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Our local ABC affiliate ran a videotape purporting to show the existence of HMX, RDX, and PETN at the Al Qaqaa storage facility, and the New York Times ran a new story heralding this videotape as the confirmation it desperately needs to rescue its credibility:
A videotape made by a television crew with American troops when they opened bunkers at a sprawling Iraqi munitions complex south of Baghdad shows a huge supply of explosives still there nine days after the fall of Saddam Hussein, apparently including some sealed earlier by the International Atomic Energy Agency.The tape, broadcast on Wednesday night by the ABC affiliate in Minneapolis, appeared to confirm a warning given earlier this month to the agency by Iraqi officials, who said that hundreds of tons of high-grade explosives, powerful enough to bring down buildings or detonate nuclear weapons, had vanished from the site after the invasion of Iraq.
Well, at least that's the lead in the Times' story. Fifteen paragraphs into the story, the Times finally tells its readers that it cannot even confirm that the video was shot at Al Qaqaa:
The Minneapolis television crew was with an Army unit that was camped near Al Qaqaa, members of the crew said. The reporter and cameraman said that although they were not told specifically that they were being taken to Al Qaqaa by the military, their videotape matches pictures of the site taken by United Nations weapons inspectors, according to weapons experts.
The boxes on the videotape carried markings that say "Al Qaqaa", but take another look at the boxes as shown in the videotape capture here. What do you see? An American soldier prying the crate open. Why would an American soldier pry the box open? Perhaps to check to see what's inside? I don't know what color the sky is in the New York Times' world, but that looks like a search to me.
In fact, that's what the Times' caption states:
A videotape from April 18, 2003, shows a soldier prying open a box in a bunker in Al Qaqaa.
Take a good look at the box itself. How many pounds do you suppose that crate could hold -- maybe 50 pounds, tops? Same with the barrels in this second photograph. At that rate, you'd need 40 crates of this stuff for a single ton of material, and more than 15,000 crates for 380 tons. More likely, these crates contained the vials that the 3ID reported finding at Al Qaqaa, and not the massive amounts of HMX and RDX previously reported by the IAEA to have been stored there.
But the collapse does not end there. The Kerry Spot notices something else about the crates that indicate some other material was contained in them. They're labeled as Explosive 1.1 D 1, a classification that includes HMX, RDX, and PETN -- but only when diluted by 15% water, a condition that clearly does not exist with the crated materials:
So - this orange 1.1 D is the label we would look for on HMX, RDX, or PETN. But did those explosives in these containers have 15 or 25 percent water or other dilution liquid in them? Or did they look pretty dry in that desert?And as we look at the rest of that chart, we see that a lot of other explosives that fall in the 1.1 D category.
Specifically there are 79 other substances and types of explosive material and supporting equipment that would get the 1.1 D label, including gunpowder, flexible detonating cord, photo-flash bombs, mines, nitroglycerin, rocket warheads, grenades, fuzes, torpedoes and charges. And few of them require any liquid dilution.
Is what’s on this news report video HMX, RDX, or PETN? Possibly, if the material inside is some sort of diluting liquid that we didn’t see on the tape, or if the Iraqis were storing these high-grade explosives in an unsafe manner. Or it could be one of the 79 other substances. Or some containers could have the big three, and some could have others.
But that's not all, either. The ABC report that originally started this meme contains this curious statement:
On the April 2003 visit, our crews witnessed soldiers using bolt cutters to get into bunkers. Inside, they found many containers marked "explosives." At least one set of crates carried the name "Al-Qaqaa State Establishment."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.
Bottom line? The materials shown in the video could have been any of 80 different materials, with the three from the IAEA actually being among the least likely to have been stored in this manner. The reporters say that the military told them at the time that the area had been secured at an outer perimeter, a sensible approach for a military on a lightning-quick advance. And the Times cannot even verify that the video was taken at the ASP in question.
Another example of brilliant reporting by the Gray Lady ...
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» Hey, about those missing explosives, y'all -- There's more. from Small Town Veteran
Googling a name passed to me by my favorite American Poet, Russ Vaughn, led to two March 2004 news items which have direct bearing on the NYTrogate matter I mentioned here and here. The following quotes are from a Washington [Read More]
Tracked on October 28, 2004 11:51 PM
» The Dying Al Qaqaa Story from rightpundit.com
Notwithstanding the best efforts of the NYTimes and John Kerry, the story about the missing explosives from the Al Qaqaa compound is dying a painful death.
The latest nail in the coffin is an AP interview with Col. David Perkins, the commander of th... [Read More]
Tracked on October 29, 2004 12:43 AM
» The KSTP Report from RIGHT ON RED >>
The liberals are really rubbing their hands together over this, but let’s keep a few things in mind. [Read More]
Tracked on October 29, 2004 12:54 AM
» QaQaa Explodes On CBS and New York Times from Dean's World
You can read the latest on John Kerry's reckless charges of incompetence by the U.S. military, and how the New York Time...
[Read More]Tracked on October 29, 2004 5:19 AM
» Explosivesgate Roundup: Day IV from The Truth Laid Bear
Another day, another explosivesgate roundup! Let's begin with the release of a single satellite image of the Al Qaaqaa facility by the Department of Defense, which shows two trucks parked outside some of the bunkers. GlobalSecurity.org cautions us, how... [Read More]
Tracked on October 29, 2004 6:20 AM
» Daily Dish from The Cool Blue Blog
New York Times grasps at straws and continues to be dishonest in its reporting. Is it so hard to just tell us the facts and let the reader decide? They claim they are feeling the "chilling effect" of bloggers looking [Read More]
Tracked on October 29, 2004 6:51 AM
» Somebody finally said it. from Unfettered Musings
I don't know about you, but the last few days I have been wishing that I had Kerry's personal cellphone number so I could call him and scream "STOP IT!!! Just STOP IT!!!" Same goes for most of the MSM. (Yes, I am aware that this is the second time in... [Read More]
Tracked on October 29, 2004 10:37 AM
» NYTroGate 3 from QandO
I’m close to throwing up my hands at the NYTroGate story, and declaring myself confused. Read the right side of the punditocracy, and you’ll discover that this story has been completely debunked; read the left side of the punditocracy, and you’ll find ... [Read More]
Tracked on October 29, 2004 12:24 PM
» Do we know more now? from The Cool Blue Blog
After wathcing the Pentagon briefing on the al Qaqaa story, a number of things seem clear. 1) The Pentagon did not ignore the site. 2) It is unlikely that the materials being discussed were there on April 13th when Maj. [Read More]
Tracked on October 29, 2004 12:56 PM
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