One of the oddities of the al Qaqaa <$NoAd$>is story is why it should seem even remotely surprising to anyone who’s actually been paying attention to what’s been happening in Iraq over the last eighteen months. After all, almost all of Iraq’s nuclear facilities — containing both equipment of use to nuclear programs, partially enriched uranium, and other goodies for baddies — were similarly looted at around the same time.
As Brett Wagner, a professor at the Naval War College, put it a year ago in USA Today …
In the weeks before the invasion, the U.S. military repeatedly warned the White House that its war plans did not include sufficient ground forces, air and naval operations and logistical support to guarantee a successful mission. Those warnings were discounted â even mocked â by administration officials who professed to know more about war fighting than the war fighters themselves.
But the war fighters were right. Military commanders weren’t given enough manpower and logistical support to secure all of the known nuclear sites, let alone all of the suspected ones.
It wasn’t until seven of Iraq’s main nuclear facilities were extensively looted that the true magnitude of the administration’s strategic blunder came into focus.
Why is Qaqaa surprising?
