The Pentagon held a news briefing on the explosives missing in Iraq. Here is a transcript. Speakers include Lawrence Di Rita, Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Public Affairs, and Maj. Austin Pearson, 3rd Infantry Division.
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DI RITA: Good afternoon.
There have been recent stories about some information involving a particular type of weapons in Iraq that early reports suggest have been difficult to account for.
The early reports, earlier this week, based on information that came to light earlier this month -- obviously, I don’t have to describe the reaction that people had to the early reports. But what is often the case that we deal with every day in this department is that early reports often need more information to better understand.
It has not been our attempt or desire to tell a particular story other than to tell the facts that we understand about this early report, about which I think people may have drawn conclusions absent those facts.
What we’ve tried to do is, since this became such an important issue to some, learn more about this. And we’ve done that through the course of the last six or seven days -- five or six days, whenever these initial reports surfaced.
The initial reports left the impression that there was a particular facility in Iraq that was heavily secured, that there were bunkers at this facility that were themselves inaccessible, and that sometime after the fall of the Saddam Hussein regime some question of accountability arose about these facilities.
That’s the initial impression that was left by the reports.
What we have, obviously, learned since then, among other things, is that, for example, the quantity of explosives of a particular type -- this so-called RDX material -- was actually much different than what was initially reported at that particular facility; on the order of more than a 100 tons difference.
DI RITA: We’ve learned that since these initial reports.
We’ve learned since the initial reports that there was some apparent movement of heavy equipment in this facility at a time when only Saddam Hussein was in control of that facility; meaning after inspectors left the country and before U.S. forces arrived to begin the liberation of the country.
So, we’ve tried to accumulate our understanding about this situation.
What we’ve also acknowledged since then is that -- and what people I think have become to understand better -- is that since the fall of this regime, coalition forces have uncovered, destroyed or marked for destruction 10,000 weapons caches spread throughout the country, consisting of 400,000 tons, plus or minus, of ammunition of all types.
The ammunition in question consists of 1/1,000 of that. We’ve destroyed or marked for destruction 1,000 times more ammunition than the amount of ammunition that has been called into question.
But nonetheless, we’ve spent an enormous amount of time in the last week trying to better understand what happened to this 1/1,000 of material that we are aware of and know about.
And I caution that there is a lot that we probably don’t know about, because this was a country, as the inspectors acknowledged, that was awash in weapons.
So we’ve learned more over time and we’ve tried, as we’ve learned more, to produce this information without trying to say that what we have to produce, what we have to discuss is definitive, because I don’t know that anybody can get to the definitive conclusions about this, but we are doing our best for people to better understand it.
As we’ve learned more, we’ve tried to provide that information to the public through, of course, the press corps here.
What we have learned within the last day or so is that units arrived at that facility. And we did provide this information. Again, a facility that the impression of which early was left that it was a facility that was heavily secured and inaccessible.
Units arrived there in early April, units of the United States Army, to find -- and were met by Iraqi forces inside the complex, which was opened. The Fedayeen Saddam, Special Republican Guard, Republican Guard and others for whatever purpose were inside the facility before U.S. forces arrived.
DI RITA: Those U.S. forces that did arrive there described for you how weapons that they had seen throughout the country had been heavily dispersed throughout that country as they moved forward.
Again, more facts that have come to light since we’ve applied ourselves to better understanding this initial report, which appears to have been significantly short of complete.
Subsequent to understanding that U.S. forces arrived there with Iraqi forces already in place, we’ve learned that there were, at the request of the U.S. forces that arrived there, some units that were assigned the task of removing some of the weapons that were found at that facility. And we’ve tried to better understand that.
What I don’t intend to -- what I don’t expect anybody will draw from what we’re presenting today is that the weapons that we think we identified and destroyed from that facility constitute the universe of weapons that people are concerned about. We believe it constitutes some portion of those weapons. We believe that other units later on had responsibility to police weapons of this nature throughout the country and went about doing that. And we’re learning more about that, and as we learn more about that, we’ll provide that information.
But with that, kind of, summary, what I’d like to do is let Major Austin Pearson of the 24th Ordinance Company, 24th Corps Support Group -- who was in the country during the period in question, who was in the facility during the period in question, and who had responsibility for collecting some of these weapons of interest -- talk a little bit about how he arrived at that facility, what his responsibilities were, what his actions were.
And again, we’ll do our best to provide additional information. There will be more that comes out about this. We know that. We’re learning more.
We have taken this wonderful institution and applied no small percentage of it to understanding 1/1000 of the weapons we’ve already identified for destruction or destroyed. But it’s important we do that and we’ve gone about to do that.
So with that, I’ll ask Major Pearson to discuss a little bit about what he knows, and we’ll be happy to take a few questions after that.
PEARSON: Currently I’m an instructor at the U.S. Army Ordnance Center and School at APG, Maryland. I teach...
DI RITA: APG is the Aberdeen Proving Ground.
PEARSON: Aberdeen Proving Ground, Maryland.
I teach advanced ammunition management to military officers going through the captain’s career course.
On Tuesday I had taken my students to United Defense on an industrial tour. I was sequestered within the plant going on the tour. As I took a bus ride back, got back, arrived back at around 1800 to APG.
At that time, I’m in an MBA program, went to class, and I arrived home at about 2100 hours, where I was watching the news. And from the news I seen an NBC report talking about the missing 380 tons of ammunition.
To this point, I had thought that 380 tons was a recent type ammunition that was missing. And then I seen the video from NBC highlighting what I knew was Objective Elms, Logistics Support Area Elms, at the time, a place that I operated in and did some collection operations in Elms in the time frame I was there in April ’03.
The next morning I contacted my chain of command, where I was directed to the chief of staff of the Army Ordnance Center and School, who put me in contact with the Defense Intelligence Agency. From there, I received multiple call-backs, getting the facts. I provided the facts to them.
And last night I received a call from the staff up here at the Pentagon. General Helmic (ph) called me and asked me to come down, verify what I knew, and look at some visuals and some maps corresponding where Objective Elms and the other locations that are at the top of this conversation.
From there, in April of 2003, I was the commander of the 24th Ordnance Company. Our mission was to provide convention ammunition support to 3rd Infantry Division. I was part of the 24th CSG at this time in April, based out of Logistics Support Area Dogwood, southwest of Baghdad.
PEARSON: My primary role was to provide U.S. forces with ammunition to support combat operations.
In addition to that, I had an additional mission of managing a captured ammunition holding area at LSA Dogwood. I also received the mission during the first weeks of April to assist the brigade combat teams of the 3rd I.D. in Baghdad clearing, in sectors that they were operating in, of captured enemy ammunition that was throughout their area of operations.
