The "evidence" that the munitions were missing prior to the invasion when US troops reached the site on April 4 cannot of course be viewed as reliable, since it is essentially a "negative result".

That a single embedded reporter did not "see" such munitions cannot be held up as evidence that they weren't there...it does not disprove the possibility they were. For example, the reporter and soldiers may not have known what to look for in their brief (possible they were removed sometime between March 8 (last IAEA site inspection) and April 4 by Iraqi forces on the retreat, it is not a theory supported by hard evidence. Equally possible (at least) is that the arms disappeared after the invasion since the site was not guarded by the US military, as the Pentagon admits.

What is clear is that munitions were allowed to be carted off by someone at some time, and this of course is not good.

Intended or otherwise, it can be viewed as another point of evidence supporting the incompetence of the Bush administration in planning the war and the aftermath.

I wonder how anyone can support this guy when all he has are grand theories that sound good but cannot be effectively put into practice (hey, sounds like a lot of other Republican positions as well...).

From the Washington Post

"In the first of yesterday's [April 5, 2003] discoveries, the 3rd Infantry Division entered the vast Qa Qaa chemical and explosives production plant and came across thousands of vials of white powder, packed three to a box. The engineers also found stocks of atropine and pralidoxime, also known as 2-PAM chloride, which can be used to treat exposure to nerve agents but is also used to treat poisoning by organic phosphorus pesticides. Alongside those materials were documents written in Arabic that, as interpreted at the scene, appeared to include discussions of chemical warfare.

RDX:

"Also referred to as cyclonite, or hexogen, RDX is a white crystalline solid usually used in mixtures with other explosives, oils, or waxes; it is rarely used alone. It has a high degree of stability in storage and is considered the most powerful and brisant of the military high explosives.

RDX compositions are mixtures of RDX, other explosive ingredients, and desensitizers or plasticizers. Incorporated with other explosives or inert material at the manufacturing plants, RDX forms the base for the following common military explosives: Composition A, composition B, composition C, HBX, H-6 and Cyclotol."

LINK

Interesting stuff, Handle. Thanks! Would be nice to know more about that powder (not solid?), what it was, and what happened to it (carted off? left alone? what?).

VT's position that nothing can disprove the charges he levels at the Bush administration is par for his course. Next...

RE: our standards here, I'll note that a previous dispute on this site was indeed resolved in a similar manner. When Andrew Lazarus and Praktike questioned an account of event at the Imam Ali shrine in Iraq, the account of a New York Times embed on the scene (thanks, praktike) was treated as definitive when he said the number of bodies he saw was far smaller. That too is a "negative result," and it led to the withdrawal of that section of the post and a pointer to the embed's criticisms in its place.

In other words, I treated that account as debunked.

I'm treating the explosives story the same way... and its timing just before the election, given the long antecedents of its sources, hasn't escaped my attention either.

I'll add that Belmont Club has a very different take on the RDX issue and where blame lies:

"The withdrawal of enemy resources into safe havens was the subject of Belmont Club's War Plan Orange. In this context, the loss of 380 tons of RDX is similar to worrying about a toothache after being diagnosed with AIDS and Ebola. Some 600,000 tons of explosive are said to have been dispersed throughout Iraq prior to the conclusion of Operation Iraqi Freedom. The loss of the RDX is serious, but in the overall scheme of things, one of the least worries. But it provides indirect confirmation of the preemptive dispersal of war materiel by the Saddam regime while the US was trying to negotiate UN permission to topple him for six months, compounded by Turkey's refusal to allow the 4ID to attack south into the Sunni Triangle.

The account above shows that the RDX explosive was already gone by the time US forces arrived. Although one may retrospectively find some fault with OIF order of battle, most of the damage had already been inflicted by the dilatory tactics of America's allies which allowed Saddam the time and space -- nearly half a year and undisturbed access to Syria -- necessary to prepare his resistance, transfer money abroad and disperse explosives (as confirmed first hand by reporters). Although it is both desirable and necessary to criticize the mistakes attendant to OIF, much of the really "criminal" neglect may be laid on the diplomatic failure which gave the wily enemy this invaluable opportunity. The price of passing the "Global Test" was very high; and having been gypped once, there are some who are still eager to be taken to the cleaners again."

So the "timing" of the story in and of itself is cause for skepticism, eh Joe?

What a beaut.

And I'm not treating the story as "debunked" by any stretch of the imagination, nor would I suggest others do. Simply because it is not.

VT's position that nothing can disprove the charges he levels at the Bush administration...

There not my charges, Joe, just so you're clear on at least that.

Joe,
You can treat the story as "debunked" but what is
really debunked is your pretense to objectivity. The reporter at the scene says no search was made and an (anonymous) Pentagon official says that the explosives were still under seal and no effort was made to secure them.
VT position of skepticism seems warranted and claims of "debunking" just sound like bias and pre-judgement. Do you think the MSM should have
held the story until after the election?

From MSNBC.com below..
"‘No move to secure the
weapons’ “There wasn’t a
search,” she told MSNBC, an
NBC cable news channel. “The
mission that the brigade had
was to get to Baghdad. That
was more of a pit stop there
for us. And, you know, the
searching, I mean certainly
some of the soldiers headed
off on their own, looked
through the bunkers just to
look at the vast amount of
ordnance lying around.

“But as far as we could tell,
there was no move to secure
the weapons, nothing to keep
looters away.”

There was disagreement among
U.S. officials over when the
explosives might have
disappeared.

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,
which had been under IAEA seal
since 1991, were intact. The
site was not secured by U.S.
forces, the official said,
speaking on condition of
anonymity.

According to Josh Marshall, one of the MSNBC producers embedded with the 101st was interviewed this morning on MSNBC. Based on what she said, there was no detailed accounting of explosives at the site. When asked if the troops around her searched the sprawling facility during the 24-hour period they were at the site, the producer said:

"No. There wasn't a search. The mission that the brigade had was to get to Baghdad. That was more of a pit stop there for us. And, you know, the searching, I mean certainly some of the soldiers head off on their own, looked through the bunkers just to look at the vast amount of ordnance lying around. But as far as we could tell, there was no move to secure the weapons, nothing to keep looters away. But there was – at that point the roads were shut off. So it would have been very difficult, I believe, for the looters to get there."

This isn't an exculpatory story, simply because nobody appears to have checked to make sure the explosives were still there.

In addition, the Washington Times link from the blog site Joe cites as "debunking" concludes with...
That is some unusual debunking that ends with a
quote verifying the "bunk".

"
Mr. ElBaradei told the Security Council yesterday he was informed Oct. 1 by the Iraqi Ministry of Science and Technology that the explosives were lost after April 9, 2003, throughout the theft and looting of the government installations due to lack of security."

Please remember that no one has disputed the incident where RADIOACTIVE WASTE was left unguarded at Tuwaitha in the weeks after the invasion. The Marines dispersed the guards at the facility, and then LEFT TOWN, allowing the nuclear waste to be looted.

Remember that this was the only place in the entire country that the USG knew for sure had nuclear materials.

This should tell you everything you need to know about the sum total of the administration's seriousness about the WMD issue and the competence of our war machine.

Of course this story doesn't get much press. Americans don't want to hear that "their" government is that incompetent/deceptive.

The idea that Iraqi insurgents walked into this facility and trucked out 380 tons of material is preposterous beyond description.

As long as we're visiting Fantasy Island, maybe Kerry should just accuse Bush of loaning the insurgents a bunch of Hercules aircraft to move the stuff with.

The explosives in question were not weapons. They were raw ingredients for weapons. Considerable effort was required to process these particular raw explosives into suitable consistency for use in weapons. Not to mention the detonators and such. Absent the processing, the stuff was quite harmless. With the processing it would become dangerous, and with both processing and suitable detonators (not any detonator would do) it could be INCLUDED IN (not used AS) weapons.

Doing all that is such hard work, and is so easily identifiable and easy to disrupt, that use of already processed explosives found in old munitions is preferable in creating terrorist devices. And much safer.

This is another made-up, as in fabricated, media story. It relies on public ignorance of how explosives are created and used.

The explosives in question were not weapons. They were raw ingredients for weapons.

See "Laboratory Synthesis" here.

This is one click away from Google, searching on "RDX explosives manufacture." It doesn't seem like you need a whole lot of laboratory/industrial capacity to do this.

The idea that Iraqi insurgents walked into this facility and trucked out 380 tons of material is preposterous beyond description.

Granted, no one has any evidence that the stuff was taken by insurgents. But someone did take it, and we can rule out the Americans, the provisional government, and the IAEA. Best case scenario, allowing this stuff to get loose still seems like a mistake that shouldn't have been made.

And the Pentagon's spin that there's thousands of tons of unsecured munitions all over the place isn't really a satisfying answer, is it?

Handle: But someone did take it, and we can rule out the Americans, the provisional government, and the IAEA.

Well, that leaves:

1. The Saddam government (sometime prior to the fall of Baghdad)
2. The insurgents
3. Space Pirates with invisible UFOs

Number 1 can hardly be blamed on George Bush, so that one is obviously no good. Number 2 is ridiculous - somebody want to point out the intelligence showing that the insurgents have heavy transportation capabilities (outside of 4X4 pickup trucks) and can move trucks around freely without being detected by air and satellite recon?

If I were Kerry, I'd go with number three. After all, Bush didn't get permission from the Star Trek Federation before he charged to war in Iraq.

Actually, Glen's points make sense, even though that I don't agree with him often.

How can you move 400 tons of stuff easily? What are the scenarios for this?

4×4 pickup trucks, undisturbed moving material across 3 weeks, with no one noticing?

As an alternative to Belmont's theory, a chilling account of Open Source Terrorism.

My apologies if this has been linked to before, but I thought it was pertinent to the conversation.

Going further, what would be the recommendations on this?

I would think that only internationalization could work - both on funds tracking, border movement, logistics, etc. Cooperation on these areas would be key.

Any other ideas?

Handle,

Converting the raw, thoroughly inert, explosive into useable (not inert but still easy to handle) form is neither easy nor safe in quantities suitable for terrorist use in expedient explosive devices absent a whole lot of things which are relatively easy to spot given our surveillance in Iraq. It is far, far easier, and safer both in terms of security and idiot-proofing, to convert already processed explosives in existing munitions into expedient explosive devices.

Iraq has lots and lots of munitions lying around. Our forces have been disposing of those. Raw, unprocessed, explosives are much less of a threat for the reasons I mention, and so of lower priority in terms of disposal.

I repeat that this is another example of the media making things up. It relies entirely on public ignorance of the manufacture of explosives, and military munitions in particular, for political effect.

I have to agree with Cal Thomas that this looks more and more like the last presidential election in which the mainstream media mean jack. They are poisoning their own well big-time.

Handle,

Converting the raw, thoroughly inert, explosive into useable (not inert but still easy to handle) form is neither easy nor safe in quantities suitable for terrorist use in expedient explosive devices absent a whole lot of things which are relatively easy to spot given our surveillance in Iraq. It is far, far easier, and safer both in terms of security and idiot-proofing, to convert already processed explosives in existing munitions into expedient explosive devices.

Iraq has lots and lots of munitions lying around. Our forces have been disposing of those. Raw, unprocessed, explosives are much less of a threat for the reasons I mention, and so of lower priority in terms of disposal.

I repeat that this is another example of the media making things up. It relies entirely on public ignorance of the manufacture of explosives, and military munitions in particular, for political effect.

I have to agree with Cal Thomas that this looks more and more like the last presidential election in which the mainstream media mean jack. They are poisoning their own well big-time.

Glen: it seems likely that the 3rd ID found it on April 5, 2003. If so, that rules out your hypothesis that Saddam did something with it before that time.

However you want to slice it, odds are that somebody took a bunch of stuff without being noticed by us, after Saddam lost power.

Tom: According to the internet making bombs out of this stuff seems like it requires some undergrad chemistry, some additional materials, and a basic lab. I'm eager to be enlightened on what I'm missing, but my inexpert research is not making it look like it would be too tough for urban terrorists to produce this.

You also indicate that it would be inefficent to do so, since they could just make bombs out of manufactured munitions. That may be the case, but that doesn't seem like strong proof that the missing RDX wasn't taken for conversion to terrorist bombs.

I'm trying to be systematic and not hysterical here. If I'm way off base let me know.

Handle -

You can't seriously be suggesting that the Iraqis had 380 tons of high explosive power packaged in individual 5 × 12 cm boxes, like Junior Mints? How many "thousands" of Junior Mint boxes would that take?

If my previous post was unclear, what I mean to say is that "thousands of five-centimetre by 12-centimetre boxes, each containing three vials of white powder" does not describe 380 tons of high explosive, even if we assume that Colonel Peabody has a genius for understatement.

Nor would such elaborate packaging make it any more possible for someone to load up 380 tons of the stuff and cart it out of coalition-occupied territory unnoticed. Any way you slice it, it is just absurd.

I'm sure I don't know, but this is what I read:

"A senior U.S. official familiar with initial testing said the powder was believed to be explosives. The finding would be consistent with the plant's stated production capabilities in the field of basic raw materials for explosives and propellants."

I'm trying to connect the dots here, and use some published accounts to back it all up. Again, tell me why I'm wrong. Or, just ridicule it. That works too.

OK, forget my previous post, I didn't see your elaboration.

What do you think of the argument made on Cold Fury: http://coldfury.com/index.php?p=4995

"So, according to the above UN resolution (emphasis mine, needless to say), this stuff should have been disposed of back in mid-92, according to their own timetable. It wasn't.

"Eleven years, people. The UN had eleven years to get rid of this stuff, and it was supposed to have been done within 45 days of the approval of the plan for doing it. It wasn't. The GW1 cease-fire agreement was invalidated almost before the ink dried on the damned thing. The UN didn't do its job, and all this HE was left sitting for eleven long years--and that's homehow Bush's fault..."

Handle wrote (02:31am, #34302):

Glen: it seems likely that the 3rd ID found it on April 5, 2003.

"It" here refers to the 380 tons of RDX missing from the Qa Qaa manufacturing and storage facility. But click on the link, and the discussion is limited to the powder in the small boxes, and says nothing about hundreds of tons of explosives. The possiblity that the RDX was removed prior to US Forces' entry remains unrebutted.

Seems to me that one can look at this cache in two ways:

(1) as a vast amount of a specialty product that is useful in producing the precision explosions that are necessary for some A-bomb designs (Pu implosion) and could be useful for others (U gun-barrel?). If, say, 20 kg are used per bomb, 380 tons would be enough for 14,000 individual units.

(2) as an explosive that is about as good as any other for the usual purposes of the insurgency, i.e. fabricating IEDs. At 5 kg per roadside bomb, that would suffice for 56,000 devices.

If the hue and cry is about #1, I'd like the MSM or the Pentagon to connect the missing dots. Is RDX a limiting factor, so that smuggled Qa Qaa material will accelerate the Iranian or Saudi or North Korean program? If, as is likely, they have their own RDX manufacturing or procurement programs, then this line of reasoning is a red herring.

But if the threat is represented by reason #2, why are these explosives any more or less newsworthy or dangerous than any of the other estimated 600,000 tons of explosives scattered and cached throughout Iraq by the Baathists?

Three possibilities:
--Ignorance on the part of reporters and editors.
--Desire on the part of the NYT to stoke a frantic election's-eve controversy that prompts undecided voters to blame Bush for another cock-up, with details to be sorted out after November 2.
--Something that hasn't come into the discussion yet, here or in the MSM.

Handle,

There is a difference between processing raw explosives of this sort into useable stuff any old way you can, and doing so safely, repeatedly and in quantity.

Not to mention the question of "Why bother?" when there's so much processed explosives lying around in old munitions (Iraq had something like TWO MILLION TONS of old munitions - almost as much as the US Govt. has). It is faster, easier and safer (both in terms of the process and in not telling some American where to put a 500 pound laser-guided bomb) to strip the processed explosives from old munitions than to process raw explosives.

So the Baathists and their foreign friends get the BANG! for their IED's from old munitions rather than processing raw explosive powder. Which is also why our forces in Iraq place a much higher priority on disposing of old munitions than raw explosives.

Sure you can turn crude oil into gasoline in a lab. But why bother filling your car's fuel tank with the stuff when it costs only 1% as much at a gas station, and you don't have to worry about frying your precious self?

I'll get Telenko in here. He's Texan and in love with rapid exothermic reactions.

Works for me. Thanks for the discussion.

Handle: "Again, tell me why I'm wrong. Or, just ridicule it. That works too."

I didn't mean to ridicule you, and I hope you don't take my remarks that way. I only meant to heap ridicule on the notion that the Iraqi insurgents absconded with 380 tons of explosives, thanks to Bush's negligence and a wonder-working camel - which is clearly what Kerry is trying to imply.

Guerilla warfare 101 -- Use preexisting and captured munitions first, they require less in the way of technically trained manpower and expensive, hard to replace facilities.

I am far more concerned about 380 tons of 155mm artillery shells in the hands of the al-Qaeda and the Ba'athist hold outs than I am the phantom unprocessed RDX.

A 155mm shell is about 95-110 pounds in weight with 25-30% of that explosive payload and is pre-made to create lethal fragmentation far superior to any this unprocessed RDX can make in an improvised device.

The Islamists and Ba'atists are setting up chains of up to a dozen of them for IED road side ambushes and have filling car and truck bombs with up to several tons of them.

Consider also that American military forces and the Israeli Defense Forces have been trading technology and tactics on urban bomb making detection for two years.

Israel regularly missiles suspected bomb making factories in the Gaza and West Bank based on human and sensor generated intelligence with good results.

I would bet that the really unstable explosive cocktail Palestinians use in their suicide belt bombs was developed specifically to get around both Israeli anti-bomb explosive precursor security measures and sensor detection nets that include explosive sniffers.

At this point I would also bet that Fallujah is peppered with bribery-placed explosive sniffer sensors (among other things) looking for the vapor tell tales of small scale advanced explosive processing to target 500lb laser guided bombs.

America sends in the droids when it cares enough to sent its very best -- then lies about it to make the bad guys shoot each other over 'informers.'

Glen - no worries. Trent - excellent info that really helps flesh out this topic. Thanks.

Saying that the insurgents couldn't have moved all those tons of material without being noticed seems like an odd claim given that we know somebody had to move all those tons of explosives at some point.

The arms business appears to be flourishing in Iraq. An insurgent may not have been smart enough to recognize the value of this material, but an arms merchant might. If there was profit to be made by getting these materials, in the post-invasion confusion someone saw an opportunity and went for it. Whether he then sells it to insurgents in Iraq, to Palestinians in the West Bank, to AQ etc., does that make it any less of a problem?

Or does this stuff have no value to anyone?

Arguing that the explosives could not have been looted seems like a ridiculous bit of mental gymnastics to me.
Given that throughout Iraq items of much lower value that were much harder to transport were looted (much of the petrochemical infrastructure,power turbines, wire, cable, pipes, light bulbs, etc.,etc.) to argue that very transportable explosives with very high resale value could not be looted seems like a ludicrous bit self-deception.
Whether it was done by disorganized ant armies of individuals, by organized criminals, or by insurgents we may never know, but the evidence of looting on a massive scale in Iraq is beyond dispute to anyone not blinded by ideology and willing to face reality.

Joe,

A few links for your forthcoming post - if you haven't written it yet.

Phil Carter

Explosive Chemistry

Salon Piece on this

Also, I don't know how accurate this is, but I asked at WM thread, how to transport this stuff, got the following info - thanks jmuss!

"Lesson Time regarding transport
Raw powder form RDX and HMXis generally transported in 5kg lots in padded containers that measure .5 meter by 1 meter. So were talking about approximately 70,000 containers(350 metric tons/5kg).
With the 101st first arrived, we know that some of it was still there. The question to ask is as follows:
WHO had the freedom of movement to organize and execute transportation of 70,000 containers.

Also, someone needs to tell the media to ask how many detenators and priming charges are missing from this facility. "

Hope this helps.

Two other disturbing aspects of this story.

1. This again (for the fiftieth time)points up the lack of troops. If this was known to be here, why weren't troops sent to secure it? (This isn't a left or right thing, but a military criticism across the board, which you have shared at points.)

2. The estimates of TOTAL explosives hanging around Iraq. Something like 600,000 tons, or possibly more, out there loose. That's a LOT of explosives, you know? If true, we are possibly looking at a "simmering" civil war that will go on (even if there are only a few die-hards left) for 10 years.

JC, also, JSTARS was on the job. How could they not notice transport for 70,000 containers?

VT, Wretchard's analysis says "null", but I am willing to give you a chance to explain your position-- is it Type A or Type B error in your opinion? :)

Trent-- Yeah! Disinformation rocks! :)

Still working on the al-Qaqaa thing, and so thanks for the links.

Re: logistics, Captain's Quarters (who did military logistics) has an even more detailed estimate and the number of men and vehicles required is very large.

Re: your disturbing insights... agree with both of them. RE: the need for more MP troops (and trained expat Iraqis, which the State Department blocked at every opportunity) in the aftermath of conflicts like this - yes, pretty clear in retrospect.

Have been tipped to some additional posts from 101st guys who were there that may prove enlightening, we'll see.

One thing I'll add: NZ Bear notes that oddly, these explosive types haven't been used in attacks on allied forces. Which fits the descriptions I've heard about using multiple 155mm shells and other crude expedients in IEDs. You'd think stuff like this would be in widespread use by now, and the Iranians would certainly have provided all the blasting caps anyone needs if that was the hold up. One more thing leading me to suspect that these explosives are still buried somewhere in Iraq... but I'm still collecting info. We'll see.

Wretchard contributes additional relevant information in this post; see especially the email excerpts from (presumably) two US soldiers who were part of the invading force. They deny that hundreds of tons of RDX were looted after Americans took possession of Qa Qaa, which is the central charge made by the NYT, and presented as fact by the NYT, mainstream media generally, and Kerry in his latest campaign speeches.

The allegation is plausible, nothing more at this point. It is factual only in the sense that it serves as a prop with which Kerry and his media confederates can harass Bush.

Hey Jinnderella,

See, we CAN agree on things sometimes, can't we? :)

There's a joke by George Carlin, about people driving faster/slower than you on the road, that goes like this:

"Everyone who drives slower than me is a IDIOT! Everyone who drives faster than me is a MANIAC! Why don't people drive like me??"

In the same vein -

It's clear that I, JC, am the moderate, and clearly have the correct political views - all other political positions to the left of me are internationally weak, and domestically - regulatory burdensome. All other political positions to the RIGHT of me are internationally irresponsibly confrontational, and domestically in the pockets of large businesses.

Just so we're clear. :)

The following was found via google.com and was posted to a e-mail list of mine by a retired US Army LTC...a Combat engineer LTC:

RDX pre-dates the nuke program. It was a Brit explosive develope during WWII.

From the "Google is your friend department."

Compositions A is wax-coated granular form of RDX and a plasticizing wax. five different types of Composition A have been developed, and designated A-1, A-2, A-3, A-4, and A-5. Composition A is used as bursting charges in Navy 2.5 and 5 -inch rockets, as well as in land mines.

Composition B is RDX mixed with moldable amounts of TNT. sometimes other agents are added to make it more stable. Composition B is used primarily in Army rockets and land mines, as well as in other projectiles.

Composition C is one of the most commonly known uses of RDX. It is a mixture of RDX with a variety of other explosives and a plasticizing mixture. This mixture is then hand-packed into blocks for use as a high powered demolition charge. C-4 and C-3 are the only mixtures used now, but C-1 and C-2 can be found.

HBX is used mainly in underwater demolitions and missile warheads. It comes in two different types, HBX-1 and HBX-3. they are castable mixes of RDX and TNT, powdered aluminum, and D-2 and calcium chloride.

H-6 is a binary explosive. It is a castable mixture of RDX, TNT, powdered aluminum, and D-2 wax with calcium chloride. It is used as a general-purpose blasting explosive in bombs.

Cyclotol is a special mixture that is found in three different types based on percent composition. It is comprised of varying mixtures of RDX and TNT. it is used in forming shaped explosives, specialized fragmentation projectiles, and grenades.

Also called cyclonite, or hexogen, RDX is one of the main explosives in torpedoes, rockets, and bomb warheads. It is also used as in detonators, blasting caps, and demolition charges. It can also be used as a rat poison, and was used for medicinal purposes in the early twentieth century.

And

Discovery of RDX

--------------------------------------------------------------

RDX was discovered in Germany by a German named Hans Henning in 1899. He discovered RDX and used it for medicinal purposes. The Explosive properties of RDX were not realized until a man named Herz discovered it in 1920. purposes.

RDX is a very multi-purpose explosive. RDX is known by different names in different countries. It is Royal Demolition eXplosive in Great Britain, Research Department eXplosive in the USA and Canada, hexogen in Germany, and T4 in Italy.. It is almost always found in mixtures with other explosives, oils, or waxes. It is considered the most powerful military explosive, and has a tremendous force shattering effect from the sudden release of energy. The most common mixes with RDX are Compositions A, B. and C, HBX, H-6, Cyclotol.

RDX is a synthetic substance, and is not found in nature. RDX was not practical to produce in large qantities until about 1940, when McGill University in Canada discovered a much cheaper and easier way to mass produce it. The method the Military uses to produce RDX is classified. However, several methods are outlined below.

DISCLAIMER: BEFORE YOU READ ON- you are responsible for what happens if you use the data below. I have not tried these methods, and am not sure if they work. I am not responsible for anything that happens to you if you use these methods and blow yourself up, or cause and damage to yourself, other, or property.

RDX is prepared by the nitration of hexamethylenetetramine (C6H12N4). This can be achieved by directly treating hexamethylenetetramine with strong nitric acid. WARNING- keep the reaction at a temperature of 20 - 50 °C, or the compound could explode, causing massive pain and damage. Slowly add the tetramine, and let the liquid stand. The precipitate (RDX) can be removed with water.

Another source says that RDX is made by the mixing of formaldehyde and amonia.

Yeah, this sure looks like something al-Qaeda is going to do in a Fallujah basement...*NOT!*

The bottom line from all this is regards Kerry partisans and the Media wing of the Democratic Party is what Tom Holsinger said here:

I repeat that this is another example of the media making things up. It relies entirely on public ignorance of the manufacture of explosives, and military munitions in particular, for political effect.

The World Tribune ran a piece back in 11/02 stating that 'captured Palestinian Authority documents revealed that Palestinian security forces plan a facility to manufacture vital chemicals [i.e., nitric acid] required for such military-grade explosives as TNT, RDX amd [sic] RETN.'

http://216.26.163.62/2002/me_palestinians_11_26.html

Now, I don't know if the World Tribune is reliable. However, it seems obvious that the Arab terror networks have spent a couple of decades working on their bomb-making skills. And if the story is accurate, then Israel is worried about exporting nitric acid into Palestinian areas because the stuff might be used in bomb making. So is it unreasonable to assume that they believe that terrorists have the technical capabilities to work with military-grade explosives like RDX and TNT?

Clueless Or Reckless?

Interesting piece on slate about administration war planning or lack thereof. First I had heard about looters wandering off with live HIV and black-fever viruses in Baghdad.
Seems Al Qaqaa is just one of so many unsecured weapons depots. Maybe Shinseki was right about the number of troops required?

Tom Volckhausen (11:54pm):

Thanks for the link to the interesting Slate article, "Clueless or Reckless?" Author Kaplan has links to other articles on the immediate aftermath of the war that I intend to read as well.

That said, Kaplan's article is itself part of a different problem that has been one subject of this thread. Is Kaplan's Slate article honest, accurate, and in context? You decide.

...not even I accepted [the theory of Administration mindlessness on the aftermath of the war]—until this week's reports that 380 tons of concentrated high explosives have gone missing from ...Al-Qaqaa...

That the RDX went missing after the US arrival was known to be debatable when this article was published (10/27), yet Kaplan presents it as a factual premise.

Certainly nobody in the administration could have intended for the arsenal to go unguarded. (Nor should the existence of the arsenal have been a surprise...)

If the preceding premise is wrong, these two arguments are straw men. In any case, plenty of other published reports show that (1) Kaplan's "unguarded" statement is out of context and (2) US officers on the ground were very aware of al-Qaqaa's significance, and looked for the RDX without finding it.

...inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency visited the site and confirmed the seals were still in place.

Kaplan omits mentioning that Baathist forging of IAEA seals was a known problem, and that the IAEA did not verify the presence of the RDX--only of the seals.

It seems, almost unbelievably, that no decision-makers thought the place was worth guarding—or, rather, that nobody thought about whether it might be worth guarding. It was a case not of bad thinking, but of no thinking.

If Kaplan had posted this reasoning here instead of at Slate, would this readership have accepted his account? Should we? Is there a whiff of hubris in Slate's choice of title for his article ("Clueless and Reckless")?

More inadequate fact-checking by a reputable institution (Slate, earlier the NYT and CBS re. this story). Kaplan's moral: Bush bad (vote for Kerry). The moral to me is, I suppose, equally simple: don't trust the reports of those who have failed to earn that trust. Such as Fred Kaplan of Slate.

VIDEO OF EXPLOSIVES DUMP NEAR AL-QAQAA ON 4/18/2003!

This video needs to be watched - explosives at or near Al-Qaqaa on April 18th, 2003, after the fall of Baghdad.

Click on the "Video" link. You must use Internet Explorer.

It seems pretty clear now that there was no plan, militarily speaking, to secure ammo dumps like this one.

JC,

That video is a great find. I don't have a sound card, but the context is clear, and even without the voiceovers the pictures are informative as to what al-Qaqaa was like.

Your point that "there was no [effective] plan, militarily speaking, to secure ammo dumps" seems correct to me, and has seemed evident for over a year, if one reads emails sent home by soldiers in the Iraqi countryside.

It also seems clear that this is a hellishly difficult problem, intentionally bequeathed to the Coalition by the Baathists--e.g. Iraq having more stocks of conventional weapons than does the US, and having them dispersed throughout the country. Per Wretchard, it also seems clear that a partial fix would have been provided by the 4th ID, which was unable to join in the invasion thanks to internal Turkish politics and the actions of some of our European "allies."

That the video shows explosives seems clear. Does it show the type of explosives that the IAEA had been monitoring, and does it suggest that they were still present at al-Qaqaa in quantity after the Americans arrived? Because that is the charge that the NYT, CBS, Slate, and Kerry have directly laid at Bush's feet, and as a new and newsworthy charge with the election a week away.

I am not able to answer; perhaps Trent Talenko or another qualified ordnance person can weigh in. The accompanying story ends with this quote:

5 EYEWITNESS NEWS e-mailed still images of the footage taken at the site to experts in Washington to see if the items captured on tape are the same kind of high explosives that went missing in Al Qaqaa. Those experts could not make that determination.

Again, JC, thanks for posting the link!

Looting Spree Gutted Alqaqaa

I know, this story has been "debunked" and in BushWorld, crowds of looters in Iraq are "highly improbable", but there are some witnesses to trucks being rented by looters, out here in the "real world".

IAEA seals confirmed in video on April 18, 2003, at or near Al-QAQAA.

I'm staying on this a bit - hipe this makes it into a post for the future, but the latest in this story by eyewitness 5 news video.

A piece of this:

A 5 Eyewitness News crew in Iraq may have been just a door away from materials that could be used to detonate nuclear weapons. The evidence is in videotape shot by Reporter Dean Staley and Photographer Joe Caffrey at or near the Al Qaqaa munitions facility

ABC Nightly News reports that experts say their affiliate's video shows HMX under seal.

But it must be someone else's fault.

Andrew,

Was just going to link to this. We know that "ABC experts", just like CBS experts, are not necessarily the last word, but combined with the actual video, it's pretty damning.

I still can't believe the amounts. The current question I have is what is the status NOW at these dumps? Is everything gone? I'll check the original story on this. I still believe it isn't possible to go from 400 tons of these explosives to nothing. Either that number is wrong, or this is a larger messup than I thought was possible.

If the numbers were accurate, and say you are being conversative on what would be moved - say you fill up 5 trucks an hour, with 5 canisters (of 70,000), to 10 trucks an hour, with 8 canisters.

The range is 25 to 80 canisters an hour.

The number of hours to remove 70,000 canisters is 2800 - 875 hours.

This means, without ANY stopping, you take a total time of 36 to 116 DAYS. Working every 24 hours.

So, unless the surveillance of these areas was inexcusably, absolutely insanely negligent - the numbers are off.

But still - the current story is checked out explosives have gone missing. And this has been, perhaps is still happening across Iraq.

Not enough troops.
Not enough troops.
Not enough troops.
Not enough troops.

David Kay weighs in on the video: it's the now-missing stuff.

It's hard to remember, but when he was first appointed, Kay was a Republican Party contributor and confident he would soon uncover the WMD. But I suppose he once shared a subway platform with Valerie Plame, or some other evidence that in his heart he's a perfidious liberal.

The problem isn't really the missing explosives. It's (1) the Administration seemed unprepared to handle Iraq after victory; (2) forces were insufficient to stop hostile elements from improving their position through looting; (3) the rule of law and preservation of property was restricted to the protection of the Oil Ministry and oil pipelines; (4) when confronted with what might well be a minor failing, the Bush Administration (a) refused to admit it had made any sort of mistake, (b) in an amazing confusion, blamed the troops for missing the material and then attacked Kerry for allegedly blaming the troops, © brazenly presented alleged evidence that the materials were gone when we arrived that did not support the claim because the inspection of the site was extremely cursory, (d) showed that it had no idea when the explosives were looted, and extraordinary failure given our surveillance capabilities if nothing else. Why is only half the American public dismayed at this apparent ignorance and fecklessness?

Resolute. Well, the talk is. But would you keep a car mechanic with this kind of record?

AJL,

Long post eaten by IE on the way to WoC. Ah well, that'll teach me to compose without backing up.

Short version: you make good points, but.

1. The facts as they pertain to this particular story (Monday's NYT) are not clear.

2. The temptation is to segue from the particular (these IAEA-monitored HE stocks) to the general (prevalence of looting in postwar Iraq). But evidence on the latter does not speak to the charges relating to the former.

3. Too much willingness to take incomplete information and compose stories that conform to our preconsisting prejudices.

4. Wretchard's post 'The return of RDX' has the most up to date information on the developing specifics.

Maybe I will comment again if Joe starts a new thread on this subject later today.