How the US let al-Qaida get its hands on an Iraqi weapons factory

[sabra]

Source: Guardian UK

In an exclusive extract from his new book, A History of the World since 9/11, Dominic Streatfeild explains how despite expert warnings, the US let al-Qaida buy an arsenal of deadly weapons – then tried to cover it up

<snip>

Sure enough, 15km to the south lies a big, big secret. The secret dates back to 1977, when the then-president Ahmed Hassan al-Bakr ordered the construction of a vast munitions plant outside the town. Built by the Yugoslavs, the factory was originally to be named after Bakr himself, until Saddam Hussein seized power in 1979. In a fit of patriotic zeal, the fledgling dictator named it after the Iraqi general Qa'qaa ibn Umar, who in the seventh century inflicted a most glorious massacre on the Persian army in the second battle of Qasidiya: Al Qa'qaa.

...

While Caffrey, Staley and the soldiers were exploring the bunkers outside Yusifiyah, officials at the IAEA headquarters in Vienna were becoming increasingly concerned. Prior to the invasion the agency had told the Americans of the dangers of allowing the security situation to collapse. Two weeks after the start of the war, Jacques Baute, the head of the Iraq nuclear inspection teams, visited the US mission to advise, again, that the weapons sites needed protection. He specifically mentioned Qa'qaa. Just days before the invasion, he told officials, inspectors had inventoried the facility's HMX, RDX and PETN stores and ensured that the seals were still intact. This kind of materiel, the Frenchman suggested, should be kept out of the hands of looters. There was no reaction.

...

Throughout the summer of 2003, the insurgents' bombing campaign increased. In November, with attacks on coalition forces running at more than 1,000 a month, a classified Defence Intelligence Agency report finally stated the obvious: the vast majority of munitions used in the attacks had been pilfered from weapons sites that coalition troops had failed to protect.

...

"We told him that we had lost 40,000 tonnes," Ali recalls. "The gunpowder, anything that burned energetically, could be used as an explosive, so you could consider that part of the missing explosives." If the general was concerned, he concealed it well, especially when Ali informed him that among the looted munitions were 1,000 suicide-bomb belts manufactured at Saddam's orders in February 2003. "There was no reaction. He took the records and didn't say anything."

...

On Friday 29 October, Osama bin Laden succeeded where the White House's spin doctors had failed. The first videotaped message from the al-Qaida leader for more than a year pushed the looted explosives story out of the public eye. Four days later, Bush won a second term in office.

Read more: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/jan/07/iraq-weapons-factory-al-qaida-us-failure

---

A must read article!

[blm]

1. Gee...Bushes using their longtime alliance with Bin Ladens to manipulate newscycle...

how many times has it been proven over the years with no follow up from mainstream US news?

[blm]

2. It IS a must-read article, but, too many DUers ignore serious reporting and get drawn into whatever

redmeat issue the GOP media machine is chewing on at any given time.

[snagglepuss]

4. Definitely a must read. nt

[bluestate10]

3. Bush did not.

Put enough troops into Iraq at the invasion to secure facilities like weapon depots and nuclear storage. Insurgents were killing our troops with munitions that they literally walked away with from Iraqi stores. The invasion and aftermath demonstrate the consequences of macho foreign policy coupled with no planning.

[blm]

6. Incompetence or intent? The more dangerous Al Qaeda became the more reason to be in Iraq in the

in the first place.

No one needed a more vigorous Al Qaeda in 2004 than GWBush administration.

[Richard Steele]

7. That invasion went EXACTLY as planned.

Stories like this PROVE that.

[Still a Democrat]

5. But does al-Qaida exist?

n/t