Thursday, October 28, 2004
Al Qaqaa was used as temporary HQ by 101st
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As soon as this Al-Qaqaa story "broke" I thought of calling my friend (an officer and unit commander attached to the 101st during Operation Iraqi Freedom) to find out what really happened. Well, I just got off the phone with him and after joking that he was directing traffic for all the Iraqi trucks that looted explosives out of Al-Qaqaa, I asked him what this story is really all about.
Turns out several of his unit's men were with the 2nd Brigade that first arrived at Al-Qaqaa, secured it, spent the night, then moved out. The day they left, the 101st Division Command Staff (which my friend was attached to) then moved into Al-Qaqaa and set up temporary HQ for TWO WEEKS! While there he walked around and inside bunkers and saw all sorts of stuff stacked up and lying around: AK-47s, RPGs, rockets, bombs, ammo, and black powder used in making weapons as that's what the Al-Qaqaa facility was - manufacture and storage.
Did he see any IAEA sealed bunkers? No. Did he see anything other than field weapons/munitions? No. Did they allow Iraqis to drive trucks into HQ and help themselves to weapons? Gimme a break! Would the 101st Division Command Staff HQ next to 380 tons of HMX, RDX and PETN during combat? I would think not.
My friend's parting thoughts were that this was likely Kerry's "October Suprise" to be leaked right before the election, leaving the Bush team no time to rebutt or explain, but it got leaked too early. Turns out this highly explosive story is one big DNC dud.
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