Powerful New Bombs Being Made in Iraq

[Barrett808]

Powerful New Bombs Being Made in Iraq
Voices Magazine Newswire
By Alisha Ryu
Baghdad
17 August 2005

| Voices Magazine | The U.S. military in Iraq has found evidence that new, more deadly roadside bombs, called shape charges, are not only being imported into the country from neighboring Iran, they are also being made locally.

Last month, Iraqi guards near the Iranian border intercepted a small shipment of lethal roadside bombs, made specifically to target American troops traveling in heavily-armored vehicles.

U.S. officials say there have been other similar shipments from Iran in the past several months.

Closely resembling the design of roadside bombs used by the Iranian-backed Hezbollah group against Israeli forces in southern Lebanon in the 1980s, some of these sophisticated devices have been seized at the border. Others have slipped through, killing and wounding dozens of U.S. troops throughout Iraq.

Now, the U.S. military believes Iraqi bomb makers are building these deadly weapons themselves. And they have set up workshops in poor, densely-populated neighborhoods, where they can easily hide their activities.

(more)

http://www.voicesmag.com/Archives/News/aug2005/powerful_bombs_made_iraq_081705.htm

[tocqueville]

1. shaped charges were already widely used in WWII

some of the theory goes back to the late 1800

you don't need any high-tech equipment to manufacture them

[xchrom]

2. of course they are.

you cannot stop the insurgents with our military presence.

they will adapt -- every day that goes by.

[mogster]

3. Note this copyright-tag at the bottom of story

© 2005 Voice Of America.

"The U.S. military in Iraq has found evidence that new, more deadly roadside bombs, called shape charges, are not only being imported into the country from neighboring Iran, they are also being made locally."

I didn't know it was a proven fact that roadside bombs are being exported from Iran to Iraq.

[pfitz59]

15. Building case for invasion....

Iran...the NEW Cambodia! (And we know how THAT turned out! RE: "The Killing Fields")

[DemoTex]

4. Remember the nearly 750,000 pounds of H.E. gone missing early in war?

That super-high explosive material went missing from an ammo dump that the US was supposed to have secured. That H.E. will make a hell of a lot of roadside bombs and suicide bombs.

[truth2power]

6. This is so sad...

Even if we were able to prove that the weapons material was coming from this or that country, and we bombed them out of existence (not that I support that. I certainly don't) there is an unending number of places from which weapons can be imported.

The lack of problem solving ability on the part of this Cabal is beyond belief. We're engaging in a fruitless battle that is eventually going to set the whole world on fire.

And as you pointed out above, not only are we culpable for not having secured the weapons dumps, it's highly likely that Cheney himself is engaging in weapons proliferation as we speak, and profiting handsomely from it, I might add.

As an aside, I subscribe to the theory that the outing of Valerie Plame wasn't really about embarrassing Joe Wilson, but more about Plame and Brewster Jennings being onto something regarding weapons proliferation that would lead straight to Cheney himself.

[cliss]

8. If you think that's bad....

you should see the latest issue of Newsweek magazine. There's a featured article, about 10 pages long. Big, glossy photos of how the Pentagon is going to "ratchet up their activities in Iraq".

It shows a new, aggressive plan to hit them on many fronts. There's going to be new plans to "foil the terrorists", they're going to stop the bombings, and many other schemes. There's a photo of 3 U.S. troops manhandling an Afghani detainee. The new motto is: No More Mr. Nice Guy.

As I was reading the article, I kept thinking: this is unbelievable. They're going all out, and for what? Have they even THOUGHT about why there is an insurgency?

There is something seriously wrong with the Penta-Gone. They are out of their minds.

[Javaman]

9. At what point were they ever "nice"?

potentially 100k civilians dead, 1900 soldiers 15k wounded. And they were being nice?

colossal failure*

[tiptoe]

13. I agree

I hope Fitzgerald's investigations uncover evidence exposing the secret activities of Cheney as profiteer (...and/or traitor...along with Bolton and Rice and Libby).

The destruction of the Brewster-Jennings intelligence network monitoring WMDs (that was possibly 'homing in' on Neocon secret activities) was likely the operative motive for Plame's exposure rather than superficial "personal revenge" against Wilson.

[formercia]

7. an anti-tank mine of that type takes about 20 pounds of HE

do the math. I'ts going to be a long, hot decade.

[leftchick]

19. for many years to come....

but we digress here. That is old news for the US corporate media. The explosives must have gone missing into Iran to be made into IEDs for the rebels in Iraq. On to Iran! :(

[oneighty]

5. Anybody

with the least bit experience with explosives and has access to plastic explosives can form a shaped charge. It would help to have a machine shop or sheet metal shop to make forms though.

It is true there are 'manufactured' shaped charges wherein the explosive is melted and cast into the desired shape.

180

[formercia]

12. most are compression formed

casting leaves voids from shrikage during cooling. For example, the RPG-7 charge is compression formed from RDX and a small amount of wax as a binder.A copper 'cone' pressed in is what forms the cutting jet. It can penetrate 175 mm of armor. This is not rocket science. The technology has been around for a long time.
The business about Iran suppying some sort of magic weapon is just a red herring to create another flimsy excuse to deflect attention from the FACT that hundreds of thousands of TONS of munitions were left unsecured when Iraq was 'Liberated', enough explosives to last the insurgency for years to come.

[oneighty]

14. Our class in EOD school

in 1956 had ONE manufactured shape charge (Forty pounds) to play with. We were told it was a cast explosive. Which is all I know about that. We formed quite a few by hand with Composition C-3 and C-4.

180

PS. The forty pounder blew a hole through a piece of 16" armor plate.

[formercia]

16. I remember those

made good bunker penetrators but it was Fred Flintstone technology. For optimum density and maximum effect, compression forming works best.

[oneighty]

17. As EOD

we were not concerned with explosives as much as we were with fusing and firing and methods of disarming. In those days even shape charges were not much use to us. In school we did attempt to low order a hundred pound bomb using a small shaped charge. It did not work as advertised. BOOM!

Truth. I never heard mention of gas voids forming during liquid casting of explosives. I once visited the casting plant for sea mines at Yorktown , Va. It was interesting.

180

[formercia]

18. The old shaped charge trick

I used to work out at Indianhead NOS and there was a story going around there about the Harvey's Lake Tahoe Casino caper where a tech tried to disrupt a 2000 pound IED that was being used to extort the Casino with a LAW warhead.
The local Sheriff asked the tech:"How will I know if it worked?"
The tech said:"If it works, you'll hear a little boom, if not, a big boom". The tech then set off the charge and there was a tremendous explosion that gutted the Casino. The Sheriff turned to the tech: "Was that the little boom or the big boom?."

[Swamp Rat]

10. I bet most of it comes from the cash of munitions they let get stolen. n/t

[BrotherBuzz]

11. Cripes, this is VOA

I've always accepted the fact that VOA is a propaganda tool for overseas markets, but when did they start producing propaganda for domestic consumption?

[formercia]

20. Technically it is for 'overseas' consuption,

but as you can see, borders mean nothing anymore. In the 'old days', you could somewhat control shortwave broadcasts to a specific region, but with the Internet, the World becomes an amorphous environment for information.