The Al Qa'qaa high explosives controversy concerns the possible removal by Iraqi insurgency of about 377 tonnes of high explosives, HMX and RDX, after the 2003 invasion of Iraq. Although Pentagon spokesman Lawrence Di Rita said that the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has not come forward with documentation that explains how it arrived at the figure of 377 tons of missing explosives. The IAEA so far only has verified in its paperwork that 219 tons of explosive materials were at Al-Qaqaa and surrounding facilities. The explosives, considered dangerous by the IAEA, were certified by UN weapons inspectors to be inside facilities whose doors were fastened with chains and the United Nations' seal, at the Al Qa'qaa industrial complex in Iraq in 2003. By October 2004, the facility was empty. Background In October 2004, the Iraqi interim government warned the U.S. that nearly 380 tons of conventional explosives had been removed from the Al-Qa'qaa facility. The Bush administration was criticized for failing to guard known weapons stashes of this size after the invasion. Critics of the Bush administration claimed that U.S. forces were to blame for the looting, which put weapons that were formerly under UN control into the hands of insurgents. The Bush administration asserted before the 2004 U.S. election that the explosives were either removed by Iraq before invaders captured the facility, or properly accounted for by US forces, even while White House and Pentagon officials acknowledged that they had vanished after the invasion. MSNBC wrote: Time magazine reported the sequence of events: "In late April IAEA's chief weapons inspector for Iraq warned the U.S. of the vulnerability of the site, and in May 2003, an internal IAEA memo warned that terrorists could be looting "the greatest explosives bonanza in history." Seventeen months later, on October 10, in response to a long-standing request from the IAEA to account for sensitive materials, the interim Iraqi government notified the agency that al-Qaqaa had been stripped clean. The White House learned about the notification a few days later." Evidence indicated that the explosives were most likely removed after invading US forces captured the facility. The looting was witnessed by U.S. Army reservists and National Guardsman from separate units as well as officials of the new Iraqi government. Frank Rich editorialized in The New York Times (May 15, 2005): For a timeline of events resulting in the storage and subsequent loss of