Didn't Rummy say something about if it had happened after the invasion they would have seen it? Well, apparently they did, I guess he must have been asleep at the wheel again.
LOS ANGELES - Explosives were looted from the Al-Qaqaa ammunitions site in Iraq while outnumbered U.S. soldiers assigned to guard the materials watched helplessly, soldiers told the Los Angeles Times.
About a dozen U.S. troops were guarding the sprawling facility in the weeks after the April 2003 fall of Baghdad when Iraqi looters raided the site, the newspaper quoted a group of unidentified soldiers as saying.
U.S. Army reservists and National Guardsmen witnessed the looting and some soldiers sent messages to commanders in Baghdad requesting help, but received no reply, they said.
"It was complete chaos. It was looting like L.A. during the Rodney King riots," one officer said.
The eyewitness accounts reported by the Times are the first provided by U.S. soldiers and bolster claims that the U.S. military had failed to safeguard the powerful explosives, the newspaper said.
Soldiers who belong to two different units described how Iraqis snatched explosives from unsecured bunkers and drove off with them in pickup trucks.
The soldiers who spoke to the Times asked to remain unidentified, saying they feared retaliation from the Pentagon.
One senior noncommissioned officer said troops "were running from one side of the compound to the other side, trying to kick people out" and that at least 100 vehicles were at the site waiting for the military to leave so that they could loot the munitions.
Posted by bushmeister0
at 12:57 PM EST
Updated: Sunday, 7 November 2004 10:20 PM EST
