Пропажа взрывчатых веществ и ядерных материалов в Ираке после вторжения США

The Al Qa'qaa high explosives controversy concerns the possible removal of about 377 tonnes of high explosives (HMX and RDX) from the Al Qa'qaa facility by the Iraqi insurgency, after the 2003 invasion of Iraq. Although Pentagon spokesman Lawrence Di Rita said that the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has not come forward with documentation that explains how it arrived at the figure of 377 tons of missing explosives. The IAEA so far only has verified in its paperwork that 219 tons of explosive materials were at Al Qaqaa and surrounding facilities. The explosives, considered dangerous by the IAEA, were certified by UN weapons inspectors to be inside facilities whose doors were fastened with chains and the United Nations' seal, at the Al Qa'qaa industrial complex in Iraq in 2003. By October 2004, the facility was empty.

Sami al Araji, Iraq's deputy minister of industry, noted that besides al Qa'qaa, looters had targeted explosives and other weapons material in the Nida Factory, the Badr General Establishment, Al Ameer, Al Radwan, Al Hatteen, and Al Qadisiya. Some of these factories had WMD (weapon of mass destruction) significance, such as the Nida Factory and Al Radwan, which were part of Saddam's nuclear program in the early 1990s. The looting of five of these sites were also confirmed by the IAEA's satellite reconnaissance. Former U. S. Ambassador Peter W. Galbraith (who supported Bush's war in Iraq) reported two additional incidents of significant looting in post invasion Iraq. He witnessed U. S. troops standing outside Baghdad's Disease Center as looters attacked the complex on 16 April 2003, "taking live HIV and black fever virus among other potentially lethal materials." At the same time, looters attacked Iraq's nuclear facilities at Tuwaitha, taking "barrels of yellowcake (raw uranium), apparently dumping the uranium and using the barrels to hold water. US troops were at Tuwaitha but did not interfere." Galbraith noted that the facilities were all under IAEA seal and that "they remained untouched until the US troops arrived." Former counterterrorism directors for the National Security Council Daniel Benjamin and Steven Simon noted the danger of these nuclear materials falling into the hands of terrorists as a result of the U. S. invasion: "Another potential consequence of the invasion is the spread of weapons of mass destruction to al Qaeda or other terrorists  [T]he International Atomic Energy Agency certified that there were highly radioactive materials at the al Tuwaitha facilities, including partially enriched—though not weapons grade—uranium. These materials could be used to fabricate one or more radiological dispersion devices—or 'dirty bombs,' as they have come to be known. Some of these materials appear to be missing—how much remains unclear—and it seems a fair conjecture that someone  may have 'privatized' these weapons with the intent of selling them to the highest biddeer. Ultimately, this material could find its way into the hands of al Qaeda. It is difficult to imagine a more horrifyingly ironic outcome to the war."

In addition to the explosives, al Qa'qaa held some of the remnants of Iraq's chemical warfare program from the early 1990s, "including 800 pieces of chemical equipment." The areas that had been involved in chemical processing were "wrecked by fire and possible extensive looting" after the invasion; as The New York Times reported, "Unknown is the fate of such equipment there like separators, heat exchangers, mixers and chemical reactors, all of which can be used in making chemical weapons." (13 March 2005). The Times reported that "the kinds of machinery at the various sites included equipment that could be used to make missile parts, chemical weapons or centrifuges essential for enriching uranium for atom bombs." Gary Milhollin, director of the Wisconsin Project on Nuclear Arms Control, said, "Targeted looting of this kind of equipment has to be seen as a proliferation threat." and for 2003 and 2004 from DigitalGlobe.

A letter from former Iraqi Foreign Minister Naji Sabri (who was also a CIA asset at the time) to deposed Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein "suggests taking the HMX from underground bunkers where it had been kept under seal by the International Atomic Energy Agency and giving it to suicide bombers." The letter was written on 4 April 2003. Explosives were reported intact after the invasion—Col. John Peabody of the 3rd Infantry Division told AP that his troops found thousands of boxes of explosives at the facility on 5 April 2003. DIA confirmation—the DIA issued a report on 9 November 2003 that concluded that the "[v]ast majority of explosives and ordnance used in anti Coalition improvised explosive devices/IED s have come from pilfered Iraqi ammunition stockpiles and prewar established  caches." videotape made by a KSTP TV St. Paul, Minnesota, television crew embedded with U. S. 101st Airborne Division troops on April 18, 2003, nine days after Hussein's fall. The television crew accompanying US troops recorded the sealed explosives containers at the site, displaying ammunition caches and explosives and clearly displaying the ammunition cache of explosives and other weapons supplies. The New York Times summarized in April 2005, "videos taken by television crews with American troops show the bunkers were still full of explosives well after the invasion." Mohammed al Sharaa, head of the science ministry's site monitoring department: "It is impossible that these materials could have been taken from this site before the regime's fall. The officials that were inside this facility (Al Qaqaa) beforehand confirm that not even a shred of paper left it before the fall." U. S. surveillance: the Los Angeles Times reported on 27 October 2004: "Given the size of the missing cache, it would have been difficult to relocate undetected before the invasion, when U. S. spy satellites were monitoring activity." Eyewitness testimony of Army reservists and National Guardsman from separate units as reported to the Los Angeles Times in November 2004. Pearson's story provoked skepticism as it came the morning after new videotape surfaced indicating that the explosives were still at the base after Saddam's fall; the videotape (from April 18, 2003) shows what appeared to be high explosives still in barrels bearing IAEA seals. "The photographs are consistent with what I know of Al Qaqaa", David A. Kay, who directed the hunt in Iraq for WMD and visited the site, told The New York Times. "The damning thing is the seals. The Iraqis didn't use seals on anything. So I'm absolutely sure that's an IAEA seal." On October 10, 2004, Dr. Mohammed J. Abbas of the Iraqi Ministry of Science and Technology wrote to the IAEA to say that the Qa'qaa stockpile had been lost after April 9, 2003, because of the "theft and looting of the governmental installations due to lack of security." Nearly 340 tonnes of HDX and RDX explosives, an amount equivalent to 40 ten ton truckloads, was said to be missing. The news led to an immediate controversy in the 2004 U. S. presidential election. Presidential challenger John Kerry has accused President George W. Bush of presiding over an inexcusable failure to prevent the loss of the explosives, while President Bush has criticized Senator Kerry for "jump[ing] to conclusions without knowing the facts." On October 28, 2004, the DoD released imagery dated March 17, 2003, showing two trucks parked outside one of the 56 bunkers at Al Qa Qaa. However, the bunker nearest where the trucks were parked are not any of the nine bunkers identified by the IAEA as containing the missing explosive stockpiles. On the same day, the London Financial Times reported that the French and Russians may have been involved in the removal of the explosives from Al Qa'qaa before the war began, quoting Deputy Undersecretary for Defense John A. Shaw, who said "various Russian units on the eve of hostilities [helped] to orchestrate the collection of munitions and assure their transport out of Iraq via Syria". He also told The Washington Times "the organized effort was done in advance of the conflict". The Washington Times also reported that defense officials believed the Russians could also explain what happened to Iraq's weapons of mass destruction programs. The Russian Government has denounced this theory as "nonsense", saying that there were no Russian military in the country at the time. Shaw's theory has attracted little public support from elsewhere in the administration. On October 29, 2004, The New York Times reported the existence of a videotape made by a KSTP TV St. Paul, Minnesota television crew embedded with U. S. 101st Airborne Division troops on April 18, 2003, nine days after Hussein's fall. The television crew accompanying US troops recorded the sealed explosives containers at the site, displaying the ammunition cache of explosives and other weapons supplies. Commentators have pointed out that the complex would have been under intensive surveillance during the war as a suspected centre of WMD production. They point out that an operation involving removing 40 truckloads of materials should have been extremely visible and would probably have been attacked, had it been spotted. Some said that the materials being moved might just as easily have been WMDs being moved to the battlefront. However, there is no indication that any such transport operation was spotted by US forces. The tape displaying the sealed explosives containers, as they were being found by the 101st Airborne Division troops, was re broadcast by ABC on October 27, and by MSNBC on October 28, 2004. The explosives, classified as "dual use" materials, had been sealed by the IAEA, and reported 18 months earlier. The administration subsequently stated that it was a "mystery" when the explosives disappeared and that the President did not want to comment on the matter until the facts were known. The Bush administration asserted that an investigation had begun into how, where, and when the explosives went missing; no such investigation has been reported on since the 2004 election. In May 2005, Iraqi official Sami al Araji reported on the Iraqi government's investigation into the theft, indicating that the looters "came in with the cranes and the lorries, and they depleted the whole sites. They knew what they were doing; they knew what they want. This was sophisticated looting." (The New York Times, March 13, 2005).