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Bush Administration Brain Dead on Explosives Disappearance

The Institute of People Whose Incompetence Makes You Unsafe, otherwise known as the Bush Administration, has struck again. The New York Times reports that nearly 380 tons of powerful conventional explosives - used to demolish buildings, make missile warheads and detonate nuclear weapons - are missing from one of Iraq's most sensitive former military installations. Talk about blowing the war marketing campaign! Even the most died-in-the-wool Bushie will have to question the Commander in Chief's competence now.
If this doesn't secure John Kerry's victory, nothing will. Yet I can already hear the White House spin on how it's John Kerry's fault.

White House and Pentagon officials acknowledge that the explosives vanished sometime after the American-led invasion last year. "This is a high explosives risk," one senior Bush administration official said, neglecting to add "Duh" to his sentence.

Says Joe Lockhart, the Kerry Edwards campaign's senior advisor in email today: Our troops are the best-trained and best-led forces in the world, and they have been doing their job honorably and bravely. The problem is the commander in chief has not being doing his. George Bush refuses to recognize his failures in Iraq, so he can't fix them and is doomed to repeat them.

When did they know and why did the administration ignore warnings from the IAEA to secure the nearly 380 tons of explosives in Iraq?

What is the chronology of action taken by the Bush administration after being informed that the explosives had gone missing? Why isn't the president on TV right now reassuring the American people and the world?

The truth: "The immediate danger" of the lost stockpile, said an expert who recently led a team that searched Iraq for deadly arms, "is its potential use with insurgents in very small and powerful explosive devices. The other danger is that it can easily move into the terrorist web across the Middle East."

Categories: Commentary, Events, News, Politics, Worst Practices

BL Ochman | Oct 25 04 2:19 | TrackBack (0)

Comments

George W's marketing advisors seem to believe if they ingore the serious issues and take a 'strong and powerful' stance, the problems will somehow just go away. What I do not get is how 50%, give or take a few points, believe them???

Posted by: Allen Barkus at October 26, 2004 12:50 AM

The NY Times admits today that the weapon's disappeared before US troops entered Baghdad
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/27/politics/27bomb.html

Then the NY Times (to make their anti-Bush point) quotes a Col. from the wrong unit - the 101st Airbone who was not the first unit to arrive at the facility in April. The Belmont Club blog (http://belmontclub.blogspot.com/) links to the original CBS story in April 2003 when the 3ID inspected al Qa Qaa and found no weapons but:
"...thousands of boxes, each of which contained three vials of white powder, together with documents written in Arabic that dealt with how to engage in chemical warfare."
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2003/04/04/iraq/main547667.shtml

Also MSNBC reports that:
"Pentagon officials say elements of the 101st airborne did conduct a thorough search of several facilities around the Al QaQaa compound for several weeks during the month of April in search of WMD. They found no WMD. And Pentagon officials say it's not clear at that time whether those other elements of the 101st actually searched the Al QaQaa compound. Now, Pentagon officials say U.S. troops and members of the Iraq Survey Group did arrive at the Al QaQaa compound on May 27. And when they did, they found no HMX or RDX or any other weapons under seal at the time."
http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2004_10_24.php#003805

The document from the IAEA was dated October 2003 and claims these weapons disappeared in September 2003. It took the IAEA 4 months to figure that out, and they only release the document a week before the US election? Please.

I assume that it is because CBS and the NY Times have such a great track record for credibility we should believe that this letter isn't fraudulent anyway?

Posted by: Heather Carle at October 27, 2004 2:41 PM

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About BL Ochman

Blogger, social media strategy consultant to Fortune 500 companies, and sought-after corporate speaker B.L. Ochman heads the creative team of whatsnextonline.com. She also publishes the Ethics Crisis blog for SRF Global Translations

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