Hindrocket, at Powerline, is all over the KSTP Channel 5 video story. Powerline is highly skeptical of the claims made in this morning's NYT piece that: "... the videotape and some of the agency's photographs of the HMX stockpiles "were such good matches it looked like they were taken by the same camera on the same day."" According to a munitions expert who contacted Powerline, the material depicted in the video could hardly have been RDX or HMX:
As a retired Explosive Ordnance Disposal (EOD) officer I have some problems with the Channel 5 story. It appears to me that they are in a bunker filled with blasting agents (slower detonation rates for moving rock, see link below on detonation rates) . First we see boosters, (they would commonly be inserted into a bag of ANFO (ammonium nitrate fuel oil) or nitro starch for blasting. Then we see what is described as dynamite but is more likely TNT or wrapped nitro starch (see GI story below) and lastly those big cardboard barrels which appear to be a white powder. Note the number beside the 1.1D placard on the barrel, it says 239. Now 239 may very well be the U. N. number system for ammunition and explosives (see first link below). The U. S. does not utilize the U. N. system nor does the former USSR or its satellites. When I was in Bosnia we put the Bosnians on the UN system to get some organization established for safety purposes. Please note the first site below from Australia and we can see they are most probably on the UN system: (239 NITROSTARCH, dry or wetted with less than 20% water, by mass). Common sense to me would be that HMX, one of the most powerful and expensive explosives WOULD NOT BE PACKAGED IN CARDBOARD BARRELS! Furthermore one of the barrels is already open as we see. The two "experts" certainly did not add ANYTHING to this story.
In other words, this isn't the missing high explosives. Rather, it's conventional blasting agent commonly used for construction and demolition.
(Cross-posted by Demosophist to Demosophia, Anticipatory Retaliation and The Jawa Report)
Posted by Demosophist at October 29, 2004 04:24 PM | TrackBack