Do you FEEL safer?

[russotto]

Explosive category 1.1D:

Secondary detonating explosive substance or black powder or article containing a secondary detonating explosive substance, in each case without means of initiation and without a propelling charge, or article containing a primary explosive substance and containing two or more effective protective features.

----
Detcord is in this category... but so are RDX and TNT.

[Troubleshooter]

Originally Posted by Cyber Wolf

I wonder if I can really answer this question as it's put. I'm more worried about local crime than I am about nutters wasting good cars making and using car bombs Over There. Gangs and their activities are on the rise here in DCland. Keeping things in perspective, that's much more threatening to me than Those Guys are. I personally never felt threatened by The Islamic Extremists et al. But I do feel threatened by some of the gang activity that seems to be spreading around here. I'll worry about the rattlesnake at my feet before the beast on the other end of the field.

I agree that this is a more immediate concern, but at least I can fight back against local, overt criminals.

The Administration(tm) is very much a long term concern though.

Attributed by Brainy Quote

Government is not reason. Government is not eloquence. It is force. And, like fire, it is a dangerous servant and a fearful master.
George Washington

It will be found an unjust and unwise jealousy to deprive a man of his natural liberty upon the supposition he may abuse it.
George Washington

The marvel of all history is the patience with which men and women submit to burdens unnecessarily laid upon them by their governments.
George Washington

The very atmosphere of firearms anywhere and everywhere restrains evil interference - they deserve a place of honor with all that's good.
George Washington

[Happy Monkey]

Originally Posted by Undertoad

But all that says is that the statement "once the doors were opened they weren't secured" is meaningless. If they could get in with a bolt cutter, they weren't secured BEFORE the US got there.

That's not the point.

Except by the rule of Hussein, which left a vacuum after he was disposed that was not filled by enough authority.

That's the point.

The basic problem is: We knew where the stuff was. We had troops in the area, some of whom appear to have happened across it. They seem to have happened across it by accident, as they certainly don't seem to have had orders concerning it. As easy as it would have been to loot it, this ABC footage seems to say that it hadn't been looted at the time. So it could have been locked down, but it wasn't.

"once the doors were opened they weren't secured"

A bigger problem is: "Once the doors were opened, and the contents were revealed, they weren't secured."

[Undertoad]

Not THE point, I agree, but certainly A point. History doesn't begin with, and will go on after Nov. 2. If Mr. Kerry wins the election he will inherit a world where "secured by the UN" means they found prohibited explosives in an underground bunker and secured it with one of those bike locks that can be foiled by a Bic pen barrel, combined with a deep faith in a fascist regime to manage them.

Reminds one of the Team America scene where Blix confronts Kim Jong-Il and demands to inspect his weapons:

"Or else."
"Or else what?"
"Or else... we'll be very angry with you. And we will write you a letter to tell you just how angry we are."

[ladysycamore]

Originally Posted by Cyber Wolf

I wonder if I can really answer this question as it's put. I'm more worried about local crime than I am about nutters wasting good cars making and using car bombs Over There. Gangs and their activities are on the rise here in DCland. Keeping things in perspective, that's much more threatening to me than Those Guys are. I personally never felt threatened by The Islamic Extremists et al. But I do feel threatened by some of the gang activity that seems to be spreading around here. I'll worry about the rattlesnake at my feet before the beast on the other end of the field.

Amen to that. I have more to worry about, IMO, here at home than overseas.

[Happy Monkey]

Originally Posted by Undertoad

If Mr. Kerry wins the election he will inherit a world where "secured by the UN" means they found prohibited explosives in an underground bunker and secured it with one of those bike locks that can be foiled by a Bic pen barrel, combined with a deep faith in a fascist regime to manage them.

And yet it worked. The locks were there to detect tampering, not to present an impregnable barrier. Tamper detection is only a good strategy under an inspection regime. Once inspectors are pulled, and government is abolished, the bunkers must be immediately captured and guarded by people. No lock will keep people out if there aren't also human guards to detect lockpickers.

[Undertoad]

If Hussein had prohibited munitions, sanctions/inspections did not work.

[Happy Monkey]

That's only true if 1) they were created/purchased after the sanctions began, and 2) the explosives were actually prohibited, rather than restricted to emergency defense use. I don't know whether either of those are true.

The fact is, there were locked down munitions from before '91 all over Iraq, including nuclear materials. Nobody - including Bush - ever felt the need to actually remove the locked down materials from the country. The locks were successfully preventing access as long as Hussein knew inspectors would be back, and the latest evidence suggests they remained locked down until well after we could have taken custody.

[Undertoad]

Argh! Read this story and you will change your mind!

http://www.abcnews.go.com/WNT/story?id=204304&page=1

The IAEA documents could mean that 138 tons of explosives were removed from the facility long before the United States launched "Operation Iraqi Freedom" in March 2003. ...

Although these bunkers were still under IAEA seal, the inspectors said the seals may be potentially ineffective because they had ventilation slats on the sides. These slats could be easily removed to remove the materials inside the bunkers without breaking the seals, the inspectors noted.

[Happy Monkey]

The paragraph before your bolded quote:

The IAEA documents from January 2003 found no discrepancy in the amount of the more dangerous HMX explosives thought to be stored at Al-Qaqaa, but they do raise another disturbing possibility.

So the inspectors saw the potential weakness, made note of it, checked the amounts, and found no discrepancy.

As for the missing RDX, I'll definitely keep an eye out for how that one pans out. The story's a bit skimpy - were there seals on the RDX? Were there vents? Was the RDX supposed to be controlled, or just the HMX? Was there any followup on the discrepancy?

[Undertoad]

According to this story

http://www.kansascity.com/mld/kansas...0037982.htm?1c

Lessee if I can re-write this story properly. Fuckin' AP writers...

-- In July 2002, the Iraqis told the IAEA they had 141 tons of RDX at Al-Qaqaa.

-- In January 2003, the IAEA visited al-Qaqaa and found only 3 tons.

-- The Iraqis told the IAEA they had used 10 tons of it for legitimate purposes, and moved the rest to al-Mahaweel.

-- So, the IAEA went to al-Mahaweel. They found the RDX. They weighed a few boxes and extrapolated that if the other boxes weighed similarly, there were about 125 tons there. Then they left it without sealing it. They intended to come back later and look at the boxes and extrapolate again, but it was not at the top of their list because the Iraqis had legitimate uses, such as mining and wiring bridges and oil fields for detonation.

They were not really concerned about the RDX, which was not controlled, but more about the HMX. Both RDX and HMX are components of plastic explosives. HMX however is also a nuclear bomb accelerant. So they were more concerned with the HMX.

Of the HMX there were not 377 tons, but 214 tons? The 377 number, then, is bogus, because it includes the RDX, which was apparently moved???

The HMX was "sealed" in January 2003 by IAEA, using Kryptonite bike locks. In March 2003 they visited the locks and found they were not opened with any Bic pen barrels, so they didn't check the actual stock.

Lastly, none of this really makes any sense compared to the other news items that have come across. Can anyone make any sense of it at all?

[glatt]

Originally Posted by Undertoad

Can anyone make any sense of it at all?

Yes. I can. Here goes:
The people in charge are no smarter than I am. I could do just as good a job as these bozos. But I don't feel like I'm qualified to run things.

[Happy Monkey]

This is indeed getting too complicated for the press to adequately cover at their customary grade level. But in the end, if the video footage from Minneapolis Channel 5 is to be believed, there was some significant number of tons of explosives still under seal when US troops passed through, and they are no longer there. If Bush is to be believed, the US has no idea when or how those explosives were removed. This site was on the IAEA list of sensitive sites, which was available to the administration. If the explosives were taken before we got there, then this story should have broken long ago. It shouldn't even be in question whether or not they were already gone, and the fact that it is in question is just as disturbing no matter the answer.

[Happy Monkey]

Originally Posted by glatt

Yes. I can. Here goes:
The people in charge are no smarter than I am. I could do just as good a job as these bozos. But I don't feel like I'm qualified to run things.

That is evidence of sanity right there.

But things won't get much better with attitudes like this, where intelligent people are considered too elitist, and people want a president "just like them". There should at least be a desire to elect someone smarter than oneself, even if there's disagreement on whether a particular person is.

Or, to rephrase in a more important way, there should be the desire to elect someone smarter than other national leaders.

[russotto]

Originally Posted by Happy Monkey

But in the end, if the video footage from Minneapolis Channel 5 is to be believed, there was some significant number of tons of explosives still under seal when US troops passed through, and they are no longer there.

The Channel 5 footage isn't necessarily of the same bunkers which the explosives are missing from.

One thing's certain; the Bush administration has no idea where the explosives are. They've come up with quite a few stories, including blaming the French.