Breaking News - The Explosives were destroyed by US in 2003

[GWB]

Pentagon briefing on the Al Qaqaa story: On April 13, 2003 the explosives were destroyed and disposed of by US military forces. (no link available yet)

What will Kerry say about this now?

[sam h]

[ QUOTE ]
Pentagon briefing on the Al Qaqaa story: On April 13, 2003 the explosives were destroyed and disposed of by US military forces. (no link available yet)

[/ QUOTE ]

Then why is there that video of soldiers entering the compound and handling the explosives on April 18th, 2003?

Plus, I thought your argument was that Saddam got rid of them. This is awesome. Are you simultaneously arguing that they weren't there when we showed up and that we destroyed them?

[GWB]

What was destroyed may be only the remainder of a much larger cache. As with all breaking news, we will have to let the full details get out, I just wanted you all to know that Kerry's reckless accusations against American soldiers is coming back to bite him.

[elwoodblues]

The KSTP reporters filmed the explosives after that. Just heard it on the radio from the actual reporter who was there. All the tapes have a later date as do the notes of the journalists involved.

Story

Highlights : "The news crew was with soldiers from the 101st Airborne division on April 18, 2003 when they checked out the bunkers at or near Al-Qaqaa. Inside those bunkers, they found a variety of explosives."

[SinCityGuy]

Sounds like the Bush administration doesn't know what the hell is going on, either.

Let's see. President Bush says the explosives were possibly removed by Saddam's forces before the invasion.

Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld entered the debate Thursday, suggesting the 377 tons of explosives were taken away before U.S. forces arrived, saying any large effort to loot the material afterward would have been detected.

And last, but certainly not least, John A. Shaw, the deputy undersecretary of defense for international technology security, who said he believed Russian special-forces personnel, working with Iraqi intelligence, "almost certainly" removed the high-explosive material from the Al-Qaqaa facility. Shaw said he believed the munitions were moved to Syria in the weeks before the March 2003 invasion.

Oops.

[GWB]

More from the briefing:

400,000 tons destroyed.
destroyed more than 1000 times the amount that is in question.
We are putting out facts, but we don't have definitive conclusions.
In the last day or so they learned that units arrived in early April, and we met by Iraqi forces inside the complex
US forces described seeing ammunitions everywhere in the country.
Some units were assigned to remove weapons.
Don't expect anyone to conclude that the universe of weapons that press is interested in will all be addressed by this briefing.

[JimBob2232]

Nobody knows the facts (including the administration im afraid), which is why is POSITIVELY ABSURD for anyone to start making false accusations of a sitting president. Get a shovel mr kerry, you're going to need it

[GWB]

[ QUOTE ]
Highlights : "The news crew was with soldiers from the 101st Airborne division on April 18, 2003 when they checked out the bunkers at or near Al-Qaqaa. Inside those bunkers, they found a variety of explosives."


[/ QUOTE ]

The witness reported to the 101st Airborne for destruction duty on April 13th, but testified that the destruction was not complete until June 2003. So the KSTP video is consistent with the timeline.

It will take time for all details to be nailed down. [img]/images/graemlins/crazy.gif[/img]

[ThaSaltCracka]

[ QUOTE ]
Nobody knows the facts (including the administration im afraid), which is why is POSITIVELY ABSURD for anyone to start making false accusations of a sitting president.

[/ QUOTE ] quit being so naive, thats how politics work.

[JimBob2232]

I am not being naive, but I need to KNOW the facts before I can start assessing blame (or credit). It appears like we did the right thing here, and protected the weapons, but have a giant communication problem and people high up in the administration do not know exactly what happened.