The Baghdad Museum story had a mission—get all that victory stuff out of the news. Now!
It is obvious that this story also has a mission and is being hyped for that purpose. Mission will be accomplished (or not) by next Tuesday and the story will then recede.
Don’t get sucked into the vortex by writing that many words on it again. Let it all wash on over you and depart. Ah, that feels better.
Again, an issue where nobody really KNOWS anything, but plenty of folks are ready and willing to claim that only if their boy had been in charge, it all would have played differently, by gosh. Monday. Morning. Quarterbacks.
Were the explosives there when we got there? Dunno. Is that an IAEA seal? Dunno. (to be honest, it looks precisely like the seal the phone company put on the box outside my house) Did the stuff go missing later, or sooner? Dunno. The important note isn’t that I dunno, it’s that everyone says dunno.
Let’s instead consider the one true and complete fact that we do have- when the inspectors were there way back when, they were charged with finding and having destroyed any materials that were disallowed by the terms of the treaty, and that included these materials. They found them, yes. They destroyed them, no.
Instead of placing blame on our troops for this, why not blame the real criminals- the people who the international community charged with ridding Iraq of this stuff, who found it and walked away from their job, unfinished. The IAEA needs to take the fall on this one, not the US military.
Beyond all that, this is more of a mountain from a molehill than anything else. The amount of ordinance laying around Iraq is nothing short of stunning. This 300+ tons of bad stuff is a drop in the bucket compared to the whole- some 6,000 tons, I think I’ve heard bandied about? And that’s just what we’ve destroyed so far? The bad guys don’t need this stuff to make life hell- go back and review the Oklahoma City pictures to see what a truck with fertilizer and a stick or two of TNT can do. Review the pictures of Hiroshima- they didn’t have HMX back then, and it looks like they managed to make a hella bang despite the lack.
This is a big dust-up deliberately timed to mess with a national election. The people fluffing it up oughta be ashamed. At best, they’re helping the terrorists, as evidenced by the new tapes of extremists now claiming they have this stuff. Yah, they’re going to say that, because they think that all of America is paralyzed with fear of the stuff. It’s a cryin’ shame.
“Beyond all that, this is more of a mountain from a molehill than anything else. The amount of ordinance laying around Iraq is nothing short of stunning. This 300+ tons of bad stuff is a drop in the bucket compared to the whole- some 6,000 tons, I think I’ve heard bandied about?”
Oh, we wish it was 6,000 tons. From today’s Washington Post ...
“US military commanders estimated last fall that Iraqi military sites contained 650,000 to 1 million tons of explosives, artillery shells, aviation bombs and other ammunition. The Bush administration cited official figures this week showing about 400,000 tons destroyed or in the process of being eliminated. That leaves the whereabouts of more than 250,000 tons unknown.”
So, yes, the 300+ tons at Al Qaqaa are indeed a small anthill, not even a molehill. The missing 377 tons is 0.15% of the total amount the U.S. military estimates is “missing.” That’s the 250,000 ton “mountain.”
And that’s a good thing? That’s a reason to say this instance is no big deal? By itself, no, it isn’t a big deal. But it is evidence of a problem 99.85% larger than Al Qaqaa.
Is is hard to find materials to kill with in Iraq? No. But did we have to make it markedly easier, by at least 250,000 tons? And what would it have taken to secure sites like this in a timely manner?
Anyone? Beuller?
To me, that’s the larger point this little anthill makes. And it is one that this administration has been in complete denial over for a year and a half. How is that not relevant to the election on Tuesday?
I would also note, the only person I’ve personally heard “placing blame on our troops” for not searching throughly enough for these explosives over this was Rudolph Guliani, in his defense of the President. I’ve pretty specifically said, it’s not the fault of the 3rd ID or the 101st. This was a fault of strategic planning, not division-level execution. To me, that’s exactly why it is relevant.
Reid: Where were these extra troops to come from?
How is any administration supposed to have found all of over 650,000+ tons of munitions spread out and hidden throughout a police state?
How is that not relevant to the election on Tuesday, you say?
I say, how is any of this relevant to the election on Tuesday? Anything short of perfection is not allowable?
(If we postulate a scenerio where Bush had mobilised every US soldier possible and sent every last one of them to Iraq (apart from those in Afghanistan), I still see no reason to think we’d have been able to find too much more of those 650,000+ tons of munitions than we did, and I think we’d be hearing a lot more whining about how we have no reserves at all left, other missions are being neglected, etc.
Bush can’t win, can he? No matter what he does, someone will complain – because he can’t do the impossible and do everything at once, perfectly.
For this to be a real election issue, we’d have to believe one or both of the following; that Kerry would do significantly better at this (HA!) or that Bush and the Generals (the same Generals Kerry would be employing, of course) fucked up egregiously – since normal fuckups are absolutely unavoidable in war and are no good basis for voting.
The latter can be argued, but unfortunately it can generally only be argued in an Armchair General/Backseat Driver/Monday Morning Quarterback way, since nobody without a big security clearance knows all the details, and most people commenting don’t seem to even have the most basic knowledge of military logistics and other issues. Saying “just send more troops” is not useful.)
What’s truly wacky to this observer is that not a soul can agree how much of this stuff was where, and when it was last seen. This is an above-the-fold news story? This is 60 Minutes material? Someone tap me on the shoulder in two-three weeks, when the freaks running this story can get a straight one put together with facts from every interested party instead of a bunch of hoo-ha. As of right now, this minute, we can’t even say for sure that there actually was no military guard at the Big Scary Ammo Plant. It wouldn’t shock me in the least to have an order of battle pop up with home video from the guys doing the guarding.
Dude – you’re in-the-making Shrillbog material. Acutally I’m a bit surprised you haven’t made it yet :-)
Keep on trucking and I know you will. All it takes is to mumble something about voices in your head telling you to vote for Kerry …
Yeah, I know. And who am I to blame you.
Should I some day hit the sweetspot and find my self covering The Masters I’ll pay you a visit.
And thanx for being a sensible voice in a sea of – well, shrillness. One way or the other.
Regards.
Never fear. The Hunt has been suspended due to an Osama Sighting. We’ll probably not hear many more peeps from this story. Everyone please report back to HQ for new talking points.
Here’s a talking point- truly stunning, isn’t it, that Osama himself would come forward to make true the oft-spouted assertion that the terrorists would prefer we vote for Kerry?
If I were a wild conspiracy sort, I’d say that Bush and friends had kidnapped the Shrek artists, put them over in the NSA with some insanely large computers, big enough to make photo-realistic animation of Osama, and produced it themselves. Lol- there’s a hoot of a stupid rumor for ya. :)
“If I were a wild conspiracy sort, I’d say that Bush and friends had kidnapped the Shrek artists, put them over in the NSA with some insanely large computers, big enough to make photo-realistic animation of Osama, and produced it themselves. Lol- there’s a hoot of a stupid rumor for ya. :)”
I was about to quip, “of course this would’ve never occurred to Karl Rove”. Then I remembered the Stupid Photoshop Tricks from this past week. I give the guy way to much credit.
I believe Steve Barton’s acute insight into this situation is clear from this statement:
...maybe some colonel or some planner or some general (like LTG Sanchez who wasn’t keeping a close enough eye on his not-so-spiffy MP Brigade and its weak commander) screwed up. And, like LTG Sanchez, appropriate action will be taken.
Ah, yes, appropriate action. Like planning to give Sanchez a promotion.
Recent Comments
- Stanley (Is That Really Amish?)
- John (Falcons Explode Expectations)
- mark (Is That Really Amish?)
- Jessica (Is That Really Amish?)
- Reid (Grandpa is Once Again Astounded By The Interwebs)
- elburro (Grandpa is Once Again Astounded By The Interwebs)
ReidStott.com
Photography
by Reid Stott
A decade of web design experience. Two decades of photography experience. All available to you, and your project. View my portfolio online, then let's talk about your needs.ReidStott.com
Why should we expect the military to have specific orders and any available intelligence to secure weapons sites?
(I mean, except that there was plenty of intelligence from the actual weapons monitors, and the weapons sites were the whole point of the invasion in the first place.)
I suppose you think soldiers should just sit around and wait for orders to tell them what to do. Are you blaming the troops for not figuring it out on their own? Are you calling American soldiers dumb and lazy? You should be more supportive of the men and women in uniform!