http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2003/...in547667.shtml

The story:

U.S. troops found thousands of boxes of white powder, nerve agent antidote and Arabic documents on how to engage in chemical warfare at an industrial site south of Baghdad. But a senior U.S. official familiar with initial testing said the materials were believed to be explosives.

Col. John Peabody, engineer brigade commander of the 3rd Infantry Division, said the materials were found Friday at the Latifiyah industrial complex just south of Baghdad.

"It is clearly a suspicious site," Peabody said.

CBS News National Security Correspondent David Martin reports that the hunt for weapons of mass destruction continues at sites where the U.S. thought chemicals weapons might be hidden.

"And although there are no reports of actual weapons being found, there are constant finds of suspicious material," Martin said. "It obviously will take laboratory testing to find out exactly what that powder is."

The senior U.S. official, based in Washington and speaking on condition of anonymity, said the material was under further study. The site is enormous and U.S. troops are still investigating it for potential weapons of mass destruction, the official said.

"Initial reports are that the material is probably just explosives, but we're still going through the place," the official said.

Peabody said troops found thousands of boxes, each of which contained three vials of white powder, together with documents written in Arabic that dealt with how to engage in chemical warfare.

He also said they discovered atropine, used to counter the effects of nerve agents.

The facility had been identified by the International Atomic Energy Agency as a suspected chemical, biological and nuclear weapons site. U.N. inspectors visited the plant at least nine times, including as recently as Feb. 18.

The facility is part of a larger complex known as the Latifiyah Explosives and Ammunition Plant al Qa Qaa.

During the 1991 Gulf War, U.S. jets bombed the plant.

Troops also discovered what they believe is a training center for nuclear, chemical and biological warfare in Iraq's western desert, Brig. Gen. Vincent Brooks said Friday.

One bottle found at the site was labeled "tabun" — a nerve agent that the U.S. government says may have been used during the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq war. The soldiers found only a small amount of the chemical, indicating the site was meant for training, not storing or deploying chemical weapons, Brooks said.

"In that particular site, we believe that was the only sample," Brooks said. "That's why we believe it was a training site. Our conclusion is that this was not a (weapons of mass destruction) site ... it proved to be far less than that."

Photos of the site showed shelves of brown bottles with yellow labels. Brooks said troops did not understand some of the labels and were collecting the bottles for examination by experts.

On April 1, Iraqi Vice President Taha Yassin Ramadan, in a statement on Iraqi television, repeated Baghdad's position that it had no weapons of mass destruction. Referring to reports that gas masks and other chemical gear had been found elsewhere in the country, he said the coalition might plant weapons of mass destruction to implicate Iraq.

"Let me say one more time that Iraq is free of weapons of mass destruction," he said.

"The aggressors may themselves intend to bring those materials to plant them here and say those are weapons of mass destruction," he said.

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Perhaps the next story from IAEA, and subsequent follow-up Kerry ad, will involve how we actually BROUGHT THOSE AGENTS IN WITH US.


Further on this story:

TODAY from CBS News (how quickly they forget!):

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/...in651082.shtml

Charles Duelfer, the head of that unit, told CBS News Tuesday that he has not received any orders to go looking for the missing explosives and doesn't think he should.

"It's hard for me to get that worked up about it," said Duelfer, in a phone interview from Baghdad, noting that Iraq is awash in hundreds of thousands of tons of explosives.

Duelfer also said U.N. weapons inspectors recommended in 1995 that the high explosives be destroyed because of their potential use in a nuclear weapons program.

The International Atomic Energy Agency instead ordered the explosives stored in sealed bunkers 30 miles south of the Iraqi capital. The last time the IAEA verified that the bunkers were still sealed was in March of last year, about a month before the first U.S. troops moved into the complex as they pushed toward Baghdad.

Pentagon officials contend the explosives could have been spirited away by the Iraqis before u.s. troops ever got there. Other officials, including Delfer, blame looters and the chaos that following the fall of Baghdad.

When troops from the 101st Airborne Division's 2nd Brigade arrived at the Al-Qaqaa base a day or so after other coalition troops seized Baghdad on April 9, 2003, there were already looters throughout the facility, Lt. Col. Fred Wellman, deputy public affairs officer for the unit, told The Associated Press.

The soldiers "secured the area they were in and looked in a limited amount of bunkers to ensure chemical weapons were not present," said Wellman, in an e-mail message to The Associated Press. "Bombs were found but not chemical weapons in that immediate area. Orders were not given from higher to search or to secure the facility or to search for HE type munitions, as they (high-explosive weapons) were everywhere in Iraq."

A few facts to bear in mind, boys and girls.

1) Those explosives wouldn't have been in existence if the IAEA (under Hans Blix) had done it's job.

2) There were over 10,000 sites in Iraq with explosives and munitions in them.

3) The priority, as per CONGRESS, was WMDs.

Catz

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Terrorist-Supporting Atheist Moderator.

Billy Bob: "From now on I don't want to be quoted. EVER! "

So if the weapons, as claimed by the "make it all up as we go along" demos were lost while Iraq was under US occupation, then they are dangerous and potential WMD's. But then they also claim WMD's never existed in Iraq and Saddam wasn't involved in any such WMD programs.

I bet Lurch will explain it all to us. After all, "integrity, integrity, integrity" are the words he lives by.

I do like the Lurch plan for leading our country--wake up in the morning, read the NY Times, receive your marching orders for the day, and proceed accordingly. Yup, that's what I call a real leader.

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"Victory at all costs, victory in spite of all terror, victory however long and hard the road may be; for without victory, there is no survival."
Winston Churchill

You ARE as dumb as you look on your avatar. Those weapons were not WMD, professor, Weapons of Mass Destruction include nuclear, chemical and biological weapons.
http://www.wordiq.com/definition/Wea...ss_destruction

Those explosives were neither, they are conventional dual-use explosives (they are used in construction). Yet Bush administration failed to secure them and now they are in the hands of terrorists. Feel any safer now?

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The war on terror involves Saddam Hussein because of the nature of Saddam Hussein, the history of Saddam Hussein, and his willingness to terrorize himself. George W. Bush

Catz,

Did you happen to watch Lou Dobbs on CNN last night? He had a UN weapons inspector, an ex-weapons inspector from the CIA who was in charge of Iraq from 1991 on.

Basically, to summarize, the point that they were making is that these 380 Tonnes of materials were from 1991 and were secured by the IAEA. So these were not WMD as per Bush's own definition, as the UN and the CIA knew about the Al QA Qaa facility from the first Gulf war and it was presumed it was secured. Because some of the materials were also used in construction, they were allowed to keep some of the materials but only as per approval of the UN. So up until the war in Iraq, everyone knew about these materials, and every last bit was accounted for.

Then On April 3rd, as you mentioned, the 3rd infiltry division went into Al Qa Qaa after the IAEA were told to leave, and saw the materials. By the time the 101st infilitry came the materials were gone.

Yes, there are some grave concerns as to why these materials were never destroyed, that's a history lesson that needs to be seriously investigated. But the bottom line is how is it that no one knows what happened to these dangerous materials? The Al Qa Qaa facility was placed on a level 2 priority (less than the oil fields) at a time when the administration was focused on securing WMDs or weapons of any kind. Why weren't they secured and how is it possible that No one knows what happened or who has the materials? Even both weapons inspectors were commenting on the serious negligence on securing the materials

I hope you saw it because it was very enlightenning, and demonstrated the incompetence of the Bush administration - which by this point, could have its own cable channel by now

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Truth is by nature self-evident, as soon as you remove the cobwebs of ignorance that surround it, it shines clear. Gandhi

that Tabun isn't a chemical weapon, thus meeting your definition of WMD?

The troops found TABUN.

Catz

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Terrorist-Supporting Atheist Moderator.

Billy Bob: "From now on I don't want to be quoted. EVER! "

But Catz, your ignoring your own post

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Truth is by nature self-evident, as soon as you remove the cobwebs of ignorance that surround it, it shines clear. Gandhi

They were in the hands of the Iraqis, which is the direct opposite of "being secured."

Actually, I'm fairly certain that the substances (Tabun) were prohibited by the terms of the UN agreement and that Iraq wasn't allowed to have ANY of that substance. Thus, they were in possession of illegal WMDs by virtue of having that substance on Al Qaa Qa. That also was one of the substances which Iraq had stockpiled, and of which quantities were failed to be accounted for and destroyed.

How, precisely, could it have been "secured" when it was in the hands of Hussein?

Geez.

Further, there was a lag between U.S. forces entering the country (at which time Saddam's troops fled from some locations, leaving them abandoned to looters) and the arrival of U.S. troops at that scene.

Suffice it to say this...those troops knew that the IAEA had identified that site, and they also knew to be on the lookout for items that had been labeled and secured by the IAEA. THAT WAS WHAT THEY WERE LOOKING FOR.

However, explosives, even this sort of "construction explosive" weren't forbidden to Iraq, and weren't the top priority given that there were 10,000 sites with explosives on them in Iraq

It would be a physical impossibility to secure 10,000 locations simultaneously with a million troops on the ground.

Accounted for, as being in the hands of Saddam Hussein. Very secure.

Good plan.

We should let these IAEA guys run more things.

Perhaps, in the future, they can secure botchulism cultures by placing them in the hands of Moamar Khaddafi. And then, they can secure enriched uranium by placing it in the hands of the mullahs of Iran. And then, they can secure some anthrax by placing it in the hands of Kim Jong Il.

Very secure.

What a misuse of terms.

Why do you think iAEA was told to leave? Duh. They weren't told to leave. Their inspectors were pulled out because combat had commenced. Do you think the IAEA was permanently on site guarding these materials? No, they were in and out all the time, and the materials were "secured" in the capable hands of Saddam Hussein.

LEaving more than a month for Hussein to have removed them himself. As he could have done at any time during the times in between iAEA inspections.

On the plus side, some 600,000 tons of similar materials have been destroyed or will shortly be destroyed. Now, that is "securing" explosive materials.

Wait! I thought they had been secured and Hussein had been left with the keys, AS HE ALWAYS HAD BEEN?

Because like 10,000 other sites, it had explosives, but no identified (by IAEA) WMDs.

Well, would you classify construction explosives as WMDs?

Because they were left in the hands of Hussein as was the standard practice for the IAEA. After all, we know Hussein was thoroughly trustworthy.

Do you really think it would be possible to remove 40 truckloads of explosives AFTER the troops arrived? Ergo, they likely were removed BEFORE the troops arrived.

Further, and this is a critical question you need to ask yourself...WHY HAVEN'T THEY BEEN USED YET BY INSURRECTIONISTS IF THEY WERE LOOTED?

HOW EASY IS IT TO LOOT 40 truckloads of materials?

Sure, because they are CIA.

How long have you trusted the CIA to be honest with the American people?

Catz

[/quote]

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Terrorist-Supporting Atheist Moderator.

Billy Bob: "From now on I don't want to be quoted. EVER! "

Even that small amount was FORBIDDEN by the terms of the treaty.

So, it wasn't present in the quantity for mass destruction, but it certainly demonstrates a propensity to flout the requirements of the UN treaty.

Catz

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Terrorist-Supporting Atheist Moderator.

Billy Bob: "From now on I don't want to be quoted. EVER! "

It is still unknown as to whether or not the explosives (or the facility in general) had been looted when the 101st Airborne arrived at Al Qaqaa on April 10th.

The CBS article that catzmeow posts above (and butchers, by the way) quotes Lt. Col. Fred Wellman, deputy public affairs officer for that unit, as saying that "there were already looters throughout the facility" and that soldiers searched some bunkers for chemical weapons.

This directly contradicts what the commander of the 101st Airborne unit said yesterday. Col. Joseph Anderson said his men did not search the facility and that he didn't see any signs of looting or obvious damage.

So this question remains unresolved.

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Yo, how can I get me one o' them White House press pass thingies?!

[/quote]

Aaaah, Catz - You never disapoint - except in the area of supporting your assertions. If you choose to respond to this, could you please provide proof?

Thank you

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Truth is by nature self-evident, as soon as you remove the cobwebs of ignorance that surround it, it shines clear. Gandhi