question about missing weapons in Iraq

[beckms]

I don't get it...if there were never any WMDs, how is it that 380 tons have gone missing?

Huh?

[mbrogier]

No, no, no...these weren't the NUCLEAR wmd...these were just the conventional explosives meant to detonate the nuclear part. :rolleyes: ;)

[honeygirl1971]

They aren't WMDs. They are conventional weapons that could be used by terrorists to blow up individual buildings, buses, airplanes, and the like. OR to detonate a nuclear weapon, if the terrorists had one. But they aren't technically WMDs, even though they could do a LOT of damage. But the UN and the US military knew about them (where they were, what was included, etc.) long before the invasion, and the UN in particular told the US that they absolutely had to secure these weapons, because they could be very dangerous in the hands of terrorists.

[kima]

From all I have read if the US had given the UN enough time those weapons would be secure and accounted for..just another example of how this terrible war has made the world more unsafe. The UN inspectors were doing a great job and if left to finish their work we would all at least feel that Iraq was not a threat (and as it turns out it never really was anyway).

[honeygirl1971]

I couldn't agree more, kima! It's awful! :(

[Laura]

Ummm... would these be the same UN inspectors who had been there off and on for 10 years? It appears that the NY Times rushed to judgment on this story as well as John Kerry as an NBC reporter imbedded with a military unit seems to indicate that the bunkers had no inspector's tags. But I am sure there was no political motivation behind the NY Times printing this story when it did. :rolleyes:

[mbrogier]

In all serious now, why didn't they go out in the middle of the deserted desert and blow them all up? You can't steal what isn't useable. Or am I thinking too sensably?

The police doesn't keep explosives around. If they find any, they detonate them.

[cminmd]

The weapons inspectors had set the seal on the material the year before and the seals were in place when they went back in March 03, only a few weeks before the invasion on April 9th. You can't blame the weapons inspectors for this one- they were doing their job.


Mbrogier- I think they didn't destroy the weapons because the Army was overwhelmed with how many weapons their were.


The commander of the first unit into the area told CBS he did not search it for exposives or secure it from looters. "We were sitll in a fight," he said. "Our focus was killing the bad guys." He added he would have needed four times more troops to search and secure all the anno dumps he came across."