Intel and Intelligence
I was chewing over recent news, including senator Kerry’s shrill accusations against President Bush for the loss of 377 tons of high explosive from the Al Qaaqaa weapons installation south of Baghdad, when I was contacted by my friend Paul Deignan, who has a background in Military Intelligence. Paul laughed at the arrogance of Kerry’s presumption. Paul explained that
1 – According to an NBC News report dated April 10, 2003, the HMX and RDX stocks were looked for, but not located at the installation. That is, the stuff was gone the very first time US forces arrived there.
2 – HMX and RDX is specialized stuff, not the sort of thing just anybody can use. Also, 377 tons is a whole lot to move – what, you think somebody just carried it off on foot? To put it bluntly, Iraq simply had no way to move that kind of weight after the invasion, which means (common sense) it had to have been moved before we took over.
3 – HMX and RDX can be used for a number of uses, but its primary use? Demolition of bridges, roads, dams, oilfields, etc., all the kinds of places where the US did find explosives wired to blow up things.
The conclusion is obvious. The Iraqis stole the explosives from the installation to try to slow down the US invasion. Why didn’t the Iraqi government simply issue the stuff? Remember we blew their Command & Control infrastructure apart at the start, separating command form the men, and disrupting any chance of Iraqi coordination.
So, what was Kerry thinking? If he was being honest, he wasn’t thinking, never thought through the matter. Of course, there’s always the possibility that Kerry, a military officer in his past, did know what was going on, which says something rather poor about the Senator.
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