The bush adminstration and their media apologists have spent yesterday and today trying to show that the explosives were already missing when the U.S. took Baghdad. They say our troops did not see any of these explosives when they first went to al Qaa Qaa. The IAEA had strongly and repeatedly warned the U.S. about securing these explosives. So certainly we should have had the good sense to confirm whether the weapons were there or not. But if they were already gone, this means we knew about it 18 months ago and, like bush when warned of an imminent attack prior to 9/11, took no action and told no one. These weapons may very well have been used in the past year and half to kill American troops (not to mention Iraqis).
But according to Scotty McClellan, this version is not true. The U.S.had no idea the explosives were missing until we were formally informed eleven days ago. Condi then told bush who, being the decisive executive that he is, wanted to get to the bottom of this and sent the Iraq Survey Group to investigate.
So which is it? The bush admin knew the explosives were not there when we invaded, or they just found out? And if we knew they were missing last year, why did we do nothing about it? If we didn't know whether they were there or not, why didn't we check when the IAEA persistently expressed its concern? It can't be explained away by saying we had destroyed a lot of other stuff. The AP just posted this a short while ago:
"Our greatest concern from both a proliferation standpoint and from a standpoint of danger to human beings was Al-Qaqaa," the IAEA's Fleming said.
Weapons experts are questioning why Al-Qaqaa - once a key facility in Saddam Hussein's effort to build a nuclear bomb - wasn't under 24-hour guard.
The facility was considered "the pre-eminent site for high explosive stockpiles," a U.S. official said, speaking on condition of anonymity.
http://www.kansascity.com/mld/kansascity/news/local/10020082.htm?1cThis place was the Fort Knox of high explosives. It's thirty miles from Baghdad, and for a year and a half we never bothered to check to see if 370,000 tons of this stuff was missing? If true, this goes way beyond criminal incompetence.
But, quite obviously, it's not true. Scotty was lying yesterday when he said the bush admin just found out about the missing explosives. (And where is Scotty today? There is no transcript of any press briefing up at the White House web site. The more lies he has to tell, the deeper they sink, so it looks like they have shut him up.) The bush admin is hoping that their hatchetmen in the media can keep a lid on this story until November 3rd. But the story is moving toward the original version first given by the Nelson Report on Sunday This is a highly influential private newsletter that was referenced on Josh Marshall's web site with a summary of the article. It is a must read that details bush administration cover-up, including pressuring the Iraqi authorities to withhold the information from the IAEA. Here's a bit of it:
Despite pressure from DOD to keep it quiet, the IAEA and the Iraqi Interim Government this month officially reported that 350-tons of dual-use, very high explosives were looted from a previously secure site in the early days of the US occupation in 2003. Administration officials privately admit this material is likely a primary source of the lethal car bomb attacks which cause so many US and Iraqi casualties. In the first presidential candidate debate, on foreign policy, Democratic nominee John Kerry charged that captured munitions and weapons were being turned against Coalition Forces, with US troops suffering 90% of the casualties. But the specifics of the losses from the Al Qa Qaa bunker and building complex, only now being reported, were apparently unknown outside of DOD and the US occupation authorities. The Bush Administration barred the IAEA from any participation in the Iraq invasion and occupation process, and blocked IAEA requests to help in the search for WMD and other dangerous materials.
<snip>
A highly informed official offered the assessment that, “this is the stuff the bad guys have been using to kill our troops, so you can’t ignore the political implications of this, and you would be correct to suspect that politics, or the fear of politics, played a major role in delaying the release of this information.”
<snip>
“What the hell WE were doing in the year and a half from the time we knew the stuff was gone, is obviously a huge question, and you can imagine why no one wants to face up to it, certainly not before the election,” an Administration source says. http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2004_10_24.php#003777
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