We conducted multiple of these missions in locations like elementary schools, residential communities. A particular one we worked with in northwest Baghdad in the Hammer Brigade’s area of operation was a housing development that was under construction. We took out of one house alone over 7 million rounds of AK-47 rounds out of one house built into the walls of the house. A very large area. Took about three days. There was all sorts of ammunition, to include the types that we are talking about here, scattered throughout that. That was just the one location. We also found them in multiple sites within and around Baghdad.
Upon returning from that mission back to Logistics Support Area Dogwood, I was ordered by the rear area operations center that I reported to, from the 24th CSG, to assist the corps support group working with the 101st Infantry Division at Objective Elms.
I will point out what I know as Objective Elms right now, because before this I had never heard of Al-Qaqaa. On the planning graphics that we worked with, Objective Elms is this blue square right here around the map, as you can see. And Al-Qaqaa is in the red- highlighted area.
This is Logistic Support Area Dogwood, where I had my U.S. ammunition facility, in addition to my captured ammunition holding area was located at LSA Dogwood.
Once I received my mission from the RAOC, I moved across the Euphrates into LSA Elms, and we made an assessment that the area that we came into -- the area to the north of LSA Elms, as you see here, if you are coming down from the northwest as you cross, there’s a major road network and you can travel around. This is the main route you will take, the main supply route. There is a wall -- an earthen concrete wall that encompasses the military complex -- the ammunition complex around in Elms. It had multiple breaks in the walls. We were able to drive right through the breaks.
DI RITA: On that point, let me just clarify one piece that Major Pearson wouldn’t know about. But the commander of the 101st -- or maybe it was the 3rd Infantry Division -- talked about their need to access that facility. And when they did, they did so by breaking through the walls.
DI RITA: It’s possible, although not certain, that the breaks in the walls that the major refers to were put there by U.S. forces trying to access the facility when they engaged the Iraqi force there.
And I only say that’s possible. But, in fact, U.S. forces acknowledged having knocked some walls down to get into that facility.
PEARSON: We entered in through this area and address, and our mission was to find any exposed ammunition, clear ammunition that was -- had the potential to be pose a threat to U.S. forces or as easy access.
We specifically went in. I had nine palletized loading system vehicles, which encompasses both a truck and a trailer that has the capability of -- each truck and each trailer has 16.5 tons per vehicle, per truck, per trailer, for a total of 33 tons per system. We went in there with nine.
I collected ammunition from the earthen covered magazines. We drew that ammunition, loaded up onto our trucks, and moved it back to the captured ammunition holding area, LSA Dogwood.
Once we were at Dogwood, as part of our operations at the captured ammunition holding area, one of those was to destroy the captured enemy ammunition that we had on our site that was designated as high priority or as a risk to the soldiers managing the site.
We used some of this type of ammunition that we recovered from LSA Elms in order to facilitate those operations.
It is a typical -- what we have done. We would do about a 10,000-pound demolition explosion, a demolition shot. In order to facilitate that, you set up the shot and you wrap the rounds with plastic explosives.
And the doctrinal method to do that is, if you’re going to destroy captured enemy ammunition, you will use captured enemy ammunition to run the shot. And we consumed some of this ammunition in order to destroy the other ammunition we had.
And at the time, when this was all going on, my high water mark of ammunition -- because it went up and down as I destroyed ammunition -- was over 7,000 tons of ammunition at the captured ammunition holding area at Dogwood.
The captured ammunition holding area at Dogwood was destroyed in a fire in June of 2003. We had transitioned accountability and authority to another ordinance company.
I moved back during the entire time of the summer months because the nature and the quality of the captured enemy ammunition. We had multiple cook-offs throughout the day. And then, finally, the captured ammunition holding area was fully destroyed and engulfed in a fire.
That’s all I have, sir.
DI RITA: Before we take a couple questions, let me clarify a couple points that give a little bit more context to what the major just said.
He thinks his unit removed a couple hundred, 250 tons of ammunition. It encompasses a variety of ammunition. It encompasses -- he has photos that were not -- we may provide later; we’re reviewing those photos -- that reflect the types of -- in some cases the types of ammunition that have been seen on other video that’s been made available to the public within the last day or two: large boxes of plastic explosives, those sorts of things, I think commonly referred to by some as RDX by the ordnance handlers themselves.
DI RITA: One of the things that I think we are learning as, again, we continue to learn more about this, is that the original declaration of some 140 tons of RDX at this particular facility is probably not accurate. And we are trying to understand this better.
And as I said, we are learning more about what we -- our -- what we knew at the time and what was in the reports. It was probably, at this particular facility, a much smaller number of RDX; perhaps as low as three tons.
The major’s unit pulled 100 -- 250 tons of total equipment out of this facility, including a lot of plastic explosives. How much? I don’t think we know. It was a portion of the kinds of things, including detonation cord.
We have some talking points that will provide you that -- some data, some fact sheets.
So, I want to make sure that we are very clear on a point. There was some question about ammunition at a particular facility. The questions of those ammunition -- the facts that we’ve learned since then have caused some doubt about the initial reports, but that’s always the case. And that’s nobody’s fault; that’s what happens in life. You hear a report and then you go out and try and enrich that report with knowledge and facts. And we’ve tried to do that.
As we’ve gathered these facts, we’ve tried to put them out. And people can make their own evaluations.
We have captured and destroyed 400,000 tons of ammunition of a variety of types, including the types in question. The types in question constitute quite a small percentage of the total.
Some percentage of that total in question was almost certainly removed from bunkers and destroyed by Major Pearson’s unit. There were other units that followed -- and we’re learning more about that, and as we have more information, we’ll provide it -- other units that followed that had the responsibility, task forces that had the responsibility for policing up conventional ordnance, other units that followed that had the responsibility of identifying sites of weapons of mass destruction.
DI RITA: There’s a perception that I think is unfortunate that’s been left by the initial reports of this weapons that leave the impression that the military forces there did not have a systematic approach to three priorities: taking down the regime of Saddam Hussein; minimizing casualties to U.S. and coalition forces, and indeed to Iraqis; and identifying and securing weapons throughout that country.
And what we have learned since the unfortunate response to the initial report is that, as we’ve delved into this deeper, we’ve been able to demonstrate, I think, that that planning was well conceived and extraordinary well executed by the forces that are over there.
And with that, I’ll leave it to the major.
QUESTION: Major, could you please better describe the explosives that were removed? Were they primarily assembled weapons? Were they raw material like the granular HMX or RDX? And could you, sort of, give us a ratio out of that 250 tons how much were assembled weapons and how much were raw material?
PEARSON: As a conventional ammunition ordnance officer, I deal with ammunition logistics management. I am not a technical specialist. I am not explosive ordnance disposal or technical intelligence. My role and what I’ve been trained on is to manage ammunition facilities and mitigate the risk and exposure to U.S. forces and civilians.
The specifics of what we talked about that we pulled out of there, from my recollection, is some TNT, plastic explosives; I can’t further define other than that, plastic explosives. Detonation cords, initiators, and white phosphorous rounds, which were a higher priority for us to go in there.
QUESTION: So you don’t know...
QUESTION: But do you believe there was HMX?
QUESTION: Yes. You don’t know if there was HMX?
DI RITA: Let me handle that.
QUESTION: Did it look like those barrels -- you know this video that ABC had.
DI RITA: We’ve described what we know. And as we learn more, we’ll describe that. The major has...
