The Iraq thread 4

[denoir 0]

And the media/Kerry rushes to conclusion, again....

From another Billybob favourite site:

MUSLIM DOGS MUST WEAR BURQAS [Weekly World News]

No, but seriously, thanks for posting that - it is a perfect example of what utter crap the Drudge report is.

Read the BBC article on the subject.

The point - and that's what the NYT is saying as well, is not that the stuff was stolen while it was under US supervision - but that there never was any US supervision at all. US troops were busy guarding the oil ministry while Iraqi looters helped themselves to invaluable mesopotamian historical artifacts, DVD-players, RPGs, nuclear material (that was under IAEA seal) and high explosives.

Instead of securing the sites, they ignored it. This specific facility in question was south of Baghdad, meaning that US troops were in the area already there almost a week before it was looted.

And of course as a counter to your Drudge, here's one from Michale Moore. It should be pointed out, that rather than making up news a la Drudge, MichaelMoore.com references other news agencies. In this case AP:

Kerry Slams Bush Over Missing Explosives [MichaelMoore.com]

Quote[/b] ]

By Jennifer Loven / Associated Press

GREELEY, Colo. - Sen. John Kerry accused President Bush of "incredible incompetence" in the war on Iraq on Monday, citing the disappearance of hundreds of tons of powerful explosives.

"My opponent has the wrong strategy for the wrong country at the wrong time," Bush shot back as the campaign for the White House entered its final full week.

The two men clashed at a distance as Supreme Court officials disclosed that Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist was undergoing treatment for thyroid cancer at a military hospital in suburban Maryland.

The announcement said the 80-year-old jurist expected to return to work quickly, but the disclosure served as a reminder that the court is aging — and the next president is likely to name one or more new justices.

Bill Clinton, the last president to make a Supreme Court appointee, campaigned for Kerry in Philadelphia during the day, welcomed by an enthusiastic crowd seven weeks after undergoing heart surgery.

He accused Republicans of "trying to scare the undecided voters about John Kerry and ... trying to scare the decided voters away from the polls."

In the campaign's final days, Kerry and Bush stepped up their months-long disagreement over the war on terror and the invasion of Iraq.

"Every step of the way, this administration has miscalculated," Kerry said in Dover, N.H. He spoke shortly before traveling to Philadelphia for a rally with Clinton.

Kerry said the Bush administration had "miscalculated about how to go to war, miscalculated about the numbers of troops that we would need, miscalculated about sending young Americans to war without the armor they needed, without the Humvees they needed that were armored."

"And the incredible incompetence of this president and this administration has put our troops at risk and put this country at greater risk than we ought to be," Kerry said.

White House spokesman Scott McClellan played down the threat posed by explosives missing from the Al Qaqaa military installation. He said there was no threat of nuclear proliferation, and preferred to concentrate on weapons destroyed, not those lost.

"We have destroyed more than 243,000 munitions," he said. "We've secured another nearly 163,000 that will be destroyed."

At the Pentagon, an official who monitors developments in Iraq said U.S.-led coalition troops had searched Al Qaqaa in the immediate aftermath of the March 2003 invasion and confirmed that the explosives were intact. Thereafter the site was not secured by U.S. forces, the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

Bush used his appearance to criticize Kerry. "Protest is not a policy," when it comes to battling terrorists, he said. As he has before, he accused the four-term Massachusetts senator of belittling America's allies in the war.

Kerry's running mate, Sen. John Edwards, campaigning in Ohio, added, "After today, it's hard to imagine that even they'll continue believing things are going well."

The International Atomic Energy Agency said about 350 metric tons of highly explosive material had disappeared in Iraq, apparently stolen because of a lack of security at governmental installations.

The central argument of Bush's re-election campaign is that he can do a better job protecting America than Kerry, and polls show that voters trust Bush more on this issue. The Bush campaign dismissed Kerry's criticism of the missing explosives without responding to the allegations.

Bush, in an ABC interview broadcast Monday, was asked about the possibility of a terrorist attack on the United States before the election, a threat the administration has repeatedly raised. "We don't have actionable intelligence to say there's an attack, and of course if we did, we'd be moving heaven and earth to stop it," the president said.

Asked in the interview if he has considered the fact that he could lose, Bush replied, "I'm not there yet."

Bush and Kerry are focusing their efforts on fewer than a dozen states that remain highly competitive, with both camps making last-minute scheduling decisions to reflect realities on the ground.

....

[billybob2002 0]

Quote[/b] ]No, but seriously, thanks for posting that - it is a perfect example of what utter crap the Drudge report is.

here:

http://www.nbc.com/redirects/nightly_news.cgi

Look for video called explosives missing in Iraq.

Quote[/b] ]Instead of securing the sites, they ignored it.

Wrong:

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/177738_weapons14.asp

Quote[/b] ]

WMD? Iraq is teeming with conventional arms

Anacortes men help lead effort to destroy Saddam's many explosive caches

By MIKE BARBER

SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER REPORTER

While combing through an ammunition cache squirreled away for four decades by Saddam Hussein, Curt Murdock found yet another sign of desperation: a human hand, obviously blown off while its owner was looting a munitions stockpile that Murdock's team had arrived to survey.

"It was still holding a sandwich," recalls Murdock, 51, an Anacortes native and chief of operations in Iraq for the Army Corps of Engineers' Captured Enemy Ammunition program, or CEA.

"It wasn't the only time we've found body parts. It shows how desperate the people are here. Iraqis have no industry, so they are selling whatever they have their hands on."

Although the world's attention has focused on the failure to find weapons of mass destruction, scant attention has been paid to the mountains of weapons of conventional destruction unearthed in Iraq.

The bombs, rockets, grenades, cannon shells and bullets amount to the world's fourth-largest stockpile of weapons, Army Corps of Engineers officials say. An estimated 600,000 tons of munitions with markings from all over the world, including the United States, and some so old that the weapons that fired them are no longer made, were stashed in Saddam's innumerable caches.

To date, 110,000 tons have been destroyed. An additional 138,000 tons are stored behind protective barriers. Saddam seemed to hoard this cornucopia of death aimlessly. "There are no aisles to walk down. It's just heaped," he said. "It just blows your mind to see this stuff."

Most often, desperate people mine the caches, some of them destroyed by U.S. military action that scattered the contents.

"Most of the people who loot are just doing it to sell it to someone to put food on their table," Murdock said. In a country where telephone poles were stripped of wires so people could sell the copper in them, many pry loose valued brass shell casings to sell. They spill explosive propellants on the ground. Intense desert heat renders them unstable.

The accidental explosions kill or maim kids and adults.

Often, however, the explosives find their way into the hands of people who use them against U.S. and coalition troops. "Improvised explosive devices," as the U.S. military calls the bombs, is part of the lexicon of this war. Drying up their source fuels the conventional-weapons program's urgency, Murdock said.

Murdock is one of two Anacortes men who, by coincidence, occupy leading roles in the $600 million CEA program. He graduated from Anacortes High School in 1971.

 

The other is Paul Johnston, 47, a retired, 22-year veteran of Navy special operations and the Energy Department's nuclear-security team. Johnston is chief of operations for Nevada-based Special Operations Consulting-Security Management Group. He plans to return to Whidbey Island to retire for good one day.

Known more commonly as SOC-SMG, Johnston's organization is one of five private security contractors retained by CEA. His unit screens and hires mostly former special-operations troops, many former Green Berets, to protect CEA workers dismantling Saddam's messy arsenal.

"We make sure they have the ability to focus on that mission. Imagine working on a piece of ordnance and looking over your shoulder because someone is shooting at you," Johnston said in a phone interview.

Johnston said his security personnel fall under prosecutable Army Corps of Engineers regulations. While having some leeway with carrying the best weaponry possible, they are limited. "We can't carry .50-caliber machine guns," he said. "And if I even suspect you had a drink of booze, you are gone."

It rankles Johnston to be called a hired gun. "We're not mercenaries. We're not an army going out to do combat with an enemy. We're kind of what the Secret Service does with the president. If we make combat with an enemy in some way, then we've not done our intelligence homework."

Johnston said CEA workers live in austere environments of "flies, mosquitoes, lack of water, camel spiders the size of large Frisbees, desert vipers, 120 degrees in the shade, and worrying whether people are friendly or not."

Although compensated well, many civilian contract workers are motivated more by a belief in their cause, he said. Five have lost their lives -- in ambushes, not by handling explosives.

"I get choked up when I think of the sacrifices they make," said Johnston, whose security force also hires and trains Iraqi guards.

"Some Iraqis have given us intelligence that saved our lives. The majority of Iraqis I know want us there. They are a highly educated people who with the right opportunities can make something of their future."

Glenn Earhart, 51, CEA's chief of international operations and program manager at the Army's engineering and support center in Huntsville, Ala., said the program employs about 2,200 people. Of them, 1,600 are Iraqis; 600 are U.S. contract workers, and 12 to15 are U.S. government employees.

"I don't think the Iraqi people get enough credit for supporting the U.S. effort," he said. "In my 29 years in the Corps of Engineers, this is the most important job I've done."

CEA's creation only 11 months ago has been a phenomenon of government expedience.

Earhart recalled receiving the first phone call on July 3 for help about troops encountering a massive problem with captured munitions. "The question was, 'Can you help us with captured enemy ammunition in Iraq?' " he said. "The Army wanted us operational as soon as possible."

A three-man team assessed the problem for four weeks, funding followed shortly afterward, $285 million in contracts were awarded, a team of private contractors and Army representatives was pulled together and demolitions started Sept. 11. Every deadline since has been kept.

"The good news is that the expectation is that we will have everything behind the fence in early fall '04," Earhart said.

"Suffice it to say, I am ready to retire in a year, so I don't have to worry about the bridges I burned" to get it done, he added only half in jest.

It is the encounters with the Iraqi people that have most affected CEA workers and fueled their drive to help, Earhart and others said.

Iraqis have broken into caches and used ball-peen hammers to remove brass. Some have caused the roofs of weapons caches to cave in by prying bricks from the walls to sell for food. Program workers have tried to help by giving them brass that was first flattened so it can't be reused in weapons, or old empty ammunition boxes converted to other uses.

Occasionally, CEA workers have caught bad guys in the act.

"Not too long ago, some of our ordnance folks went to a cache and spotted 180 Iraqis putting together (homemade bombs). They stayed away, called me and said, 'What do you want us to do?' I said, 'Surround them.' Then we called in the 'big army.' There was some gunfire, but no one was hurt," Murdock said.

"We see the urgency to do it fast, as safe as possible and get home," he said. "The sooner we get our arms around this and secure it, the better off everyone will be."

...

Quote[/b] ]This specific facility in question was south of Baghdad, meaning that US troops were in the area already there almost a week before it was looted.

The day before the 101st went to that Al Qaqaa, Baghdad was taken...

[denoir 0]

Quote[/b] ]This specific facility in question was south of Baghdad, meaning that US troops were in the area already there almost a week before it was looted.

The day before the 101st went to that Al Qaqaa, Baghdad was taken...

Exactly my point. They were in the region around 1st of April. It was looted 9th and they showed up 11th at the site.

Either way, this is a minor thing compared to the nuclear material that wanished over the course of two years - not to mention the sacking of the National Museum in Baghdad.

[billybob2002 0]

Quote[/b] ]Either way, this is a minor thing compared to the nuclear material that wanished over the course of two years - not to mention the sacking of the National Museum in Baghdad.

Forgot to add: the last time IAEA visited Al Qaqaa when the explosives were present (looked at in jan. but not in early march), Iraq war did not start. Also, the pentagon has said that the military visited the site during and after major operations but did not found any of those types of explosives.

It is a guessing game when the explosives were taken.

Quote[/b] ]Exactly my point. They were in the region around 1st of April. It was looted 9th and they showed up 11th at the site.

The picture I have seen of the 101st locations between late march and april 10th were

Najaf (combat)

Karbala (combat)

Al Kifl

Honestly, I think the military believed that they should take out the Iraqi forces first and then try to secure the facilities (sweep and clear and move out).

Quote[/b] ]not to mention the sacking of the National Museum in Baghdad.

Some of that stuff was recollected but many are still missing.....now the nuclear....

edit: 1:49 am....zzz

[ralphwiggum 6]

.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6331812/

Quote[/b] ]The Bush administration intends to seek about $70 billion in emergency funding for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan early next year, pushing total war costs close to $225 billion since the invasion of Iraq early last year, Pentagon and congressional officials said yesterday.

White House budget office spokesman Chad Kolton emphasized that final decisions on the supplemental spending request will not be made until shortly before the request is sent to Congress. That may not happen until early February, when President Bush submits his budget for fiscal 2006, assuming he wins reelection.

But Pentagon and House Appropriations Committee aides said the Defense Department and military services are scrambling to get their final requests to the White House Office of Management and Budget by mid-November, shortly after the election. The new numbers underscore that the war is going to be far more costly and intense, and last longer, than the administration first suggested.

The Army is expected to request at least an additional $30 billion for combat activity in Iraq, with $6 billion more needed to begin refurbishing equipment that has been worn down or destroyed by unexpectedly intense combat, another Appropriations Committee aide said. The deferral of needed repairs over the past year has added to maintenance costs, which can no longer be delayed, a senior Pentagon official said.

The Army is expected to ask for as much as $10 billion more for its conversion to a swifter expeditionary force. The Marines will come in with a separate request, as will the Defense Logistics Agency and other components of the Department of Defense. The State Department will need considerably more funds to finance construction and operations at the sprawling embassy complex in Baghdad. The Central Intelligence Agency's request would come on top of those.

"I don't have a number, and [administration officials] have not been forthcoming, but we expect it will be pretty large," said James Dyer, Republican chief of staff of the Appropriations Committee.

Quote[/b] ]Intense insurgency

The White House has been careful to keep the war spending numbers "close to the vest," Dyer said. But Pentagon officials have been working on the request for two to three months, even as they put together their far larger budget request for fiscal 2006, the Pentagon official said.

The Iraq war has proven so costly because of the unexpectedly intense opposition from insurgents. That has led the Pentagon to keep far more troops in Iraq than it planned.

At the end of the invasion of Iraq in the spring of 2003, Pentagon officials expected to be able to radically trim the occupation force by the end of that year to perhaps 50,000 troops or less. Instead, they maintained a force of about 130,000 personnel there and have supplemented that force with about 20,000 civilian contractors.

On top of paying the wages of the all-volunteer force and the contractors, the military has paid for building dozens of bases and keeping a high-tech force equipped with computers, communications gear and expensive modern weaponry.

Yale University economist William D. Nordhaus estimated that in inflation-adjusted terms, World War I cost just under $200 billion for the United States. The Vietnam War cost roughly $500 billion from 1964 to 1972, Nordhaus said. The cost of the Iraq war could reach nearly half that number by next fall, 2 1/2 years after it began.

A Pentagon spokeswoman declined to comment. "We are going to let OMB talk for the administration on this issue," Marine Lt. Col. Rose-Ann Lynch said.

[BoweryBaker 0]

This shit is just dragging on and on and on. Leave it to the Iraqis to stop Iraqi terrorism.

[DarkLight 0]

This shit is just dragging on and on and on.  Leave it to the Iraqis to stop Iraqi terrorism.

Oh right, US invades iraq and now it's time to leave them with all their problems caused by the great west.

You know

You're funny in a not-funny kinda way...

it's your own fucking fault, now deal with it

[Badgerboy 0]

This shit is just dragging on and on and on.  Leave it to the Iraqis to stop Iraqi terrorism.

Well, they used to, but US forces shot or disbanded the regular military and the forces that kept things in check.

If you smash the structure apart, you need to rebuild it. Iraqi forces will not be significantly combat capable for another 2-3 years, and thats assuming they start getting supplied with the right kit.

[DKM Jaguar 0]

This shit is just dragging on and on and on.  Leave it to the Iraqis to stop Iraqi terrorism.

Haha that's a great joke    

Made me laugh my ass off at least.

It is a joke right? No real person can think like that?

A great slogan for the US military that would make "We fuck up your country, you get left to sort it out. And if you don't, we'll fuck it up even more."

[billybob2002 0]

Quote[/b] ]"We fuck up your country"

The country was already fecked up. Saddam just used brutuality to surpress it.

[ralphwiggum 6]

Quote[/b] ]"We fuck up your country"

The country was already fecked up. Saddam just used brutuality to surpress it.

everyone thought so until US went in and f*cked it up even more....

[PiNs_Da_Smoka 0]

Quote[/b] ]"We fuck up your country"

The country was already fecked up. Saddam just used brutuality to surpress it.

everyone thought so until US went in and f*cked it up even more....

But i'm pretty sure this damned smell was here before we got here.

[theavonlady 2]

Quote[/b] ]"We fuck up your country"

The country was already fecked up. Saddam just used brutuality to surpress it.

everyone thought so until US went in and f*cked it up even more....

But i'm pretty sure this damned smell was here before we got here.  

Pins! Pins! Come in Pins! Can you read me?!

Whazzup?

All's well?

Tell us stories.

Damn! He's fading out...................................

[ralphwiggum 6]

Quote[/b] ]"We fuck up your country"

The country was already fecked up. Saddam just used brutuality to surpress it.

everyone thought so until US went in and f*cked it up even more....

But i'm pretty sure this damned smell was here before we got here.  

you sure it wasn't your recreational substance smell?

glad to see you Pins

[Acecombat 0]

Quote[/b] ]"We fuck up your country"

The country was already fecked up. Saddam just used brutuality to surpress it.

Oh you mean those broken Oil pipelines , no military vehicles/planes left , half the feckin country bombed to pieces with god knows what sort of ammunitions DU and cluster bombs etc etc , plus the average iraqi youth with a gun in his hand yelling for US to get out , IT ALL HAD happened under SADDAMS rule before the US went in?

Someone please show this guy the way out of this thread...

[Blake 0]

Quote[/b] ]The country was already fecked up. Saddam just used brutuality to surpress it.

When you wipe out the army and police organizations you could consider any country in the world already 'fecked up'. Try it in a US for a week just for fun.

[billybob2002 0]

Quote[/b] ]Oh you mean those broken Oil pipelines , no military vehicles/planes left , half the feckin country bombed to pieces with god knows what sort of ammunitions DU and cluster bombs etc etc , plus the average iraqi youth with a gun in his hand yelling for US to get out , IT ALL HAD happened under SADDAMS rule before the US went in?

Yes, Saddam did not have those chambers and crap. Must of been in my mind. Iraq was a beacon of democracy and everybody loved him.

Quote[/b] ]

When you wipe out the army and police organizations you could consider any country in the world already 'fecked up'. Try it in a US for a week just for fun.

I know what you mean! Bush is planning to kill Kerry and everybody in his party because they disagree with him or have them put in to prison. Cheney and Powell like to take random women off the street and rape them. The Northeast is protected by a no-fly zone because Bush wants to kill everybody living there. Bah Bah

That is the reason Iraq was fecked up even before the invasion happened. The only reason you can say that the country is really fecked up now because the coalition is not acting like Saddam. That is the truth and you cannot deny it.

Anyway, ...

Edit: Feck

[Acecombat 0]

Quote[/b] ]Yes, Saddam did not have those chambers and crap. Must of been in my mind. Iraq was a beacon of democracy and everybody loved him.

And whats that got to do with that i said? We were discussing Iraqs current stability situation eco/civil/army/health and in other aspects. Just FYI iraq was one of the most leading ME nations in nearly all of those aspects until the first GW.

Its time like these i definitely need to resist the urge to post and reply to you since its the equivalent of bashing my **** in a car door

[sputnik monroe 102]

You know Saddam isn't dead. Why don't we just put him back in control. Every one misses him so much and he brought stability to the region. Life was so much better under Saddam.

[Albert Schweitzer 10]

You know Saddam isn't dead. Why don't we just put him back in control. Every one misses him so much and he brought stability to the region. Life was so much better under Saddam.

Because you cant bring back 20.000 dead civillians!

Those people dont like Saddam, but that doesnt mean they like US occupational forces more!

[miles teg 1]

That's one thing that amazes me. Conservatives just can't seem to get it through their thick heads that most of us against the war DO NOT LIKE SADDAM HUSSEIN!!!

However for America things WERE better under Saddam Hussein because HE KEPT AL-QAEDA in check in that country and there is NO...I repeat NO evidence that he was planning on giving Al-Qaeda WMD's because #1 he didn't have any WMD's to speak of and #2 Al-Qaeda was trying to overthrow him.

Were things better for the Iraqi people? Ask them. For some probably yes (especially Sunni Iraqis and those with closer tribal affiliations with the Saddam regime) but for many no. However for alot of Iraqis having a job and having security (with less personal freedoms) is better then not having a job and no security.

Early polls are showing that Iraqi religious clerics will win in any election in Iraq. Guess what will happen next?

More then likely you will see ALOT more enforcement of strict interpretations of Shariat law. Its a simple backlash against what some Iraqis see as corrupt American values.

The same thing happened in Iran when we supported the Shah. The Islamic revolution in Iran was in part a cultural backlash against American meddling in Iranian political affairs and their economy.

We simply are repeating the mistakes we made in our past history because the Bush administration apparently does not know American history or understand the lessons from our history.

Hell, we still have politicians saying that the Vietnam War was a just and righteous cause. It was pure stupidity just as Russia's invasion of Afghanistan was pure stupidity.

We need to quit meddling in the affairs of other countries and concentrate more on economic partnerships.

That is one reason why I support capitalism (regulated capitalism). Strong trade relations are very strong deterants to war. Generally it forces countries to calm down and think rationally to work out solutions to problems if their economies depend on each other.

That's one big reason why America has not been trying to be adversarial with China. Our economies are completely dependent on each other. War between our two countries would be disasterous economically for both nations.

Chris G.

aka-Miles Teg<GD>

[Acecombat 0]

Forget Miles its like flogging a dead horse here with some of these idiots . They just wont understand anything ever all they can understand is whatever their crazy selective media runs through their head and what their their selective mind sets filters for them.

May god send a bit of common sense to them thats all i ask for....

[billybob2002 0]

Quote[/b] ]Forget Miles its like flogging a dead horse here with some of these idiots   . They just wont understand anything ever all they can understand is whatever their crazy selective media runs through their head and what their their selective mind sets filters for them.

May god send a bit of common sense to them thats all i ask for....

Stop talking about yourself.

Quote[/b] ]We were discussing Iraqs current stability situation eco/civil/army/health and in other aspects. Just FYI iraq was one of the most leading ME nations in nearly all of those aspects until the first GW.

Erm...

DKM:

Quote[/b] ]A great slogan for the US military that would make "We fuck up your country, you get left to sort it out. And if you don't, we'll fuck it up even more."

Me:

Quote[/b] ]

The country was already fecked up. Saddam just used brutuality to surpress it.

Quote[/b] ]Its time like these i definitely need to resist the urge to post and reply to you since its the equivalent of bashing my **** in a car door

Please make my day.

[Acecombat 0]

O God the hopelessness of this all .....

I dont even have the heart to say anything except Mods please lock this thread up or bar people who cant read or understand simple english from it ASAP.

[billybob2002 0]

Quote[/b] ]O God the hopelessness of this all .....

I dont even have the heart to say anything except Mods please lock this thread up or bar people who cant read or understand simple english from it ASAP.

Here is a suitcase!

Quote[/b] ]The only reason you can say that the country is really fecked up now because the coalition is not acting like Saddam.

Let me expand this for certain people how cannot, how can I say, think and compare. Okay, the insurgency, remember how Saddam cracked down on the the failed revolt in the early 90s? You wonder why Saddam did not have real opposition inside his country? Well, it may come to a shock, but he killed them or tortured them. From what I have seen, the coalition does not act brutal like Saddam did to his revolt or what the allies did to the failed insurgency after World War 2. That kid you are talking would of raise his gun at Saddam but he would of been dead before he even reached it. Kids have raise guns at Saddam before and look what happen. You may stay what about Fallujah? Selective targeting of houses. Yes, innocent folks do die by accident but the coalition is trying to keep it small. You complain about the "broken Oil pipelines , no military vehicles/planes left, half the feckin country bombed to pieces with god knows what sort of ammunitions DU and cluster bombs etc etc". Well, you hear about reconstruction? The money the Iraqi should be getting (about) is the same amount/bigger that Europe got after WWII. You wonder why the reconstruction is slow? common sense, my man. You deal with the insurgency and then the ball really rolls.

BTW, please do not come off thinking you are right or something on this issue. I admit I'm probably wrong but you are probably wrong too.