As McClellan is now making clear, RDX and HMX — the explosives looted from the al Qa Qaa facility are hardly a big deal at all. And in any case, they’re the responsibility of the Iraqis.
But interestingly, on January 30th 2003, when then-UN Ambassador (and now Ambassador to Iraq) John Negroponte testified before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee about Iraqi non-compliance with the inspections regime, one of the items in the long bill of particulars he adduced was the fact that the Iraqis had not come clean about their stocks of HMX.
“Dr. ElBaradei,” he told the Committee, “also explained that IAEA has yet to determine the relocation or use of certain, dual-use items, such as the high explosive HMX which was sealed by IAEA in 1998, and which Iraq claims it has used since for mining.”
No, it certainly wasn’t the highest on their list of concerns. But it was there.
