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Video of Al Qaqaa Explosives
by Washington Dispatch
Thursday, Oct. 28, 2004 at 10:21 AM
''The video, shot by embedded reporters on April 18th, nine days after the fall of Baghdad, showed massive quantities of various explosives.''
Local News Station Releases Video of Possible Missing Explosives
A Minneapolis ABC affiliate, KSTP Channel 5, may have provided definitive proof to end the speculation as to when the 380 tons of high explosives (HE) disappeared from an al-Qaqaa storage depot within Iraq.
The video, shot by embedded reporters on April 18th, nine days after the fall of Baghdad, showed massive quantities of various explosives. The crew reports that they were on the southern border of al-Qaqaa when the footage was taken and recorded 'bunker after bunker' that were opened with bolt-cutters and left unsecured, yet filled with explosives. Many of the boxes marked as 'explosive' were also labeled with the words 'al-Qaqaa State Establishment.'
The Bush administration contends that the explosives may have disappeared before the start of the war, thereby lifting the burden of responsibility off of the president. The Iraqi Interim Government argues that they were looted sometime after April 9th.
The footage and reports by the Channel 5 News crew supports the Iraqi government's claim as they state that Iraqi's were 'coming and going' and the site and bunkers were left unsecured.
The Washington Times went so far as to claim that the explosives were taken by Russian forces. They based their report on the words of a controversial pentagon official.
The video is clear and the explosives shown on the film are being verified by experts in Washington, D.C. to see if they are the specific HMX and RDX explosives that the IAEA claims are now missing.
kstp.dayport.com/article/view/159660/
Did they search carefully enough?
by Rudy Giuliani
Thursday, Oct. 28, 2004 at 11:55 AM
Rudy Giuliani, on the Today Show: "No matter how you try to blame it on the president the actual responsibility for it really would be for the troops that were there. Did they search carefully enough? Didn't they search carefully enough?" (10/28/04)
UPDATE
by KSTP
Thursday, Oct. 28, 2004 at 10:24 PM
...Military personnel told 5 EYEWITNESS NEWS that the area visited was secured by an outside perimeter. Our crew said the area felt more like no-mans-land.
"At one point, there was a group of Iraqis driving around in a pickup truck," said former 5 EYEWITNESS NEWS reporter Dean Staley. "We were worried they might come near us."
Photojournalist Joe Caffrey recalls seeing Iraqis watching them as they went through the bunkers. As his crew and the troops from the 101st departed each bunker, they left them open.
"We weren't quite sure what we were looking at, but we saw so much of it and it didn't appear that this was being secured in any way," said photojournalist Joe Caffrey. "It was several miles away from where military people were staying in their tents."
Caffrey also recalls overhearing a military briefing after curious soliders had encountered another bunker.
"Apparently two soldiers had gone in to these bunkers, lit a match for light and the fumes or powder... whatever it was, exploded and burned their clothes off," he said. "Shortly thereafter, everyone was told to stay away from these bunkers"
Another bunker encountered by the 101st Airborne and the 5 EYEWITNESS NEWS crew was locked with chains and a seal left by inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency. According to the IAEA, the seal marked a facility suspected of holding "dual-purpose" materials that could be used to produce nuclear weapons.
www.kstp.com/article/stories/S3740.html?cat=1
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