NO ONE may ever know what happened to the 377 tons of explosives stored by Saddam Hussein's regime at the Al Qaqaa complex south of Baghdad. But John Kerry's campaign is right to criticize the Bush administration's failure to have a plan to destroy this cache of weapons that could be used by terrorists.
Meanwhile, the most troubling aspect of the videotape of Osama bin Laden released yesterday is not the content but the fact that bin Laden is alive and well enough to deliver his hateful message.
The two stories undercut Bush's central campaign assertion -- that he is a successful war president, whether in Iraq or against Al Qaeda.
The administration thought the Iraq war would end when Saddam was ousted in April 2003. It lacked a plan to seize and destroy the arms that were scattered about the country and otherwise preempt an insurgency that is still killing Americans and destabilizing Iraqi society. Bush makes much of his determination to fight terrorists, but determination without a thoughtful plan is just stubbornness.
The troops, part of the initial assault force, were heading north following Saddam's ouster, and it was not reasonable to expect that they could have dealt with abandoned arms dumps along the way. Bush, as commander in chief, ought to have deployed more troops to secure explosives. Bush and his deputies failed to anticipate this turn in the war -- hence the failure to promptly secure weapons dumps around the country. US troops and innocent Iraqis are paying with their lives as a result. American voters should hold the president to account for the war he did not anticipate.
http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/editorials/articles/2004/10/30/bushs_deadly_blunder/
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