Iraqi looters loaded explosives into pickup trucks and drove the material away from the Al Qaqaa ammunition site, while U.S. soldiers watched. According to the Los Angeles Times, about a dozen U.S. troops guarding Al Qaqaa could not prevent the theft because they were outnumbered by looters:
The soldiers, who belong to two different units, described how Iraqis plundered explosives from unsecured bunkers before driving off in Toyota trucks.
The U.S. troops said there was little they could do to prevent looting of the ammunition site, 30 miles south of Baghdad.
"We were running from one side of the compound to the other side, trying to kick people out," said one senior noncommissioned officer who was at the site in late April 2003.
"On our last day there, there were at least 100 vehicles waiting at the site for us to leave" so looters could come in and take munitions.
"It was complete chaos. It was looting like L.A. during the Rodney King riots," another officer said.
[. . .]
According to the four soldiers — members of the 317th Support Center and the 258th Rear Area Operations Center, an Arizona-based Army National Guard unit — the looting of Al Qaqaa occurred over several weeks in late April and early May.
This is sure to throw more fuel on the smoldering "missing explosives story which Osama bin Laden managed to displace with his October surprise videotape.
The Times does manage, although not deliberately, to provide some perspective for why Al Qaqaa was not secured:
The senior intelligence official said there was no order for any unit to secure Al Qaqaa. "No way," the officer said, adding that doing so would have diverted combat resources from the push toward Baghdad.
"It's all about combat power," the officer said, "and we were short combat power.
"If we had 150,000 soldiers, I'm not sure we could have secured" such sites, the officer said. "Securing connotes 24-hour presence," and only a few sites in Baghdad were thought to warrant such security.
[. . .]
"We couldn't have been given the assignment to defend a facility unless we were given the troops to do it, and we weren't," said one National Guard officer. "[Objective] Elm being protected or not protected was not really part of the equation. It wasn't an area of immediate concern."
So the looting of Al Qaqaa is another indication that there weren't enough troops in Iraq to do everything, but there are never enough troops to do everything. You have to make do with what you have and accomplish the most mission critical tasks. We weren't looking for explosives, we were looking for WMDs.
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