Impact of The Looting
Many commentators expressed fears that the explosives had fallen into the hands of terrorists and would be used by the Iraqi insurgency to mount attacks against US and Iraqi troops. Many insurgent attacks have been carried out using improvised explosive devices made from military munitions, most often 122 mm artillery shells and landmines. IEDs made with high explosives are far more powerful and devastating and have been used in some of the most damaging attacks carried out in Iraq, such as the August 19, 2003 suicide attack on the U.N. headquarters, and the March 17, 2004 attack on the Mount Lebanon Hotel, both in Baghdad. It is not clear whether these attacks were mounted using explosives from Al Qa'qaa. However, on October 28, 2004 a video was released by a group calling itself "Al-Islam's Army Brigades, Al-Karar Brigade" in which a masked man claimed that "the American intelligence" had helped them to obtain a "huge amount of the explosives that were in the Al Qa'qaa facility" and that the explosives would be "use against the occupation forces and those who cooperate with them in the event of these forces threatening any Iraqi city." And a December 2003 report from a joint Defense Department intelligence task force concluded that the insurgents in Iraq "retain access to virtually all the weapons systems and ordnances previously controlled by the Iraqi military, security and intelligence assets. Unsecured arms depots and storage sites, in addition to open and black market availability of weapons and ammunition, eliminate the need for the to maintain a formidable arsenal."
Montgomery McFate of the Human Terrain Team program noted in 2005:
| “ | The insurgency's ability to construct IEDs depends on the availability of bombmaking materials, particularly explosives. The widespread availability of explosives in Iraq means the insurgency will have the material resources to build IEDs for many years to come. Currently, approximately 80 tons of powerful conventional explosives (mainly HMX and RDX) are missing from the former Iraqi military base at Al Qaqaa. These explosives could produce bombs strong enough to shatter airplanes or tear apart buildings and are probably already in the hands of the insurgency. The director of the Iraqi police unit that defuses and investigates IEDs notes: "One of the coalition's fatal mistakes was to allow the terrorists into army storerooms.... The terrorists took all the explosives they would ever need." | ” |
Read more about this topic: Al Qa'qaa High Explosives Controversy
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