U.S. military commanders estimated last fall that Iraqi military sites contained 650,000 to 1 million tons of explosives, artillery shells, aviation bombs and other ammunition. The Bush administration cited official figures this week showing about 400,000 tons destroyed or in the process of being eliminated. That leaves the whereabouts of more than 250,000 tons unknown...
"There is something truly absurd about focusing on 377 tons of rather ordinary explosives, regardless of what actually happened at al Qaqaa," Anthony H. Cordesman, a senior analyst at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, wrote in an assessment yesterday. "The munitions at al Qaqaa were at most around 0.06 percent of the total."
Retired Army Gen. Wayne A. Downing, who served briefly as President Bush's adviser on counterterrorism and has criticized some aspects of the administration's performance, said yesterday he considered the missing-explosives issue "bogus." ...
The most powerful of the three explosives — HMX — can be used in a trigger for nuclear devices, which is why it was placed under IAEA seal. But HMX is obtainable elsewhere, and the chief U.S. weapons investigator in Iraq, Charles A. Duelfer, has acknowledged that the Iraqi stockpile posed no particular concern in this regard.
Matthew Bunn, a Harvard University expert in nuclear weapons and terrorism, said that although he is concerned by the removal of the explosives, he is far more worried by IAEA reports that large quantities of sophisticated equipment, such as electron beam welders, were looted and removed from Iraq's nuclear weapons program. "That material, which would be quite useful to a nuclear weapons program, was also well known to the United States, was not guarded and today is probably in hostile hands," with Iran being a likely recipient, said Bunn, who noted that he has been advising the Kerry campaign but does not speak for it.
HMX and the two other types of explosives reported missing from Qaqaa — RDX and PETN — could also be used in devices targeting U.S. forces in Iraq. But defense officials say the many car bombs and roadside explosive devices that have menaced U.S. forces and other foreigners in Iraq have tended to be constructed from old artillery shells and other munitions, which remain in ample supply in Iraq...
The Pentagon has contributed to confusion surrounding the case. John A. Shaw, deputy undersecretary for international technology and security, told the Washington Times on Wednesday that Russian troops, working with Iraqi intelligence, "almost certainly" removed the explosives from Qaqaa. Yesterday, other senior defense officials, after reviewing Pentagon intelligence reports, said Shaw's remarks had no basis in fact.
Other confusion has arisen over how much explosive material had been stored at Qaqaa. The 377-ton figure was cited by Iraq's interim government in a letter to the IAEA earlier this month first reporting the amount missing. That figure was based on a Hussein government declaration in July 2003 of what existed at the site. It included about 155 tons of RDX. On Wednesday, ABC News reported that IAEA documents indicated there were only about 3 tons of RDX remaining at Qaqaa in January 2003, two months before the U.S.-led invasion. Yesterday, however, IAEA officials said records showed another 138 tons of the RDX were being kept then at a military warehouse used by Qaqaa's managers at Mahaweel, 25 miles away. The IAEA has not accounted for an additional 14 tons in the July 2003 Iraqi declaration.
