remember that last minute pre-election diversion involving tons of explosives at al-qaqaa.  stuff  the pentagon first didnt know anything about but then flipflopped and said never were there to start with if hussein didnt truck em to syria?  or else they were totally taken into custody and safely detonated.   and besides that no way the iraqis could have removed so much stuff without some kinda special trucks? 

apparently there is something more to this than a mere leftwing trick or acid flashback.  the la times reports us soldiers have described to reporters how they witnessed the stuff being removed by iraqis starting in late april and into may in what sounds like a couple weeks of 1992 la riot-style looting involving up to as many as 100 trucks per day. 

the soldiers--none of whom want to be identified--were members of  two units (317th support center based in wiesbaden, germany & 258th rear area operations center, an arizona-based army national guard unit ) stationed near al qaqaa at a base known as logistics support area (lsa) dogwood.  neither unit was under orders to guard the facility nor maintain a presence there, the soldiers said.

"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."

according to the times, these soldiers went to the ammunition facility soon after the departure of combat troops from the 101st airborne division.  the national guard unit from arizona--comprised of 27 soldiers--discovered the al-qaqaa site looting during a routine patrol of the area and enlisted the help of troops of the 317th Support group in an attempt to secure the facility. when it became clear they had too few boots on the ground to keep looters out, they contacted baghdad command for assistance to no avail.

"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.

another soldier noted that the iraqis took cartons marked with the word 'hexamine', adding that since they didnt know what it was, they looked it up on the net.

"We found out this was stuff you don't smoke around," the told the times.

a senior u.s. military intelligence official responsible for tracking possible wmd locations described al qaqaa as  "one of the top 200" of interest before the invasion.  despite that, he confirmed no u.s. forces were specifically assigned to guard al qaqaa — after the 101st airborne left the facility.

"it's all about combat power," he's reported to have told the times.  "we were short combat power."