Iraqi Explosives Grow Legs And Walk Off
In what seems to be an attempt to outdo previous incompetence, the Iraqi interim government has warned that "380 tons of powerful conventional explosives" are missing from one of Iraq's most sensitive former military installations.
The facility was supposed to be under American control but appears now to be a no man's land. The White House has failed to explain how a mistake of this magnitude could be possible.
Since the "hand-over" of power earlier this year, security at important facilities has been a source of confusion. Leaders are unable to answer the basic question of who is in charge. Iraqi officials claim that they warned Paul Bremer, then head of the Coalition Provisional Authority, in May 2004 that sensitive military installations had been looted in the immediate aftermath of the invasion.
The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) also tried to warn the U.S. about the potential dangers posed by these explosives and "specifically told United States officials about the need to keep the explosives secured" after the invasion. The Bush administration, however, chose not to allow the agency back into the country after the invasion to verify the status of the explosives stockpile.
The explosives in question are HMX - high melting point explosive - and RDX - rapid detonation explosive. Both can be used in bombs to bring down entire buildings or "shatter" airplanes. The bomb that brought down Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, in 1988 used less than a pound of the same type of material. Even more disturbing, the chemical makeup of these explosives make them "insensitive to shock and physical abuse during handling and transport," making them particularly simple to smuggle the munitions to terrorists outside Iraq.
On the heels of the announcement earlier this month that nuclear-related materials catalogued by the IAEA has vanished in the chaos of the invasion, this announcement reinforces increasing skepticism about the administrations ability to ensure a basic level of security in Iraq. For all the tough talk about the impotence of the U.N. it now seems that the IAEA was accomplishing the basic task of identifying and isolating dangerous materials, a task that the U.S. and Iraqi interim government seem incapable of accomplishing.
Who is this guy?
Leave a comment