Russia denies involvement in removing explosives from Iraqi military facility
MOSCOW Russia is angrily denying it had anything to do with removing a cache of high explosives from Iraq before the U-S invasion in March of 2003. A Defense Ministry spokesman dismissed the allegations as "absurd" and "ridiculous." The ministry spokesman says all of its military experts left Iraq when the international sanctions were introduced during the 1991 Gulf War.
The denial follows a story in today's Washington Times. That story quotes a high-ranking U-S defense official alleging that Russian special forces had "almost certainly" helped spirit out the hundreds of tons of high explosives before the start of the U-S-led invasion of Iraq.
Two weeks ago, Iraqi officials told the U-N International Atomic Energy Agency that 377 tons of explosives had vanished as a result of "theft and looting due to a lack of security."
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