October bunker-buster or wet firecracker?
UNITED NATIONS Ñ The October surprise sandstorm of political accusations over SaddamÕs missing munitions has blurred the last week of the American presidential campaign. Accusations that somehow 350 tons of high explosives mysteriously ÒdisappearedÓ after the liberation of Baghdad, have been made in the major media outlets such as the New York Times and CBS News. Who lost the high explosives? Or should we say, who took them? Or who moved them?
The story starts at the infamous Al Qaqaa weapons complex outside Baghdad, long connected with SaddamÕs nuclear experiments and WMD storage. Carefully monitored by the UN weapons inspectors for over a decade, the site was seized by the
US army 101st Airborne on April 10th . Special units went into Al Qaqaa searching hidden nuclear components and bomb making materials. The troops, as reported by NBC news, found no nuclear components. Bunkers which had housed these high explosives were empty. The high explosives were already gone.
HereÕs some context ø using the old media skills of reporting.
Who: Saddam knowing that with an impending war this weapons complex was among priority targets, would have dispersed its contents to other more secure secret sites inside Iraq or spirited the materials out to Syria while there was still time.
What: The Al Qaqaa site is large and not just another of SaddamÕs many munitions dumps. Storing the HMX, RDX, and PETN high explosives purchased from the PeopleÕs Republic of China and Yugoslavia in the 1980Õs, were on site and sealed by the UN inspectors until at least early March 2003. To assume that 101st Airborne units would give only flippant attention to this crucial weapons depot is ludicrous.
When: The art of strategic deception ø based on careful tutorship by his former Soviet military mentors, saw Saddam playing a shell game in moving illegal weapons from UN inspectors for over a decade. Al Qaqaa was a large and intricate complex, carefully monitored by the weapons inspectors until 9 March 2003 ø ten days before the commencement of coalition combat operations. The Iraqis thus appeared to have ample time between 9 March and 10 April to clear valuable assets. Contrary to the myth that the U.S. military was too understaffed to secure munitions dumps ø in fact the coalition forces have secured 400,000 tons of Iraqi munitions and already destroyed 280,000 tons.
Where: Iraq is a huge country ø bigger than California. Just imagine where you can hide things in the Mohave Desert or in the Sierra Nevada mountains? Not to mention there are probably places in the Presidio complex in San Francisco bay where things can be creatively lost or hidden. In Europe, munitions caches from WWII are still often uncovered ø sometimes in urban areas and literally under the nose of neighbors. This remains the hidden WMD story too which has been airbrushed out of the media.
How: The flawed logic that in IraqÕs post-war chaos that looters could have spirited so very many tons of heavy material under the noses of the U.S. military indeed sounds very possible but isnÕt very probable. The capability to fork-lift and transfer bulk weight, the capacity to safely transport explosive ordinance, and the team coordination necessary for such a large logistics operation is not the job description of looters. The regular Iraqi army yes ø before the war or before U.S. troops reached the area. Equally coalition air operations would have precluded such a large move.
Why: Now consider the curious timing. Suddenly the Vienna-based International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) presents this breathless finding to the U.N. Security Council. Naturally the New York Times sprints with the story. CBS TV prepares the next punch. Not surprisingly the Kerry campaign uses the Òmissing weaponsÓ as its crisis de jour figuring that HMX frightens a bigger voter segment than flu vaccines. The shameless scare tactics ø a week before the Presidential election, is quite predictable, yet somehow lacks credibility.
LetÕs get the facts before running with a good story.
John J. Metzler is a U.N. correspondent covering diplomatic and defense
issues. He writes weekly for World Tribune.com.  |
