http://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory?id=209158WASHINGTON Oct 29, 2004 — An Army unit removed 250 tons of ammunition from the Al-Qaqaa weapons depot in April 2003 and later destroyed it, the company's former commander said Friday. A Pentagon spokesman said some was of the same type as the missing explosives that have become a major issue in the presidential campaign.
But those 250 tons were not located under the seal of the International Atomic Energy Agency as the missing high-grade explosives had been and Pentagon spokesman Larry Di Rita could not definitely say whether they were part of the missing 377 tons.
Maj. Austin Pearson, speaking at a press conference at the Pentagon, said his team removed 250 tons of TNT, plastic explosives, detonation cords, and white phosporous rounds on April 13, 2003 10 days after U.S. forces first reached the Al Qaqaa site.
"I did not see any IAEA seals at any of the locations we went into. I was not looking for that," Pearson said.
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Di Rita sought to point to Pearson's comments as evidence that some RDX, one of the high-energy explosives, might have been removed from the site. RDX is also known as plastic explosive.
But Di Rita acknowledged: "I can't say RDX that was on the list of IAEA is what the major pulled out. … We believe that some of the things they were pulling out of there were RDX."
Further study was needed, Di Rita said.
Whether Saddam Hussein's forces removed the explosives before U.S. forces arrived on April 3, 2003, or whether they fell into the hands of looters and insurgents afterward because the site was not guarded by U.S. troops has become a key issue in the campaign.
Pearson's comments raise further questions about the chain of events surrounding these explosives, the disappearance of which has been repeatedly cited by Democrat John Kerry as evidence of the Bush administration's poor handling of the war in Iraq.
Still, 377 tons of explosives amount to a tiny fraction of the weaponry in Iraq. U.S. forces have already destroyed, or have slated to destroyed, more than 400,000 tons of all manner of Iraqi weapons and ammunition. But at least another 250,000 tons from Saddam's regime remain unaccounted for, and some has undoubtedly fallen into the hands of insurgents.
The window in which the explosives were most likely removed from Al-Qaqaa begins on March 15, 2003 five days before the war started and ends in late May, when a U.S. weapons inspection team declared the depot stripped and looted.
