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http://www.cnn.com/2004/WORLD/meast/11/04/iraq.weapons.ap/index.html

NOW the truth comes out.
how CONVENIENT!!!!

our troops were outnumbered, the explosives were looted, bush withheld this news to avoid proving kerry right.

highlites:

"U.S. Army reservists and National Guardsmen witnessed the looting and some soldiers sent messages to commanders in Baghdad requesting help, but received no reply, they said"

"The soldiers who spoke to the Times asked to remain unidentified, saying they feared retaliation from the Pentagon."

"The Pentagon has offered accounts that suggest the explosives were removed before the U.S.-led invasion to oust Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein and not during the chaos following the fall of Baghdad."


AMERICA, WE WERE LIED TO ONCE AGAIN,
BUSH HAS PUT OUR SOLDIERS IN FURTHER DANGER
WITH HIS INCOMPETANCE!!!

BUSH SUPPORTERS, WELCOME TO REALITY!!!

it gets worse every day...

"Soldiers who belong to two different units described how Iraqis snatched explosives from unsecured bunkers and drove off with them in pickup trucks."

Wow.

O.k., and who is suprised by this? The whole war is based on a lie.

Finally we learn there was a small deposit of WMD, but they were stolen and the war continues... There's a saying: "In peace time a soldier is worthless, in war time he's more valuable than all the gold in the world." The USA is thus rich, eh?

I thought WMD's were catagorized as Biological, chemical or nuclear weapons. It also says that it was "380 tons of high-grade explosives, a type powerful enough to detonate a nuclear weapon". not a nuclear weapon, just explosives.

So basically went all the wa over there for WMD's and all they found was an ammo dump, and they couldn't even keep that secure.

Fine work Bush, way to stay on the ball.

I posted a thread on this a while ago... didnt know that it was that bad though, there is some new stuff, that came out after the election... suprise suprise.


**** Bush.

yeah turbo, i fear that if i just tagged this onto that thread, it would be overlooked. since this is laced with conspiracy, i think people need to know. in fact, im quite surprised that this thread is not buzzing with 'shock and awe' and just how bad bush f***ed up by spreading our troops too thin, among the other ways in which he has endangered them.

and as far was weapons of mass destruction, those weapons which kill many as opposed to one at a time are just that, by the most basic defenition. these ARE wmd's regardless of whatever technicalities are tagged on them.

fact is, car/truck/suicide bombers are CLASSIC terrorist tactics, so bush helped give the enemy the RIGHT weapon in the RIGHT war at the RIGHT time, and quite frankly i'm enraged as all f*** over this.

HOMEWORK ASSIGNMENT (to anyone who gets the paper and is willing)

i am curious as to just where this story is placed in the papers.
if i know the u.s. propaganda machine, this will be conveniently tucked
in page 6, in the top corner overpowered by a gigantic macy's ad.

please, anyone who can, take a minute and let me know

bump

oh, jesus tap dancing christ...

just get the f*ck out of there and blow up the place already.

we don't need to be there. let them kill each other. i don't wann asound mean and inconsiderate, but these f*ckers are clearly driven. we cannot help those who don't wanna be helped. the only reason we are still there is because of a personal vendetta and oil. if we like the f*cking oil so much, just take over the sh!t already. we don't need to be killing off our soldiers, then drafting more just to be killed too. this war makes no sense...

so...

F*CK BUSH!

Urot... i wish I could disagree with you there. But, I really cant... alot of what you say there is shit that we are going to have to deal with over the next 4 years.

mc pee pants-

"just get the f*ck out of there and blow up the place already"

Thats what we did in Afghanistan and it came back to kick our ass... we cant just leave tomorrow without facing serious consequences down the road, and we cant just take over their oil production and hope that they accept that somehow. There needs to be a plan to bring peace to Iraq, Bush's plan right now is to keep sending soldiers over to shoot those who disagree with us.

We need a new plan...

we need a competent leader. this guy can't even finish of a sentence without stuttering. and i realize that they won't accept us taking over... sh!t, they don't accept us right now. my point was, let's not keep sending our soldiers to their deaths. there is only so much we can do. and if we keep pretending that we can save the whole f*cking world, then sooner or later, we'll run out of soldiers... then the sh!t will really hit the fan.

I can easily agree with that statement.

Something has to be done with the situation that exists now, now that his dumb ass got us into that situation in the first place. I think the only way that it would really work would be if the UN replaced the US as the force organizing the peace keeping, not that it would be a big change... but it would seem a lot less blatantly imperialistic. By a big change though, that is a relative term. It would be a BIG change if that happened because I think America would have to become really sick of that war before they would let France or Germany have any say in the matter.

-TC

bush totally drove this country into a corner wothout any exit startegy.

america in war factoid...

the united states has the record of "the state that has been to most wars since WW2."

i don't know if america will outgrow war...

where are all the wise and knowing bush supporters?

why do they not comment on this?

Because they can't or won't, deep down on the inside they know they f*cked up. They just don't want to admit it to us Bush haters.

i dunno about all knowing... they DO support bush.

It isnt AMERICA that should hold the stigmatism for war. It is humanity. You could also have said that America is the country that supplies the most world wide support.

true... but america DID got to war the most. and that is why we were at war the most because of supporting allies. i'm not saying america is a war monger... look at WW2 again, it took pearl harbor to hook us into war. but we didn't do sh!t for the jews though.

well, rebuilding a large portion of Europe was a good start, but brainwashing the germans again wasnt exactly a good thing.

well, back to topic...

the famous stolen explosives which partly shaped the final days
of the election, the ones which were lied about to a bleeting mass of sheep who ate it up...they knew about it, did nothing...and covered it up...

but the elections over right? so i guess its not worth talking about...
only THE EXPLOSIVES ARE OUT THERE...THEY WERE SUPPOSED TO BE GUARDED...AND BUSH HAS BASICALLY ARMED THE ENEMY...

soldiers will die because of this
iraqi civilians will die because of this
and i will bet that isrealis will die because of this.

after all, explosives of this nature are in high demand, and there
is a strong market for them in the middle east.

and i ask again....where are the know it all bush supporters?
why no comments? no defense for your redneck messiah?
or perhaps just ONE who voted for him will just let me know that
they have read this article and find that they have been LIED TO.

it would make me feel a whole lot better to know that you guys only
voted for bush because you THOUGHT he was honest about the war.
i hope you are not willing to salute in his honor as he drives you off a cliff.

just say it

SAY IT!!!!

say:
"I VOTED FOR BUSH!!! "

"I THOUGHT HE WAS A GOOD HONEST MAN!!! "

"...AND NOW I KNOW HE IS A LYING SCUMBAG WHO DOESNT GIVE A
SHIT ABOUT OUR SOLDIERS, AND NOW I AM PISSED OFF!!!!"

PVS> very eloquent. i wish i could be the same when i say "f*ck bush!" over and over.

hey, sometimes less is more

F*CK BUSH!!!!

There's something else that we all need to realize, that most people don't even think about.

We pushed Bin Laden aside and went after Hussein, supposedly because he had those pesky "weapons of mass destruction". You know, that ones he didn't have and never used. So we were all on about keeping him from developing more, and from developing nuclear capabilities. Keep in mind that we had no concrete evidence on ANY of this, yet we went bounding in, dropping bombs indiscriminately (what exactly is a discriminate bomb?) all over Iraq, committing the mass murder of over 100,000 innocent Iraqi men, women, and children, supposedly liberating them with these bombs.

Skip to North Korea. North Korea * TELLS THE WORLD * that it is preparing to build a nuclear arsenal. And what do we do about it? NOTHING!!! Why? Because there's no oil in North Korea.

And speaking of nukes, and WMD's, let's not forget the most important thing here. In the entire history of the word, there is only one country that has ever used nuclear weapons, the most devastating and vile of all "WMD's", against another country, and that country is the United States of America. And not only did we use a nuclear weapon on another country, but we did it TWICE.

And not only did we do it twice, but we didn't even use them on military targets. We dropped them on cities, full of innocents -- men, women, children. And those people weren't just killed, they were vaporized, tens of thousands of them, with every trace of their existence completely wiped off the face of the earth.

It all disgusts me.


cornponious

my thoughts exactly. if the US is so concerned about WMD's, why are we waiting for kim jong il to complete his? this f*cknut that we elected twice as president has no idea what's going on or is in great denial, dare i say delusion.

REPUBLICAN RESPONSE: bush is wisely seeking a diplomatic solution to this dilemma, by allowing china to handle the negotiations.


REALITY: there is no oil in korea, so bush doesnt give a shit. thus he said "let china deal with them"


and there you go

Originally (around the time of the first gulf war), Saddam DID have weapons of mass distruction, because he used them against his own people, but he had not been reported to have used as many as our inteligence services believed he had at the time.

You must be talking about the chemical weapons he used many years ago. I wonder where he got them from?

America or Fance probably.

America was the one who allowed osama to be put in power to begin with.

Also, in the first gulf war, America encouraged the iraqui civilians to rise up against Saddam, promising that the US would protect them. The Iraquis did this, but then America stopped chasing Saddam and let him escape. Because of America going back on its word like this, many iraqi's who HAD stood up to saddam were put to death.

yep, The US gave Sadam those WMD's a long time ago when Rumsfield and Sadam were buddies.

The US also put Sadam in power and educated/assited Osama in his war efforts n russia. The circle is now complete I guess.

thats correct.
and a common misconception is that the cia trained those afghan warlords
to fight as soldiers...not entirely true. they were trained to conduct terrorist attacks on soviets. we trained them for 9/11.

i never knew that


sickening

fighting a belief system is hard, fighting a belief system that you helped instill is brutally hard.

you guys are spitting out crap right now.

It's not Bush's fault that the weapons got stolen, it's the guy who Bush left in charge of military operations in Iraq. Bush put his faith in a member of his team, and his teammate failed so you're directly putting blame on him.


"BUSH BASICALLY ARMED THE ENEMY"

that's a pretty damn far stretch right there. Did the US military break into their own cache and start handing out weapons? No. The compound was over-run by tons of Iraqis. The enemy "basically" armed themselves.

The United States didn't put Saddam Hussein in power either. The United States promoted the Ba'ath Party and through his own actions...Saddam rose to the top of the ranks and became ruler of Iraq. You make it sound like the US handed him the keys and said "now go have fun"

I agree he lied to the nation, he's a terrible president, and he's proved time and time again that he'll do anything to make the moves that he wants to make...but you guys are just overdoing this.

You know I read an article written by an arab woman who was in Iraq doing some reporting. I can't recall what paper it was in, I was in the airport at the time. But it basically said that while she didn't like the idea of racial profiling, she understood the reasons for it to be done. She summed it up pretty well when she said: "Not all arabs are terrorists. But all terrorists are arab." Now, I might agree somewhat. I agree to the extent that RIGHT NOW our most public enemies are of arab decsent. However, never forget the Asian factor, the African factor and the eastern European factor. I mean, I admit that every time I get on a plane and there are arabs on the plane too, I get nervous. But then I look around and start questioning the asians, and then even the other white people on the plane. So, I'm not sure what the answer is.

Another example: While I was waiting for a plane to Chicago last week I noticed a man that looked Arab to me. I got that nervous feeling in the pit of my stomach. Then I noticed an older white couple sitting a few seats down from him. They were talking quietly between themselves and the woman occasionally looked over at the Arab man. Finally, she leaned over and asked him where he was going. With a clearly hispaninc accent he informed her that he was going home to Michigan. Suddenly, the woman was no longer interested and the couple resumed conversing between each other. Only now, the subject was the weather! And it was no longer a whisper, but a normal volume of conversation.

I can honestly say that I too was relieved when the man turned out not to be Arab. I feel bad about the way the woman went about finding out for herself, but at least she could have continued to make small talk to divert attention from the fact that she was scared he was a terrorist. Even just a few minutes. These are the people that voted for Bush. These people represent the fact that the terrorists have already won. We have thrown out civility and social pleasantries and replaced them with fear and hate mongering. The terrorists wanted to change our world, and they have.

dude, bush is COMMANDER IN CHIEF. he RUNS the army, navy, marines, air force, coast guard, and national guard. he calls the shots.
as a result, the troops are spread too thin, thus only a dozen troops guarding a
munitions depot. how is that not bush's fault?

if you are a manager of a huge retail outlet, and decide to hire a couple of kids on black friday to run the place alone and then walk out and take the day off...who's fault is it when the store goes to shit? the 2 kids? or is it your fault?

he was the one who went to war knowing he didnt have the manpower.

Have you ever noticed that the barrels of chemicals that they took from Iraq when UN inspectors first went in had labels on the side of them that read something like this: "WARNING HAZARDOUS CHEMICALS". (something to that effect.) My point is this however: If those chemicals had been produced in Asia or Russia or Korea, the warning labels wouldn't have been in ENGLISH. It may not have been Bush Jr., but it was the US without a doubt.

Also, when the Exxon Tanker Valdez spilt all that oil, who got blamed? The Captain of the ship. There are monumental screw ups all the way up the line, but Bush is at the helm of this ship.

Lastly, you are correct. The US did not put Hussein in power. He did that himself. But we paved the road he walked down to accomplish it. He took a pot shot at Bush's old man, and sonny boy was pissed.(Hussein attempted to assassinate Bush Sr. a few years back.) And you would be remiss to think George Bush Sr. isn't helping to run this country.

Do you know what the Commander in Chief does?

Bush isn't responsible for the positioning of American troops, he's in charge of the decision to go to war, and other SERIOUS military decisions. He's not the one who decides how many soldiers guard which weapons depot's and what not.

What's the point of a military Hierarchy and the purpose of Generals if Bush is the one who makes all the decisions?

Who is General Tommy Franks and what role did he have in the war if Bush was the one who was making all of the decisions?


Your analogy of a retail outlet is crap. Bush isn't the equivalent of an outlet MANAGER, he's the equivalent of the outlet store OWNER. Bush doesn't need to make the day to day decisions, he doesn't even need to come to work every day. All Bush is responsible for is the future goal of the organization. The day to day stuff is run by his MANAGERS also known as Generals in the military.

Now if you're the owner of a store, and you hire a Manager to manage operations....and the manager understaffs or is ill prepared to handle the business day. Then you have problems with management....and it's them to blame. Not the owner himself

I know you're only making an example with this, but in this country, the people are supposed to own the President, not the other way around.

So the troops were outnumber? I guess that's another reason to send more troops so that they won't be outnumber next time there is a looting of weapons.

...except the board of trustees (THE PEOPLE) will then inquire as to why you hired such an incopetant manager. there is no way to legitamatly avoid responsability...sorry.

its all math really. bush may not have known that the end of the equation would lead to a dozen troops guarding the depot, but the overall numbers did not lie. he knows and KNEW we were understaffed and lacking in resourses.
there was not a dozen troops guarding those munitions due to an incopitent general...there just wasnt enough troops to guard all that shit...bottom line.

bush isnt responsible? then wtf is his job? what WOULD BE his fault?


but with that aside, why the cover up?

it was an analogy...

Obviously Bush doesn't "own" the military, but my point is, he isn't responsible for the placement of troops nor is he responsible for the day to day activities of each ensemble of troops. Those responsibilities are left up to high ranking officers in the military.

It may be Bush's responsibility to decide which radical cleric to focus on, but it's not his responsibility to decide how to act out against said cleric. That would be a military officers decision.

The war in general is his fault. The decision to go to war when we did, the decision to not wait for a diplomatic solution, the decision to lie to the rest of the country.

All his fault.


Having an understaffed crew of military personel gaurding the depot?

Not his fault.

Our troops being outnumbered isn't his fault either. When he went to war against the Iraqi's NO ONE thought that the amount of miliitia resistance would be this strong, and those numbers grow daily. We greatly outnumbered the amount of Iraqi military personel, but no one anticipated the huge volume of Iraqi insurgents to rise so quickly.

Having only 12 people guarding that depot was the General's fault. He should have emphasized the importance of maintaining peace at that depot by having more troops positioned there instead of out in Falluja mounting assaults.

"Having an understaffed crew of military personel gaurding the depot?

Not his fault."

no no no, you miss my point.
the WHOLE COUNTRY is understaffed. thus, the lack of troops at the depot is a product of that understaffing.

and it IS bush's fault in that he convinced congress and the american people that our troops would be "welcomed as liberators". thats partly why we supported it right? this message that it would be relatively easy convinced people. bush pretended that he could predict a war. who's fault is that?

how can this not be his fault.

(i can see you dislike bush but want to avoid pushing blame where it does not belong...but it DOES belong on bush)

Like I said. The war is his fault, the individual actions in that war....are not his fault.

That's like saying the Abu-Gharib prison scandal was Bush's fault. When it wasn't....it was some irresponsible troops who are in jail for their crimes.

no...bush declaired that he had the right to judge prisoners as 'enemy combatants' and NOT P.O.W.s, who are protected by the geneva convention against torture and trial without representation.

thus, guards were given the green light to abuse those prisoners as they pleased. also, bush and rumsfeld hinted on many occasions that it was justifiable to torture terror (islamic) suspects. the logic being that by withholding information on an impending attack, they are still in the process of attacking, and thus should have zero rights, same as on the battle field.

when was this declaration made?

shit, like the second we invaded afghanistan

edited cause of tripple post

He is commander in chief and the armed forces really did underestimate the situation so in that he is responsible as commander in chief. Now during wartime actions communication and intell aint allways dependable and can effect the knowledge of Bush had.. Even so he did try to hide the fact about the looting though

I agree he lied, and that's a terrible thing....but put yourself in his position.

If you're running for re-election. Would you want that to get out before or after the elections?

He's just doing what's best for number one, so in that regard i'm not MAD at him, but I'm disappointed that he withheld the information in general.

no he didnt try to hide it...he did.

most likely, he used the pentagon to force the AP into withholding the story
for reasons of "national security".

now that he's elected, why should he give a shit?
we have already been screwed.

well he is the one talking about being such a devoted christian so he shows his true face not letting the truth out.

yes, bush never asked himself "what would jesus do?"

Dubya looks down on jesus cause he never got to run a country he actually failed first time out , Dubya has been able to pull it off twice

that's a lame excuse. and even lamer execution by our military. and as a society, shouldn't we be partially alerted that hundreds of tons of explosives were "missing?" missing meaning no witnesses. you don't move that kind of sh!t without somebody noticing. maybe we were just caught up by the hype of the election that we overlooked the stolen explosives and regarded them as missing... taking the news for granted, since we're on a need to know basis.

Watch me shed a tear for you comment on my lame excuse....

Funny, don't they have all that satellite photography to keep tabs on stuff like that? You know, like the stuff they showed us to make a case to go into Iraq? OOOOOPS, Never mind, forget I said that.