Roger L. Simon: Liar, Liar, Al Qaqaa Pants on Fire

... or is it the New York Times building? It must be embarrassing to be an employee of that newspaper today, assuming their partisan zeal has not overwhelmed normal human emotion, to find themselves humiliated by the Washington Times, of all institutions, a newspaper which a few years ago (yes, I admit it) I would barely have used to line my kitty litter.

But Bill Gertz of the Wash Times has a bombshell tonight, although I can't say it truly shocks me. Jayson Blair did me a favor. I don't trust the NYT anymore the way I did for fifty-some years of my life. Anyway, Gertz corroborates what we all know - the Times story of missing explosives was jerry-rigged propaganda concocted to make the president look bad and get Kerry elected. How could it have been otherwise? Obviously, the Times didn't do the slightest bit of research on the matter. They just rushed the story out. Otherwise they might have found out what Gertz did - that the explosives were "almost certainly" moved before the war (logical, isn't it?) and that Russian intelligence helped Saddam do it. This too is no surprise because anyone following the Iraq War story reasonably closely knows that the Russians were deeply enmeshed with the Iraqi mukhabarat at that time.

What's even more embarrassing is that Times' story is further discredited by that other organ of the "extreme right" ABC News. Apparently there was a "discrepancy" in the amount of missing explosives reported. It wasn't the 380 tons of the Times' story. According to ABC:

But the confidential IAEA documents obtained by ABC News show that on Jan. 14, 2003, the agency's inspectors recorded that just over 3 tons of RDX was stored at the facility - a considerable discrepancy from what the Iraqis reported.

Now look, we all have a right to be outraged. These are the same media which have been telling the country how badly the Iraq War is going. These are the same media who are lopsidedly favoring Kerry over Bush in this election. Only this time their partisanship may have trapped the Senator. In his excitement with the New York Times explosives story, Kerry has gone around the country trumpeting Bush's "mistake" for anyone in shouting distance. Now it's his mistake. Let's hope the Senator has flipped his last flop.

UPDATE: Forgot to mention that I saw Paul Bremer being interviewed by Brit Hume tonight. This was evidently Bremer's first appearance of this nature since returning and he made it to refute the Times' explosives story. He said it would have been impossible for the dozens of trucks necessary to remove 380 tons of explosives at that time to have done so without having been noticed by US forces (well, maybe it was only 3 tons... then, who knows?). The roads were apparently empty then. I guess the Times didn't want to ask about that either. One final thing - I wonder what John Burns, who did do some wonderful reporting from Iraq for the NYT thinks about all this.

Comments

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Doesn't this dovetail very nicely with Ion Mihai Pacepa's reporting of the "sÄƒrindar" strategy the Russians had with all their Warsaw Pact allies?

Excuse the screwy character there. That should be an a with a breve. It looked ok in the "preview." Sorry.

If this blows up, it'll be just another example of that famous Bush "strategery".

This is the biggest story since Saddam's capture. Here we have the strong possibility that Russia assisted Saddam in hiding weapons of mass destruction in Syria. Putin hied, people died!

This story will ignite tomorrow, whether or not the NYT and WaPo climb aboard. Condi Rice is going to do morning talk shows.

The bloggers are banging their cages; LGF has 500+ post thread going on this, Polipundit has one with over 300 posts.

There's an interesting letter to the WSJ posted at Horsefeathers. The topic is Sen. Kerry, and the letter is written by a Dr. David Schlossberg, M.D., who was in his class at Yale. Ring any bells?

The good doctor doesn't think much of the senator, it's fair to say. Schlossberg was the roommate with Blackjack Pershing's grandson, whom Kerry is always invoking as a fallen hero and dear friend. It would not surprise you to find out he wasn't.

Pacepa's article tracks completely with the Washington Times story. It also gives the motive. WOW! This is getting to be some caper.

Colmes was yelling tonite, I mean yelling and not letting the guest get a word in edgewise.

The guest, NY Congressman Peter King, had called the UN, New York Times, CBS, and John Kerry an axis of evil. LOL I love it.

There was one of our guys who had actually been in that dump in April '03. I don't think he's ever been on TV before. Colmes grilled him like the meanest of prosecutorial lawyers and the kid did great...he refuted every one of Colmes snarky points. His grin at the end showed he knew it. Bless him.

BTW, on Scarborough Country last night (er, Tuesday nite) Bob Zelnick of ABC News said the New York Times committed an egregious error with shoddy reporting on this story. Yes, he used those words: egregious and shoddy.

Any news organization that has any integrity at all should be furious at the Times and CBS for the hit on their profession's reputation. Zelnick was furious.

Our friend Dick Morris said this was a fatal mistake on Kerry's part. Kerry was doing well by emphasizing the economy and health care last weekend and he should have stayed on that path and let the whitehouse and the Times fight this out on their own.

However, a little bird told me somewhere that it was actually Bill Clinton who advised Kerry to go on the attack about the missing explosives.

I almost feel sorry for Kerry. But he willingly stepped in it himself. A couple of words from Clinton and Kerry leaped in with both feet. It wouldn't be any more difficult for Chirac to lead him around as well.

Tracking poll note. The WaPo tracking poll still has Kerry up by 1 today. That's because they switched (in the middle of the game) from accumulating over three days to four. So the Kerry statistical bump stayed in an extra day. Bush will be up in the WaPo tracker tomorrow.

I have way too much going on in my life however I feel a need to take the time to say... John Kerry is an absolute shmendrik (yes and also a shmendrek). How absolutely desperate and stupid this is? I read the polls and admit to some nervousness but I also have also been involved enough in campaigning to safely say the following... The Kerry campaign must have some internal poll numbers that are causing them just a little shpilkes, this is an absolute blunder! How much of a blunder? Well that simply depends upon what you think is the important theme to be dominating the campaign during the last week of the campaign.

I'll simply say that issues cut in many different directions but what is most important is to understand that these different directions are tied to the nature of the topics. For example Bush has a pretty good reputation on the domestic issue of Education, so why should he (Bush) avoid such a topic? Because all of her relative issues that are politically dangerous and for the most part losers for Dubya (Health Care, Social Security, Economy, Jobs etc). Now of all the Foreign Policy or Security issues John Kerry is strongest on and closest with Dubya on in trust is who would do better concerning Iraq. So may I point out the obvious? All the other related sister issues skew to Dubya's greatest strengths and by a mile. That Kerry would feel a need to attack here tells me he knows he must further undermine that support, BUT IT IS THE LAST WEEK OF THE CAMPAIGN! This story only could have helped if it were done AFTER THE WEEKEND SUNDAY SHOWS.

These stories will now be discussed on Sunday, but by then the added fact that the MSM jumped the gun, Kerry was opportunistic and even worse the story will be mostly refuted and by then they will be cutting Dubya's way. John Kerry you played with fire one time too many, the last week will now be about two things. First, Foreign Policy and Security and secondly that John Kerry will say anything to be elected. John Kerry's negatives will cut more against him then then the supposed incompetence he and the MSM are trying to stamp on this President. I now expect a slew of commercials to accent those facts. Like Dick Morris I think Kerry just lost the election.

I have said in the past that I feel sorry for John Kerry but no more, my contempt and loathing of the man has finally reached a point that sympathy is buried under such sentiments.

She and the Bush administration are placed in a Catch 22 predicament. It must somehow reveal the Russian connection to this scandal---while still not burning its bridges with Vladimir Putin regarding future cooperation on the war on terror. Condi Rice will have to carefully finesse her comments. Still, Bush’s people are far better off than Kerry’s. The latter are royally screwed. And to think that it’s only early Thursday morning. President Bush is looking increasingly good for November 2nd. The battle for Fullajah must now begin in earnest. This long overdue combat must monopolize the news. The death of Arrafat would also be icing on the cake.

I don't know why I'm bothering but THE WASHINGTON TIMES!!!!!! Roger, you don't trust the NYT but THE WASHINGTON TIMES is a credible newspaper? REV MOON anyone? Why do you bemoan the bias and belittle the reporting of the NYT while giving a free pass to any right wing rag (TWT) or blogger that helps you feel better about Bush? Go ahead and yell at me but I'm tired of the Right-Wing denial machine. Just because Sean Hannity yells something loud enough does not make it true. This Russian Special Ops story is second hand and could just as easily be BS as the "truth". Just like the Swift Boats. At least the NYT has to be accountable for what it prints, this story was brought out because the Iraqi Govt put out a memo warning about missing explosives. It's right there at the lede of the story plain as day. You can't just call it a lie because it makes Bush & Co look like they weren't ready for the looting and chaos after the fall of Saddam. I know none of you will agree with any of this but we need to find some truth standards, Karl Rove calls everything a lie that doesn't make his man look good, it's out of hand, but Swift Boat Vets come out which is proven hearsay and has no evidence to back up anything and you guys give it a free pass. We're all in this together my right wing friends. Goodnight

“Roger, you don't trust the NYT but THE WASHINGTON TIMES is a credible newspaper? REV MOON anyone?”

The Washington Times is a very careful and thorough journalistic organization. Rev. Moon is indeed a very strange individual, if not even downright weird---but he has nothing to do with running the newspaper. Moon is similar in this respect to the church leaders who apparently still own the Christian Science Monitor. And yes, The Washington Times is far more reliable than The New York Times. It earns our respect. So much so, that one is hard pressed to point out any major blunders by any of its journalists. Are there any?

Keith, your anger seems a little forced. Evidently you did not read the ABC link from the post which pretty much disposes of the Iraqi memo. You must be thorough, sir, if you wish to discredit people on here. Do your homework before throwing around terms like right wing. I have read Mr. Simon's vitae. Have you?

It does? Except for Jayson Blair, the NYT has never been accountable for the lies and distortions it prints. Who do you think this Walter Duranty guy is that Roger keeps referring to? He (or his heirs) have still got the Pulitzer he won for his lies in the NYT.

We are trying to make the NYT accountable for what it prints, but so far it's slow going.

And stop repeating crap about how the Swift Vets have been discredited. Do your homework; they haven't. But of course you wouldn't know that, since your main source of information on the subject is probably said NYT.

Reverend Moon has no editorial control over the newspaper whatsoever. Do you live in Washington? I certainly do and as a former lefty myself I would say you would do yourself a favor and refute the evidence specifically rather than invoke some sort of lazy guilt by association (ironically common by a political left that claims intellectual superiority, I find it rather embarrassing). I spent the 1990's decrying the Washington Times as a right wing hit publication, yet her stories universally were proved correct, certainly way more accurate than the NY Times (though the Washington Post is infinitely better than the NY Times). I would venture to guess the Washington Times is more accurate then both the Reverend Moon notwithstanding.

But this begs some questions. Is it the WATimes accuracy or lack thereof the issue, or is the left now so desperate and ugly as to stoop to making a man's religion a disqualifier? Could it be a similar resentment to the one displayed towards Fox News and other organizations that counter balance the hierarchy of a formerly "get away with murder" liberal press? However I will add that I doubt truth seeking is your goal, but it is for me. As a never have voted for Republican ex-Democrat I think I know where you are coming from but I am past that, move on please. I read them all, liberal and conservative, let truth be found wherever it may be. Go live in peace in your one-way universe.

You cannot assume, and neither can Kerry, that the explosives were looted after we got there. There is absolutely no evidence they were. Nada.
Even Holbrooke and Jamie Rubin say we don't know!!

And if you read all the way to the bottom of the NYTimes piece they actually say that the Iraqi government does not know when the explosives went missing either!

But there goes Kerry claiming these explosives disappeared when they were under our control.

Kerry is blaming our troops who were inside the number ONE dump on our list at least 4 times as well as having the place surrounded in those early weeks after the invasion. They found no sign of those explosives. Neither did they let looters in, nor trucks out.

Just because Colmes screams that Kerry isn't blaming our troops he is only blaming Bush, doesn't make it true. Kerry's back to 1971 and it was so very easy to slip into his old ways. If what Kerry claims were true, it means our troops were horribly incompetent.

Kerry is no diplomat...he has no idea what affect his words have. Our guys in Iraq are angry. And Kerry hopes to be Commander in Chief?

Kerry is also lying that these explosives have been used against our troops since. There is no, nada, evidence that any of these explosives have ever been used since we arrived there.

I can tell this debunking is getting to you. Pacepa (if you read his piece) drives lefties nuts because he shows how useful those useful idiots can be. Moscow's psy-ops molded the anti-war left in Europe. It's difficult to accept that the notion of 'American Imperialism' wasn't spontaneously generated because people love peace. It was tubed into their heads through propaganda.

The idea that Iraq hired Russia to dispose of its weapons is certainly not out of the question since Russia already did it once, a couple of decades ago, with Libya. And Pacepa was in charge of that program. He knows exactly how it works.

And there are satellite pics of convoys of trucks crossing the border into syria before the war. One set as close to the invasion as within 48 hours. We couldn't do anything about it because we'd given Saddam his final ultimatum and he had that 48 hours to comply. But Assad knows we know.

Dammit, terrorists are fighting us in Iraq because they're furious we're fighting back. And that makes Bush incompetent? Oh my. The Japanese fought back all over the Pacific and killed our guys by the tens of thousands. Did that make Roosevelt incompetent?

As for the Swifties. Nothing they have said has been debunked. Not one thing. In fact, quite a bit of what the Swifties point out is words written by Kerry himself and Kerry debunks Kerry! Read Unfit for Command and Tour of Duty side by side and you'll see it for yourself.

I posted on my site yesterday that nobody has bothered to calculate the cubic feet of truck space required to move the tonnage. As near as I can figure it would have taken at least 38 tractor trailers or an even larger number of dump trucks. All this in a country that had almost no gasoline right after the war (or deisel fuel). The more you look and actually think about this the more we can all hope that both CBS and the NYT vanish like the Hapsburgs. And Gertz, a hell of a reporter, blows everything to hell this AM anyway.

"The good doctor doesn't think much of the senator, it's fair to say. Schlossberg was the roommate with Blackjack Pershing's grandson, whom Kerry is always invoking as a fallen hero and dear friend. It would not surprise you to find out he wasn't."

Fresh Air, great find! At the risk of sounding like a Monday morning quarterback, I have to go on record and say my Spidey senses were tingling when I read the passages about Dick Pershing in the Brinkley hagiography on behalf of Kerry.

Roger, me thinks you retracted the " Is Kerry a sociopath?" supposition a little too soon.....

By the way, check out the Kerry soccer pictures linked to the " Football Fans for Truth" Kerry parody website, (It's linked to the " Horsefeathers " site provided in Fresh Air's post). I'm not responsible if you wet your pants from laughter.

RDX has a density of 1.8 grams per cubic centimeter. source This works out to 1.8 (metric) tons per cubic meter. (you have to love the metric system) So 377 tons would be 209 cubic meters. But mass is more likely to be the limiting factor than volume.

A small civilian pickup truck can carry about 2 tons. So even if we assume that we can ignore the mass of the crates containing the explosives, it would take 189 of these to move this quantity of explosives.

A typical army truck can carry 10,000 lbs, which works out to 4.5 metric tons. It would take 84 truckloads to move 377 tons.

A larger vehicle has a capacity of 20 metric tons. If the Iraqi (or Syrian or Russian) government had something like this available, they could cart it away in one convoy of 19 vehicles.

Since a tractor-trailer is intermediate between these last two vehicles, a fleet of 38 sounds about right.

One more thing to remember: if you have to take your trucks off road, cargo capacities will be lower, and so it will take more vehicles.

My wife - who has undergone a Roger Simon-like political transmogrification - was rushing out the door this morning, but stopped to make this observation:

Is it now Kerry's turn to claim that he was acting on the best available intelligence? He wasn't really lying per se, just relying on what his experts told him?

She was grinning the delicious grin of the vindicated, but also knew that the MSM wouldn't hold him to it. And I don't expect a Michael Moore "documentary" on the lies of Putin, the UN, the NYT, CBS news, and John Kerry.

Perchance to dream: open with a little Iraqi boy flying a kite. In the background, Russian trucks with cartoonish rocket props sticking out from beneath canvas tarps roll by....

I should add that a Magic Hat can move 377 tons all the way to Cambodia and back in time for Christmas. We need to take that into account...

The problem with folks like yourself is that you assume that people on the right lie and people on the left tell the truth. End of story, it is as simple as that for you.

Not so. I have Unfit for Command and I know these men have not been discredited. I am old enough to remember Kerry's testimony and I know what followed and his total and complete inability to deal with the truth that many of his winter soldier friends had not been in Viet Nam at all. He lied for political advantage then and he is doing so now. He believed what was useful to believe and ran with it trampling a bunch of GIs in the process.

I have never been a great fan of the Washington Times, but it appears that they have a source here that actually is a living person with a name, more than can be said for the Kerry fan club passing itself off as a news source.

I'm cautious of buying in to the story, but I can't get past the fact that this is sourced and that the Pentagon hasn't refuted it yet. The thing is so explosive, that if Shaw's just gone off the reservation, people at the Pentagon would be getting woken up to deal with it.

The Russians may have been involved in moving incriminating evidence from Iraq but I find it unlikely that they would put easily replaced, legal explosives on the emergency "must move" list. My guess is that something more interesting was stored in those bunkers. Something like nuclear components, chemical munitions or biological agents.

The latest news on the HMX/RDX story is that amount of explosives was far less then 377 tonnes. I am of the opinion that those explosives did exist at all. They had either been removed after 1998 or were an accounting error. The fact is that the IAEA never looked inside the bunkers. They only inspected the seals and took Iraq’s word about the contents.

They accepted Iraq's word about the contents? The more I learn about it, the more I realize that the entire inspection process was a joke.

I remember seeing a video taken by UN inspectors where massive calutron (an isotope separation device) components were driven away on trucks. The inspectors tried to chase them but the Iraqis shot at them. In the end, the trucks got away. I've never heard a word about what happened to those components. I assume that they're still missing.

Sorry to go OT here, but at least a part of this thread has mentioned whether or not Kerry made a serious (perhaps even fatal) error jumping into the QaQaa with such reckless abandon. I don't know that it matters. It is entirely possible that he has no chance to be elected and never really did. The reasons for that are many and varied. Primary among them, of course, is that Kerry is a Loon and a terrible candidate and that Bush, to all but the fervent ABBers, seems a decent man who has done a reasonable job under difficult circumstances; i.e, he doesn't deserve to be fired and especially not when the guy who would replace him is a demonstrable nutball.

We live in odd times and sometimes even the little stuff just doesn't break one's way. And even absent the big gaffes, the little stuff isn't breaking Kerry's way.

I'll put NJ up as an example. I wouldn't wager that NJ's EC votes go to GWB, but its not a completely safe bet they'll go to Kerry. And if Kerry is in trouble in NJ he's toast. NJ is a solidly Blue and Democratic Party Machine state. It has the odd quirk, however, of being sort of the Missouri's Crazy Aunt state. MO is the "Show Me!" state. NJ is the "Yo, notfuhnuttin' but I seen dat already. What else you got?" state. And when NJers don't like the answer to "what else you got?" they can turn on a dime and become the "Up Yours!" state.

It is possible - certainly not probable, but entirely possible - that NJ is about to tell the Democratic Party "Up Yours!". I can't say that the arguments in this article will ultimately be shown to be accurate, but IMO they are astute and plausible.

(1) that 377 tons is someone's half-assed translation of 350 metric tons (tonnes). At specific gravity of 1.82 that's 192+ m^3.

(2) cyclonite in its raw form is generally a crystalline powder, so it's unlikely to be more than about 0.6–0.7 in bulk.

"ONCE again, John Kerry shows his instinct to go for the capillaries, rather than the jugular."

Since you brought up the SBV lets examine the issue. Whether or not their charges against Sen. Kerry are true or not it is a fact that Bush-Cheney has not mentioned or tried to use their accusations as a campaign issues on the stump.Sen. Kerry first tried to use the 60 Minutes fraud story to attack Bush and now in a desperate attempt to denigrate the war is using a shoddy innaccurate story by the NYT.Before he had time to check out the accuracy of the story he repeated the now crumbling story as if it was 100% true, "a growing scandal". We don't need a President who reads the NYT and acts before he checks out the facts. President Bush and Vice President Cheney had the class to leave the SBV story alone. I think Sen. Kerry would use one of Jon Stewarts fake news stories if he thought it would sound good.

Regarding whether or not the charges the SBV brought against Kerry are accurate, the Senator could have signed the 180 form and released ALL of his military records and could have blown away much of what the Swifties chargew him with. Unlike the NYT, I am not going to say that this fact proves the SVB story is true but it does make me a little curious what Kerry doesn't want the public to find out about his story. President Bush signed the form and released everything. Sen. Kerry hasn't. Ask him to give us the entire record and he can bury this story. Keith ask yourself, Why won't he release his complete military records?

I get the feeling that Sully wishes we would have done it better than all of history's notables.

Prague.
Why cant we do it like the Russians?
Yes that's it. thats the ticket
We didn't have the Russian 'efficiency manual'.

Oh well. Somebody get me that 'Russian Aid' manual, Translated, On my desk pronto.
Remember the footnotes, footnotes. I want to know what things really mean. Get me anything you got on Eurasia and Eastasia while you at it.

"Bush, to all but the fervent ABBers, seems a decent man who has done a reasonable job under difficult circumstances;"? Actually almost every conservative I know, including people who hate Kerry with a white hot passion, thinks Bush has been a very disappointing president. The list of former Bush supporters voting for Kerry is surprisingly lengthy, at least among the foreign policy elite. I can understand distrusting and disliking Kerry but there's not a lot of evidence that Bush is a decent man or that he's done a reasonable job. Time after time it seems the blogosphere has to bail him out since his adminstration always seems unable or unwilling to explain what they're doing or why they're doing it. That is no way to govern. It seems to me perfectly reasonable to think that Bush and Kerry are both awful in their own particular ways - the question is now, who will do more harm?
It also seems to me that both libs and cons are missing the true issue with the Al-Qaaqa "scandal." Bush is quite right to point out that it was no secret that Iraq was full of dangerous weapons, and the blogosphere may be right that the IAEA was lying or duped. Certainly it does not seem credible that there were in fact 380 tons of materiel at Al Qaaqa on April 3. Still, the fact remains that the IAEA told the US that there were munitions under seal at that location and many other locations before the war. Why were we so cavalier about investigating and securing these sites? If you're trying to find WMD wouldn't you have instructed the troops visiting these locations to perform a more rigorous cataloguing of what was there? Why was no effort made to secure these sites? If you really believed Iraq had a credible WMD threat wouldn't you have prepared a plan in advance to check and secure these locations? Why has the administration changed its story 3 times in the last 3 days? Why does the Washington Times have to bail them out again? The circumstantial evidence certainly suggests that the administration was never really concerned about WMD in Iraq.

I believe the WaPo says (via Instapundit) this morning the NYT concluded the missing explosives story wasn't holdable until Sunday because the Internet was leaking it already.

In another vein, while recently giving a talk to a college journalism class about the impact of weblogs, I asked the retired-journalist professor whether she had discussed Rathergate. Yes, she said, she had explained to the class that the memos were forgeries but Dan Rather had to go with them because he had a deadline.

The impression I got from the experienced, and the budding, journalists was not reassuring. More assumptions, less logic.

Good God, would it be asking so much that the dolts cut&pasting their talking points into comments break them into paragraphs?

You said: "If you really believed Iraq had a credible WMD threat wouldn't you have prepared a plan in advance to check and secure these locations? Why has the administration changed its story 3 times in the last 3 days? Why does the Washington Times have to bail them out again? The circumstantial evidence certainly suggests that the administration was never really concerned about WMD in Iraq."

Your argument is specious. RDX and HMX are not WMD. They form the basis for insensitive munitions. RDX and HMX are use in artillery rounds, mines, torpedoes and conventional bombs. The IAEA monitored this stock because it was allegedly part of the Iraqi nuclear program. UN inspectors wanted to have the stocks destroyed in 1995 but the IAEA said that Iraq could keep them as long as they could be inspected. Remember, it has now been reported that the IAEA never actually opened the bunkers. They merely checked the seals.

In addition, if Iraq wanted to restart its nuclear program they didn't need to use this particular stock of RDX/HMX to build the implosion device. Any old stock of these compounds would have done just fine. I believe that Saddam hand several hundred thousand metric tonnes of material in other locations to choose from.

American forces were given instructions to secure WMD related materials. The 3rd ID, not the 101st AAD was first on the scene, did not find any WMD related materials so they proceeded on with their mission of driving the enemy before them and hearing their women weep in lamentation.

This story is dead. It was at best an example of poor research and at worst a blatant attempt to deceive the electorate into voting for Kerry.

Yep, Charlie I agree. This site has been under constant attack by trolls who I would virtually guarantee have never been here until the last week or two.

*Actually almost every conservative I know, including people who hate Kerry with a white hot passion, thinks Bush has been a very disappointing president.*

Well thats funny, the vast majority of folks on this board seem to think that while Bush has made mistakes, the vast majority of his presidency has been a success- democracy implemented in Afghanistan, Sadaam removed from power and set for trial, potential democracy in Iraq, no attacks on US Soil, anywhere from 50-75% of Al Queda's head guys captured or killed, Taliban removed, economy on the upswing, etc. Its sheer fever swamp lunancy to suggest that Bush's presidency has been "disappointing", considering we suffered a major attack, undertook two wars and are still standing. What exactly about Bush "disappoints" your (heh) conservative friends. Personally, I find it ironic I don't know one conservative (and I know alot of them) who are voting for Kerry but I know a substantial amount of current/former liberals NOT voting for Kerry. Hell, look no further then NY liberal jews voting for Bush- Koch, Guilliani, etc. Please oh please identify a republican of Koch's stature who has publicly come out in favor of Kerry. I'll wait for your google search to come up with nothing.

*The list of former Bush supporters voting for Kerry is surprisingly lengthy, at least among the foreign policy elite.*

Oh and who would that be ? Despite Kerry's constant references to republicans he somehow thinks support him, John McCain, Dick Lugar, Tommy Franks, etc are voting for Bush. And who exactly are the "foreign policy elite" - sounds like state department schills left over from Clinton's stunning foreign policy outreach program.

Look, cutting and pasting a bunch of talking points is not going to convince anybody on this blog to vote for Kerry. The vast majority of the commentators are smart enough to understand the stakes in this election.

It is apparent that George Soros has wasted his money when he paid the the intellectually indept to make these type of absurd arguments.

IMPORTANT CLARIFICATION: The "3 tons" figure being thrown about was for the RDX only. The HMX figure is still consistent with the IAEA estimates. This lessens the impact of the story a bit, but that still means they're off 140 tons or so, at least I think that's the amount.

Still, don't forget the other part of the story: that the IAEA's own report states that it would be relatively simple to access the explosives without breaking the seals through ventilation ducts on the sides of the buildings. So the explosives could have been removed while maintaining the seals intact. And incidnetally: would random looters bother to preserve the seals? I think not.

Check out all the pictures of drums labeled "explosives." And apparently the U.S. troops left without securing the place.

I was going to stay home, then a conversation and the dem primaries made me a broken-glass pubbie.

Check out all the pictures of drums labeled "explosives." And apparently the U.S. troops left without securing the place.

I wonder if there's any video of the Marines breaking into any doors with I.A.E.A. seals on them?

The facility did have some nuke-related stuff, insofar as RDX could be used to detonate warheads. The rest of it was destroyed after 1992.

However, the reason the Russians wanted it gone is very simple: they don't like evidence of their stuff lying around. As Gen. Pacepa very astutely shows. Also, his story ties in completely with the WaT article.

It actually makes perfect sense. According to Pacepa they were sweeping the whole country of stuff. The RMX & HMX just happened to be on their to-do list.

It was definitely at Al Qa Qaa some point between 2001 (when Al Sammoud II was started) and 2003; it's mentioned in the Duelfer report.

Here in Utah we are limited to KSL AM for network radio news. They broadcast with 50K watts and can be hear on the moons of Jupiter at night.

The top of the hour network news last hour makes no mention of the questions being asked about the RDX issue - except that Kerry is using it as a club.

The soundbite they plucked from a Kerry stump appearance was pathetic - "Just give me a moment...a moment to celebrate the Red Sox." *gack*

I'd be a lot more willing to buy a story about some missing conventional explosives EXCEPT that the MSM's own coverage from the period in question negates what they are reporting now. EXCEPT for the fact that literally hundreds of other IAEA controlled materials disappeared in the interim between the end of inspections and the arrival of coalition forces. EXCEPT that El Baradei was the origin of the story, and both he and Kofi Annan out of a job after Bush is reelected. EXCEPT for the fact that the packaging, timing, and urgency with which the story was eventually released serve no purpose other than to serve as a lever to influence this election. Three hundred tons? Out of 600K tons, or more? EXCEPT for the fact that my local radio news has three minutes every hour (over the last four days) to track national news and they have spent that time promulgating the NYT/CBS version, without reference to conflicting information, and have managed to insert their editorial opinion against Bush with every report.

Am I surprised that Rus SpecOps may have been involved in attempting to 'sanitize' evidence of Rus/Iraqi cooperation or economic ties? No. Putin is trying to pack ten pounds of crap into a two pound bag in Russia and Iraq represented one of the only dependable long-standing cash sources he had to exploit. Who else would be buying billions of dollars worth of third-rate aircraft and surplus Warsaw Pact artillery? Do I like the idea? No, of course not, but I can understand that it was in the national interest of Russia to push the envelope there. As far as further collusion by the Rus in areas of WMD components and technology, I'll just point out that Beslan has happened since the last Rus tech left Iraq. They've had their 9/11 and I'd rather see them bring their support, based on their new appreciation of their interests, to the war then see them written off out of hand for what is basically old news.

The issue isn't what weapons the enemy has. It's that they are still the enemy, and still breathing.

Bush intends to address that problem directly, and with extreme prejudice. Kerry wants to negotiate. The choice could not be more clear.

Reread my post...any particular RDX would do for building the implosion trigger. If Saddam wanted to build a bomb he there were lots of places for him to get unmonitored stocks of HMX/RDX.

Swopa: Get a life. Raw HMX/RDX, which is what we are talking about, was not on the must secure list because it was not an immediate threat. It takes all sorts of binders and initiating devices to make this stuff into a useable explosive. Do you know what the term insensitive munitions means? One would think that you would do some googling to learn about this stuff before you run off at the mouth.

...any particular RDX would do for building the implosion trigger. If Saddam wanted to build a bomb he there were lots of places for him to get unmonitored stocks of HMX/RDX.

Or, for that matter, you could use TNT or dynamite. If you use the gun-type design, you could probably use black powder. You use high-brissance stuff like RDX to save fissiles.

One would think that you would do some googling to learn about this stuff before you run off at the mouth.

Please elaborate on what you believe the story at the link you provided tells us?

Let's recap a moment, shall we? Al Qaqaa was supposedly a VAST chemical (with an apparent focus on explosives) plant - the largest one in Iraq which had the largest chemical industry in the ME. We have, to my knowledge, no idea of either the total amounts or the types of explosives and chemicals produced, handled, and stored at Al Qaqaa. Since the plant was "vast" and consisted of something like 10 factory complexes, it seems somewhat reasonable to presume that there was considerably more than 377 metric tons of various sorts of explosives and explosive chemicals at Al Qaqaa at any given time.

Once upon a time the IAEA identified, at Al Qaqaa, a total of 377 metric tonnes of two particular components (RDX and HMX) used to produce various types of explosives some of which might be useful to a nuclear weapons program. How much of each was present I am unaware of, perhaps it has been reported somewhere, perhaps the amount of each is important.

Let's ignore that at least one report suggests the amount of one of these as 3-5 tonnes. Let's ignore the possibility that the actual amount is potentially in dispute by up to two orders of magnitude.

The IAEA "sealed" the bunkers containing these particular explosives which were, presumably, only some portion of the total component, partially processed and finished material typically on site at Al Qaqaa. I haven't seen anything reporting how the materials were packaged or labeled but both are typically described as crystalline powder. It seems somewhat reasonable to assume the powder was packaged in drums and/or sacks of some sort. Perhaps it was in simple, unpackaged piles of powder. If anyone knows, please share.

As best as I can determine from the reports available to we webjunkies, the last even marginally comprehensive inspection of these materials by the UN/IAEA/UNMOVIC was done in Jan. '03 with a cursory check again sometime after that but before the war began.

Is that a reasonable recap? Is there anything above that you feel unfairly characterizes the situation?

An embed news crew with a MN based ABC news affiliate was with a unit of the 101st Airborne while they were apparently at the Al Qaqaa complex.

The US troops, observed by the embed news crew, opened and inspected some number of bunkers with contents labeled (surprise!) "Explosive".

With apparent ease and a rudimentary level of expertise, the US troops opened, inspected, and sometimes identified the contents of bunkers but other times could not identify the contents.

Please note, at this point, that there is no mention of any IAEA seals on any of these bunkers and that the troops on hand apparently recognized much of what they saw (detonation cords) and couldn't identify some of what they saw. One might suppose that somebody would have noticed some IAEA seals, but who's to say.

Once the bunkers were opened with the snap of a boltcutter and inspected, they were not "relocked" and, at some point, the particular unit of the 101st that the embeds were with returned to their base embeds in tow.

To some it may seem "cavalier" that these bunkers were not locked back up somehow or that the troops in question returned to their base two or three miles away from the bunkers rather than pitching their tents right outside the door. To others of us it seems no suprise that the troops didn't have a ready supply of locks to replace those they cut open. It also seems a bit prudent on the part of the troops to pitch their tents a safe distance from the bunkers full of explosives rather than nice and "secure" right outside the doors. But hey, we each have our interpretations based upon our experiences in this life.

The embeds, at least in retrospect, feel the explosives were not well secured...

but give us no idea of how many Iraqis, how they might have been equipped, what role they played, their status wrt to the US forces around them, or how they behaved. Apparently there weren't exactly "shitloads" of them and they didn't generally seem hostile or dangerous or even particularly mobile. I say this because of what the news crew found "noteworthy"...

So three or four guys in a pickup truck were enough to give them cause for concern. I may be stretching to infer that the other Iraqis [who] were coming and going freely didn't seem to much cause for concern and that pickup trucks were not particularly common and were, therefore, noteworthy and potentially dangerous.

Since the embeds did not notice this pickup truck with 3 or 4 Iraqis was filled with drums, sacks, or boxes marked "Explosive", nor were the rolling of said drums or bearing of said sacks and boxes noted among any of the freely coming and going Iraqis, can we infer that no looting of explosives from Al Qaqaa was observed?

The article ends with mention that still photos and video have been turned over "security experts" to determine if the contents of the bunkers may have been the stuff that allegedly disappeared. Based upon what the article tells us that seems highly unlikely but one never knows, does one.

To be honest, Swopa, the article you seem to believe is some smoking-gun that would require tin-foil hat logic to "spin away" tells us precisely nothing the least bit useful. It tells us there were bunkers, the bunkers contained explosives, the 101st Airborne looked at the stuff and was aware of it, and nothing else. We already knew all that - now we have additional pictures and video footage. Whoopdi-f'in-doo!

I love this place! And I really liked "The bloggers are banging their cages". I hope Fresh Air doesn't mind if I use that. I'll give credit.

On the Kerry website, where they first posted this blockbuster information, he even cites the New york Times as his source.

Am I wrong in assuming that as a Senator he should have more reliable information sources than that?

Besides, where is the video of soldiers opening a door with IAEA seals on it? Isn't that the whole point of the See B.S. story: that the stuff they should have known was valuable/dangerous wasn't guarded? And the only way our guys would have known the material was valuable/dangerous was...? Yes, IAEA seals.

Swopa, you need to get on the horn with Bill Burkett and make some videotape fast. Oh, and Swopa? Try to make sure the tape doesn't have any words written in English, scenes of the Houston skyline, things like that.

C'mon now, Knucklehead, Swopa has never, ever been equipped with a logic circuit. He gets his 'Talking Points Memo' in the morning, genuflects to the All Caca Times/SeeBS consortium HQ and goes to work. The correct way to question him is "What would Joshie tell you to say about this?". He can't answer because Joshie can't. The 'math is hard' crowd is having a very rough week.

A bit of advice here. During the invasion we kept hearing back about mysterious boxes, bombs, powders, etc. from embeds as they followed the troops to the innumberable dumps of military stuff scattered from one end of Iraq to the other. There were even pictures! We (i.e., those of us "misled" to believe that Iraq would have WMDs) kept reporting these finds as possible WMDs. Well after several of these apparent false reports we finally got a lot more cautious. I suggest you take these pictures with the grain of salt they are due at this point. I mean you really are in a bind here. The only way you can prove this is the RDX/HMX is by chemical analysis (or maybe some pictures of UN seals would help) - can't do that if it all got looted can you? :)

An element that hasn't been raised in this is what part the JTF tasked to work the WMD problem immediately prior to and during the invasion may have played. Information about the JTF work is very sketchy because of security issues. There is a reasonable probability (say 150%) that the Pentagon has several rooms full of documents that could clarify the scope of the IAEA lies in this matter very quickly. We won't be seeing it because "Top Secret" has a meaning that the President will not abuse for political purposes. OTOH, Sen. Doofus, as a member of the Intelligence Committee, could ask to be briefed on this matter at any time. He won't, of course, because potential personal political advantage is far more important to him than any security issue will ever be.

I remember in the run-up to war and also in the aftermath a lot of reports about Russians and activities in Iraq. I did some google searching and was able find a few of the "golden oldies". None of them confirm this new report by the Wash Times and Financial Times. However it does provide the proper context:

There were several reports about former Soviet Generals providing what appeared to be military advice to the Iraqis:

There were some interesting findings by various news organizations showing a long standing spy connection between Russian and Iraqi spy services:

And finally you might remember stories about Russia allegedly providing military hardware up to the time hostilities re-commenced (I prefer that term since this whole Iraq thing started in 1991 and never ended until April 2003):

Here is an archived article on NRO that summarizes some of the Russian connections:

I am sure there is more but I got tired of looking. At any rate we have Russians supplying high tech arms, Russian generals acting as military advisors, and Russian spys training the Mukhabarat. I don't know about you but I wouldn't dismiss Gertz' claim that the Russians helped cart off certain materials before the war that quickly.

Folks, when you're posting a link, instead of just cut&pasting the link in (which is why the page format has gone to hell -- your browser can't break lines in a link), use this format:

Thus, for example, PaterArgus's long link above becomes <a href="http://www.telegraph....ltop.html">this</a> which becomes this.

Back about when the first "Where's the WMD?!!?" screeds started a very high-ranking defector from one of the former Warsaw Pact intelligence services (I'm pretty sure that's the basic bio) wrote an article (or more) for (nearly sure) National Review describing how the Soviet bloc ran their Full Service WMD Export Business. What he described was a system designed to establish WMD programs that were dual-use and disguised as more defensible industrial programs but were easily convertible to weaponry to be delivered in what we in the west would describe as "just in time inventory management" and that part of the program was to move in on a moment's notice to clean out and get rid of those portions of the programs that couldn't be disguised and, therefore, had to be hidden.

I can't find either the man's name or the article(s). At the time what he said made sense but I took it with the standard grains of salt awaiting some future evidence to support it. The Washington Times piece seems to be suggesting the evidence might be forthcoming.

Knuck -- it's the same guy: Ion Pacepa. I don't hve time to find the article, but here's a little Google trickery -- if you add 'site:nationalreview.com' to your search string, Google will limit the search to that one site.

The noon CBS radio news reveals that DoD satellite photographs show truck activity and evidence of same at al Qaqaa in the interim between inspections and before the invasion.

Their (CBS) statement? "Shows that materials might have been looted before U.S. forces took custody of them...

Looted. Not "possibly removed, with the assistance of Rus SpecOps personnel, to Syria via the hundreds of documented truck convoys surveilled during the days preceding the war". Looted.

Words mean things. Nobody knows the disposition of the materials in question. Not the IAEA, not CBS or the NY Times, nor our government. Our units knew where IAEA sealed materials were supposed to be and checked those sites - but found no seals or materials at al Qaqaa. But the flagships of broadcast, cable, and print media in this country are bent on framing the situation for their own purposes, which are expressly intended to support the campaign of John Kerry - regardless of the harm done to our interests as a nation, the effects of their stories on our troops in harms way, or the effect on our relationships with our allies.

Millie Grass! The Washington Times site seems to be down or overwhelmed, but if you've got the author pegged correctly and I've got my googling done properly, that's where the article (or something similar) is located. I'll try again later. Thanks again!

The Washington Times is a partisan rag that specializes in hit pieces and is influenced by the moonies agenda. Just because it's telling you what you want to hear it doesn't make it right. The report on Russians quotes ONE PERSON! This is not a sound basis for a story. Say what you want about the NYT story but at least they have documents (don't mention CBS) and reporters on the ground in Iraq and asking questions of a multitude of officials. It raises many issues, and you can't just blow it off as left-wing spin, it is a very sober article, this is not the Gaurdian. Would you trust a paper owned by Micheal Moore, even if he "didn't have any say in the content".
Republicanism (not conservatism) has a reality problem. And please name me one piece of non-hearsay evidence that backs up the Swift Boat Vets. Bush got someone else to do his dirty work as usual. I never take any information at face value but the prevailing wisdom at this site seems to be

What a bunch of BS. Sometimes Republicans lie, sometimes Democrats lie it's just Republicans seem to do it more brazenly, hurtfully, and more often and get Fox News to parrot their talking points. I got news for you, CNN and the NYT don't do that for Dems and I'm glad they don't.

McCLELLAN TO GERTZ: YOU'RE CRAZY: Also in the gaggle, the White House is running away from The Washington Times's sensational report that the Russians spirited the explosives out of al Qaqaa:

Q: Scott, can I ask you about The Washington Times story about Bill Gertz reporting that Russian special forces moved these weapons at al Qaqaa before the war began? Has Condi Rice spoken with her Russian counterpart? Is it true?

McCLELLAN: I'm not aware of any contact Condi has had as of today. No, I don't know anything about that story, other than what you saw in the papers. I know that there is some new information that has come to light in the last couple of days. ABC News last night reported on some of that information about the actual amount of RDX that may have been present at the Al Qaqaa site. And also the fact that they reported that the seals--that the ventilation flaps could have allowed the seals to continue to remain on there, even if the weapons had been removed prior to that time.

Q: Did the White House have any knowledge--or has confirmed that, in fact, Russian special forces moved the stuff--

McCLELLAN: No. No, we don't. I just don't--I have no information that points in that direction.

No one knows for sure what happened to the disputed weapons. The chain of evidence, thanks largely to the crack UN inspections team, is so buggered up that it might never be repaired. Logic, credible eye witness reports, and vast amounts of circumstantial evidence suggest that the material in question was moved before the war, but set that aside and let's focus on what we know for sure about where the material was prior to the 3rd ID capturing the Al Cloaca facility--not enough to make any kind of definitive conclusion.

And yet, John Kerry is slandering the troops and a sitting President with what can inly be called the rankest speculation.

Keith, I don't think prefacing your statements with "Let me make some things clear" is going to help you sell them on this site.

Seriously though. I don't think a responsible administration (more specifically the White House as opposed to a Deputy Secretary) would use this opportunity to diss an important ally(?) by making such an accusation in public particularly during an election campaign. There are, shall we say, more diplomatic ways of discussing such issues. OTOH I am not sure we can say that of a Kerry administration - he seems hell bent on pissing off all of our allies doesn't he?

Swopa, the story by the Minnesota TV station goes like this: the newscrew saw some explosives and the explosives didn't *seem* to be guarded, in the best expert opinion of the newscrew.

Yeah. Some story that is. If there's something more there, please point it out to me.

As it turns out, CBS reported on the 3ID's capture of the Al QaQaa site & specifically on the date of 4/18/03. This coverage was a little more thorough, fortunately. See here for a roundup: http://www.captainsquartersblog.com/mt/mt-tb.cgi/2872

McClellan is a spokesman at the White House. As I said on another thread, the people in a position to know what happened at Al Qa Qaa are in the 5-Sided Funny Farm. Until I hear Don Rumsfeld denying the story, I will assume it is at least mostly true.

BTW, the Washington Times is not a rag. If you compare the quality of Gertz's story with Sanger's, you will see that. One has a named source, the other does not.

Do you think this is the last arrow in the All Caca Times/SeeBS quiver? Even if unrebutted, this story doesn't have a high enough impact to do more than keep the moveon morons from falling asleep. I haven't seen anything new filed today, have you?

They'll stay awake if we do the heavy lifting for them. Somehow Swopa and the rest of the Barking Moonbats missed this little The AP Does Scrappleface piece.

But just when things seem like they might be getting fun again, the AP gives us John Kerry Does The Onion.

There were several reports about former Soviet Generals providing what appeared to be military advice to the Iraqis:

There were some interesting findings by various news organizations showing a long standing spy connection between Russian and Iraqi spy services:

Here is an archived article on NRO that summarizes some of the Russian connections:

Yes, I think it's the last arrow in the quiver. Since SeeB.S. was planning on it for Monday, it's obvious this was the best thing they had. Kind of sad, really. I don't think Mary Mapes should plan on buying another house in the next couple of months. She may be doing Frontline specials and Emily's List ads the rest of her life.

As to the story catching on, I haven't seen anything else on it, except from the peripheral VRWC organs. Unfortunately I'm afraid it will take time. As somebody said yesterday (Terrye probably), Americans have their B.S. detectors tuned really high right now. Even Republicans might not believe it--sounds too Hollywood to be true.

Moreover, I guess the WH doesn't want to push it right now. They think GWB is on a trajectory to re-election and they don't want to eff that up by bringing the Russians into it.

Either way, though, I don't see hyping the weapons loss as a plus for Kerry. Why would anyone perceive calling our troops incompetent as a way to score points at W?

You know, Joe Lockhart really is a complete dumbsh*t. And to think all this time I thought he just he looked and acted like one.

Keith:
Your last post was weak. You did not respond to any of the numerous direct questions put to you and you did not respond to the complete fisking of the original story. Edwards lame,"well we know there were once weapons there and now there gone" is almost as bad.None of the documents show that the weapons were there when our troops arrived. even the last seal date of the UN was not a verification that the weapons were still there, just that the seals were unbroken, and since there were other ways to get it out of the bunkers this is no proof at all.

Notice how the Bush team handles stories that can't be veriefied.They don't comment because they can't be sure. Not Kerry. He is still acting as if the original story was gospel because he will say anything to get elected, even if it is a slap at our armed services.As I said about the swifties before I don't know if all there charges are true. But the cambodia charge was right and your line that it was all "hearsay" is wrong because some of the people on some of the charges were eyewitnesses to the events in question. Like the Times you have a tendency to print things that can be shown to be false the second they leave your keypad

NYT pushed the story up a week because they read the bloggers last Sunday and knew there was a big story on Kerry and the UN Security Council coming out on Monday. That story, which unlike NYTrogate seems to be largely true, has kinda been drowned out.

I think Gen. Franks is going to do a final knockdown on the story. I just hopes he gets in a good line on the 33 year continuity of Kerry smearing the troops.

I don't think the MSM is going to pull a dirty laundry story out because that would backfire even worse than this IAEA fantasy would. Kerry's got way too much baggage for them to try it.

I used to think that CBS was a good news source and the Washington Times was not.

However, the NYT and CBS and John Kerry are more than willing to spin whatever tale works for them so why don't you go give them the lecture in ethics? After all we are just a bunch of folks talking on the internet, the NYT fancies itself the paper of record. Once upon a time that meant something.

BTW I am not a Republican, but I am thinking of becoming one because Democrats are turning into bigots. Is Republicanism catching? Should they be sent to reeducation camps?

I would like to know the nature of the "seals" because that is what it is all about.This is a classic piece of misdirection,the magicians assistant is in the box and cannot escape becuase we saw her go in and a member of the audience sealed the box,but as every magician knows the assistant was gone long before the box was sealed.
The audience is asked to check the seals,there is no way of escape,pure theatre and a way of gaining time.
Who accounted for the number of seals or seal making equipment that the IAEA had? Who had actual physical charge of these things,the IAEA Inspectors or some Iraqi employee? This is Iraq awash with stolen money and corruption,everything is for sale.

Kerry, Swopa, and Keith display the same liberal mindset about our brave military: They're all too stupid to protect 380 TONS (!!!!) of explosive material from being removed by 40 18-wheel trucks while the US military is in complete control of the roads and the sky. Bush wasn't there, but of course he is personally at fault for the stupid military from protecting 380 TONS (!!!!) of explosives.

Makes perfect sense . . . if you're a liberal. The military folks vote 80% Republican, so they must be stupid, no?

Elsewhere I have seen the IAEA seals described as "fishing line and bottle caps." Sounds awful hermetic doesn't it? About as effective as the U.N. itself.

"And please name me one piece of non-hearsay evidence that backs up the Swift Boat Vets."

We invade Iraq and consequently have destroyed and secured over 600,000 tons of explosives and weapons and other assorted halloween candy.

Over 600,000 tons are no longer available to be used by Saddam, Uday, Qusey, or any other thug with a gleam in his eye.

Think about it. Who stays around to guard this wonderful stuff after the IAEA puts a seal on a door and walks away?

That stuff was available to anyone enterprising enough to grab it...UNTIL WE INVADED.

Q. So can you confidence that the IAEA had control of the explosive material in question?

If this were a civil trial and John Edwards was the questions then he would rightly point out that proponderance of evidence indicates that the explosive material was not at the site when the 3rd ID arrived.

The problem with you ABBers is that you are basically ignorant. Not unintelligent, and probably not stupid. The sad thing is that the material that would allow you to understand world events, military affairs and the limits of intelligence is all around you. Why do you run down to you local Borders or Barnes and Noble, and go to the military history section. There are many fine histories will help you understand the nature of war. After reading a book like Cornelius Ryan’s “A Bridge too Far.” you might begin to have a clue about all things that can go wrong in a military plan.

CBS and NYT searched their archives to come up with the "pit stop" story dated April 10. Funny, their search seems not to have turned up the Aprl 3/4 stories about a fairly thorough survey by 3ID.

Some, including myself, think CBS/NYT were willing pawns for elBaradei's attempt to get rid of the US President who wants him out of office next year - if not sooner.

The Iraqi report was to the IAEA, which asked for it Oct 1 with some urgency (after 17 months?): by Oct 10, it had been "leaked". Included was a substance called RDX.

Another bit of evidence turned up in Australia -
?RDX never at alQQ? And never sealed?
IAEA spokeswoman Melissa interview on ABC (Australia - ) - "IAEA inspectors visited Al-Mahaweel on Jan. 15, 2003, and verified the RDX inventory by weighing sampling," Fleming said. She said the RDX at Al-Mahaweel was not under seal [emphasis added - JSA] but was subject to IAEA monitoring."
Al-Mahaweel?
"The bulk of the RDX was stored at another site that was under Al Qaqaa's jurisdiction," IAEA spokeswoman Melissa Fleming said.
She says that the report seen by ABC only covers the Al Qaqaa site itself.
The second site, Al Mahaweel, is roughly 45 kilometres from Al Qaqaa.

I hope everyone's happier now that ABC has shown the videotape of American troops cutting through IAEA seals to enter bunkers and open storage containers with HMX (as confirmed by multiple experts, including David Kay).

Probably doesn't matter. You guys seem capable of ignoring any facts that don't feed your paranoia and bile.

But neglecting the problems of (1) moving 100 dump-truck loads of explosives thourgh a battle zone, and (2) processing the RDX and HDX into a usable explosive, and (3) the fact that none of this stuff has been used since then, and (4) the 3ID didn't find it even though they found and inventories a bunch of test tubes, and (5) no one recalls seeing IAEA seals when the 101st came by a week or so later, and (6) those being the wrong storage containers for RDX and HDX under those conditions and labeling, and (7) the fact that even the Kerry campaign is admitted that they at least could have been moved out before the war, and (8) the fact that there is good intel of many trucks moving across the Syrian border during that time,

you're still missing the biggest point of all, which is that Saddam had as much as a million tonnes of high explosive munitions, and you're getting exercised about 200 tonnes of it.

Er, given today's news. Does this mean your hat's on fire? Sorry. Couldn't resist. But you were wrong on this story and might want to share that fact with your readers. Cheers.

Captain's Quarters notices that the video cannot even confirm that the video was shot at Al Qaqaa.
Belmont Club: "in March, shortly before the war began, the I.A.E.A. conducted another inspection and found that the HMX stockpile was still intact and still under seal. But inspectors were unable to inspect the RDX stockpile and could not verify that the RDX was still at the compound."
Jim Geraghty questions what type of explosives are shown in the video, and a number of other things.

As Power Line said two days ago, the Kerry campaign "have
(a) jumped to a conclusion that wasn't supported by the facts,
(b) assumed the incompetence of our troops,
(c) confirmed President Bush's position that Iraq had weapons worth worrying about".

October 27, 2004: Liar, Liar, Al Qaqaa Pants on Fire

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