WASHINGTON – The fate of up to 377 tons of high-grade explosives missing from an Iraqi depot remained unresolved a week after it became a hot issue in the presidential election. The Pentagon offered piecemeal information about operations at the base but was unable to say where the weapons went.
Some analysts are questioning the relevance of the debate, noting 377 tons is a pittance compared to the unclaimed arsenal left behind after Saddam Hussein’s regime fell. Bush administration officials have repeatedly said some 400,000 tons of munitions and explosives have been either destroyed or are slated to be destroyed. They do not mention that, by military estimates, a minimum of 250,000 more tons remains unaccounted for.
On Friday, an Army major said his company had recovered and destroyed some of the munitions left at the Al-Qaqaa depot south of Baghdad after the invasion. A Pentagon spokesman asserted some of that was of the same type as the missing explosives that have become a major issue in the campaign.
Maj. Austin Pearson said his team removed the 250 tons of plastic explosives and other munitions on April 13, 2003 – 10 days after U.S. forces first reached the Al-Qaqaa site.
But those munitions were not under the seal of the U.N. International Atomic Energy Agency – as the missing high-grade explosives had been. And Pentagon spokesman Larry Di Rita could not say whether they were part of the missing 377 tons.
On April 18, 2003, a television crew traveling with the 101st Airborne shot a videotape of troops as they opened the bunkers at Al-Qaqaa, which shows what appeared to be high explosives still in barrels and bearing the markings of the International Atomic Energy Agency.
Whether Hussein’s forces removed some of the explosives before U.S. forces arrived on April 3, 2003, or whether they fell into the hands of looters and insurgents afterward has become a key issue.
The explosives were known to be housed in storage bunkers at the sprawling Al-Qaqaa complex and nearby structures. U.N. nuclear inspectors placed fresh seals over the bunker doors in January 2003. The inspectors visited Al-Qaqaa for the last time that March 15 and reported that the seals were not broken, concluding the weapons were still inside at the time.
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