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Sat. Nov 06, 2004

Election Amnesia

On Friday morning, October 29, all the hub-bub was about the allegedly missing supposed explosives from Al Qaqaa. It was all anyone could talk about. Then Friday afternoon, bin Laden issued his videotaped attempt to horn in on our war. And no one ever mentioned Al Qaqaa again. At least, not until about 36 hours after the election, when we find this tucked away amidst the post-election analysis.

Explosives were looted from the Al-Qaqaa ammunitions site in Iraq while outnumbered U.S. soldiers assigned to guard the materials watched helplessly, soldiers told the Los Angeles Times.

About a dozen U.S. troops were guarding the sprawling facility in the weeks after the April 2003 fall of Baghdad when Iraqi looters raided the site, the newspaper quoted a group of unidentified soldiers as saying.

U.S. Army reservists and National Guardsmen witnessed the looting and some soldiers sent messages to commanders in Baghdad requesting help, but received no reply, they said.

“It was complete chaos. It was looting like L.A. during the Rodney King riots,” one officer said.

Four soldiers who are members of the Germany-based 317th Support Center and the 258th Rear Area Operations Center, an Arizona-based Army National Guard unit, said the looting happened over several weeks in late April and early May 2003.

Soldiers who belong to two different units described how Iraqis snatched explosives from unsecured bunkers and drove off with them in pickup trucks.

The soldiers who spoke to the Times asked to remain unidentified, saying they feared retaliation from the Pentagon.

The soldiers said they could not confirm that looters took the particularly powerful explosives known as HMX and RDX. One soldier, however, said U.S. forces saw looters load trucks with bags marked “hexamine,” which is a key ingredient for HMX.

One senior noncommissioned officer said troops “were running from one side of the compound to the other side, trying to kick people out” and that at least 100 vehicles were at the site waiting for the military to leave so that they could loot the munitions.

CNN: “Report: U.S. troops watched weapons-site looting”

Of course, now that the election’s over, there’s no reason whatsoever to care about this. For the majority of people, the motivation is long gone. Just like those explosives.

Iraq is no longer just a partisan chew toy in your Election Wars, it’s a Real World Problem we’ve got to deal with. And it starts by facing the facts, honestly. Like the above.