Iraq's missing explosives

THE OREGONIAN EDITORIAL

U.S. military failure to secure a huge cache could mean that it's being used in bombs against American troops

Tuesday, October 26, 2004

The Pentagon civilians who are managing the U.S. occupation of Iraq owe the nation an explanation for the disappearance of nearly 400 tons of conventional explosives from one of Saddam Hussein's biggest military installations.

Particularly deserving of this explanation are the families of U.S. troops whose death or maiming may have been caused by these missing explosives.

Most of the powerful explosives missing from the huge Al-Qaqaa facility in Iraq are called HMX and RDX, the same deadly stuff involved in many of the roadside explosions and car-bomb attacks that have been killing U.S.-led coalition forces for months during the insurgency.

This latest example of U.S. blundering in Iraq broke Monday in The New York Times. The newspaper reported that the International Atomic Energy Agency had publicly warned the Bush administration about the threat of these explosives before the war, and after the invasion it had cautioned U.S. officials about the need to keep the massive stockpile secure. Although not considered weapons of mass destruction, they're still extremely dangerous.

That's why the International Atomic Energy Agency had sealed the storage bunkers at Al-Qaqaa in 1991 as part of U.N. sanctions after the Gulf War. Nuclear inspectors visited Al-Qaqaa for the last time on the eve of the U.S. invasion of Iraq in March 2003 and reported that the seals had not been broken.

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