That Missing RDX

NBC reporters embedded with the 101st Airborne are questioning the New York
Times report which suggests that US custodial incompetence was responsible for
the loss of RDX explosive.

NBC News: Miklaszewski: �April 10, 2003, only three weeks into the war, NBC
News was embedded with troops from the Army's 101st Airborne as they
temporarily take over the Al Qakaa weapons installation south of Baghdad. But
these troops never found the nearly 380 tons of some of the most powerful
conventional explosives, called HMX and RDX, which is now missing. The U.S.
troops did find large stockpiles of more conventional weapons, but no HMX or
RDX, so powerful less than a pound brought down Pan Am 103 in 1988, and can be
used to trigger a nuclear weapon. In a letter this month, the Iraqi interim
government told the International Atomic Energy Agency the high explosives
were lost to theft and looting due to lack of security. Critics claim there
were simply not enough U.S. troops to guard hundreds of weapons stockpiles,
weapons now being used by insurgents and terrorists to wage a guerrilla war in
Iraq.� (NBC�s �Nightly News,� 10/25/04)

The withdrawal of enemy resources into safe havens was the subject of Belmont
Club's

War Plan Orange. In this context, the loss of 380 tons of RDX is similar to
worrying about a toothache after being diagnosed with AIDS and Ebola. Some
600,000 tons of explosive are said to have been dispersed throughout Iraq prior
to the conclusion of Operation Iraqi Freedom. The loss of the RDX is serious,
but in the overall scheme of things, one of the least worries. But it provides
indirect confirmation of the preemptive dispersal of war materiel by the Saddam
regime while the US was trying to negotiate UN permission to topple him for six
months, compounded by Turkey's refusal to allow the 4ID to attack south into the
Sunni Triangle.

The account above shows that the RDX explosive was already gone by the
time US forces arrived. Although one may retrospectively find some fault with
OIF order of battle, most of the damage had already been inflicted by the
dilatory tactics of America's allies which allowed Saddam the time and space
-- nearly half a year and undisturbed access to Syria -- necessary to prepare
his resistance, transfer money abroad and disperse explosives (as confirmed
first hand by reporters).  Although it is both desirable and
necessary to criticize the mistakes attendant to OIF, much of the really
"criminal" neglect may be laid on the diplomatic failure which gave the wily
enemy this invaluable opportunity. The price of passing the "Global Test" was
very high; and having been gypped once, there are some who are still eager to be taken
to the cleaners again.