Sectorgame

Does this situation get any better? *sighs* This one isn't as bad as a lot of the things going on, but it's still not that good, either:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle ... 950493.stm

The IAEA said the US-led coalition had been warned about the danger

Do they ever listen to anything?

At all?

No?

Didn't think so...

Oh great now someone has huge amount explosives I just hope that they don't have nuclear or biological weaponry. Good work Caolition fine work in securing weapon facilitys

They don't have nukes or bioweapons. Those would have been both better secured (probably removed from the country altogether or destroyed) and held up as shining examples of the nonexistent WMD program if they'd been there in the first place.

Not that that makes this any less dangerous. According to my Year 12 physics teacher, you could level a significant portion of my citys major skyscrapers with 4 carefully placed explosive charges of much less potency than we're talking about here.

but if they start selling them that could be bad

Actually, when you think about it, selling them would be good. I mean, what's better, a single individual or group with an utter crapload of explosives, or a single man/group with a crapload of money and a multitude of groups with a small amount of explosives? I mean, ideally they'd not have been stolen, but IMO wide dispersal would be preferable than having one person with enough firepower to level large buildings in a single blast.

Black Wolf wrote:Actually, when you think about it, selling them would be good. I mean, what's better, a single individual or group with an utter crapload of explosives, or a single man/group with a crapload of money and a multitude of groups with a small amount of explosives? I mean, ideally they'd not have been stolen, but IMO wide dispersal would be preferable than having one person with enough firepower to level large buildings in a single blast.

IIRC it only takes a very small amount of this stuff to level a building, anyways. But think of it this way - would you rather have one man to track and stop, or many?

NB: the IAEA has also reaised concern over theft of nuclear-related / radioactive material from an Iraqi site which the coalition left unguarded - http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle ... 735224.stm

so we now have had the components of a dirty bomb stolen in Iraq, after an invasion which was supposedly to prevent terrorists getting their hands on weaponry of this type. and that's presuming that there genuinely was no WMD in Iraq (rather than what there was being looted.... IIRC a Polish patrol came across a mustard gas shell which was being used as a roadside bomb, the bombers apparently not being aware it was a chemical warhead and thus not using it as such)

*agrees with Aldo*

And yes, we've botched this one rather spectacularly.

Of course... 350 Tons of Explosives with a 'definite' link back to the Middle East would be just as handy in the hands of the FBI

Ehh...it doesn't take much to level a building, technically yes, but how many people have the training and experience necessary to identify the points at which one would place explosives to most efficently demolish a building?

Terrorists and guerrillas almost always go for a brute-force approach to explosives usage, you'll notice. They tend not to have the background in architecure or demolitions to know how to do it efficently. More to the point, doing it efficently leaves a lot of witnesses who saw you walking around in the building, and possibly planting the charges.

ngtm1r wrote:Ehh...it doesn't take much to level a building, technically yes, but how many people have the training and experience necessary to identify the points at which one would place explosives to most efficently demolish a building?

Terrorists and guerrillas almost always go for a brute-force approach to explosives usage, you'll notice. They tend not to have the background in architecure or demolitions to know how to do it efficently. More to the point, doing it efficently leaves a lot of witnesses who saw you walking around in the building, and possibly planting the charges.

It's easier and more spectacular to go for the big bang, but don't think terrorists couldn't very easily learn to make precision assaults - these are, after all, quasi military organisations/

I just have to ask. How the f**k do you lose over 300 metric tons of explosives? Even with widespread looting this isn't the sort of thing that can be carried off in a wheelbarrow!

I promised I wouldn't look at a newspaper till nov. 3 but I saw this front page story and though it is relevant to the conversation. http://www.washtimes.com/national/20041 ... -6257r.htm
However, the washtimes is a VERY partisan paper.
If this is correct....f*** the russians....no offense to den5. Boy I love the international community such a bunch of clean ethical folks
also...
http://www.abcnews.go.com/WNT/story?id=204304&page=1

The commander of the American force assigned to guard the facility has gone on record as saying that there were no explosives there when they arrived. There are several stories about that talk about Russian Special Forces assisting Iraqi Intelligence(Saddam's) in moving what is actually closer to 3 tons than 350 tons to Syria.

Also, something of note, the reason why France, Germany, Russia, and the United Nations were perfectly happy to sit by and allow 12 resolutions to go by is because they had financial interests to the tune of billiions of dollars in maintaining the status quo with Saddam's Iraq. There is a lot of blood on the hands of the leadership of those places.

Currently we don't know what happened to the explosives, but we also don't know what was shipped to syria. There is also talk of WMDs being shipped to syria from this location.