Pentagon responds to missing-explosives report (NBC report mentioned)
Washington Times ^ | 10/26/04
 

Posted on 10/25/2004 10:32:00 PM PDT by ambrose
 

Pentagon responds to missing-explosives report By Rowan Scarborough THE WASHINGTON TIMES Published October 26, 2004

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The Pentagon said yesterday that 380 tons of missing explosives from an Iraqi munitions facility may have been moved before U.S. troops overran the area during the invasion to overthrow Saddam Hussein.

The statement came after a joint project by CBS' "60 Minutes" and the New York Times reported that the Iraqi government has told the United Nations' International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) that the stockpile of material for plastic explosives went missing during postwar looting. The IAEA did not publicly reveal the issue of missing explosives until after the CBS-Times report.

But Pentagon officials said yesterday that Iraq had already admitted to breaking the IAEA seals and moving tons of the explosives from the Al Qaqaa facility, south of Baghdad, before U.N. inspectors re-entered the country in 2002. Officials said the rest of the explosives stockpiles may have been removed and hidden before the arrival of American troops.

That explanation was bolstered last night by a report from NBC News, which said the weapons already were missing when their embedded reporter arrived at the site on April 10, 2003.

"NBC News was embedded with troops from the Army's 101st Airborne as they [took] over the weapons installation south of Baghdad. But they never found the 380 tons" of missing explosives, the network reported.