Reply #49: Latest on Explosives . . . They WERE there. [View All]

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(1000+ posts)
Tue Oct-26-04 04:04 PM
Original message
Kerry Camp: "Latest Bush Excuse on Weapons Dump Evaporates"

Edited on Tue Oct-26-04 04:37 PM by PeteNYC

George Bush's continuing efforts to avoid responsibility for failing to secure 380 tons of highly dangerous explosives
in Iraq just took another blow. The reporter who was actually traveling with the 101st Airborne in the report cited by
the Bush campaign has clarified that the unit was not there to secure the massive weapons complex and it was
merely a 'pit stop' on their way to Baghdad.

Try as it might, the Bush spin machine can not change the truth: the President is responsible for his catastrophic
failures in Iraq and needs to personally address this issue.

MSNBC, 10/26/04 (Transcript):

Amy Robach: And it's still unclear exactly when those explosives disappeared. Here to help shed some light on that
question is Lai Ling. She was part of an NBC news crew that traveled to that facility with the 101st Airborne Division
back in April of 2003. Lai Ling, can you set the stage for us? What was the situation like when you went into the area?


Lai Ling Jew: When we went into the area, we were actually leaving Karbala and we were initially heading to Baghdad
with the 101st Airborne, Second Brigade. The situation in Baghdad, the Third Infantry Division had taken over
Baghdad and so they were trying to carve up the area that the 101st Airborne Division would be in charge of. As a
result, they had trouble figuring out who was going to take up what piece of Baghdad. They sent us over to this area
in Iskanderia. We didn't know it as the Qaqaa facility at that point but when they did bring us over there we stayed
there for quite a while. We stayed overnight, almost 24 hours. And we walked around, we saw the bunkers that had
been bombed, and that exposed all of the ordinances that just lied dormant on the desert.

AR: Was there a search at all underway or did a search ensue for explosives once you got there during that 24-hour
period?

LLJ: No. There wasn't a search. The mission that the brigade had was to get to Baghdad. That was more of a pit stop
there for us. And, you know, the searching, I mean certainly some of the soldiers head off on their own, looked
through the bunkers just to look at the vast amount of ordnance lying around. But as far as we could tell, there was
no move to

secure the weapons, nothing to keep looters away. But there was – at that point the roads were shut off. So it would
have been very difficult, I believe, for the looters to get there.

AR: And there was no talk of securing the area after you left. There was no discussion of that?

LLJ: Not for the 101st Airborne, Second Brigade. They were -- once they were in Baghdad, it was all about Baghdad,
you know, and then they ended up moving north to Mosul. Once we left the area, that was the last that the brigade
had anything to do with the area.

AR: Well, Lai Ling Jew, thank you so much for shedding some light into that situation. We appreciate it.

LLJ: Thank you.

EDIT: Link added: http://blog.johnkerry.com/rapidresponse/archives/003664...


All the above from a fine post by PeteNYC:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=132x1174935