Redstate

The stuff that's "gone missing" was very high capacity explosive.  

It's likely that it either already has been, or will be, used against Americans, and/or against Iraqi defense or police forces.

Also, as you note, the explosives in question are dual-use -- they are useful as a triggering agent in the construction of nuclear weapons.  That's why they were under IAEA seal.  

So, it is important.  I'm a little puzzled by your ability to follow "thousands of terrorists will have access to high-yield explosives" with "what's the big deal?".

The reason this is an issue for Bush is because he put insufficient resources into Iraq when he decided to go in.  Contrary to current claims, Bush was given many warnings that Iraq would be difficult, problematic, and messy, and that more resources would be required than he was committing.  He ignored that advice, and that decision contributed to the current chaos we find ourselves involved in there.

Why try to put a different face on it?  The failure to secure weapons and nuclear materials that were on the ground in Iraq was a huge blunder, for which we are paying with money and lives.

Thanks -

The big deal is that this story was probably leaked to the Kerry campaign before it ran today on the website of the Washington Post, the New York Times, the Boston Globe, ABCNews, CBS News, CNN, and others.  

The big deal is that the first thing this blog should be saying instead of "what's the big deal?" is to implore its readers to email the editors at all of these organizations and ask them why Kerry's misstatements about the U.N. Security council "meeting" were not being similarly publicized.

The big deal is that because of the blanket coverage this story is getting, and the reinforcement the Kerry campaign is already using it for, it is going to have an effect, whereas the story about not meeting with the Security Council even though he said he did is going to be dismissed and it's not going to get any coverage.

The big deal is that organizations like Democratic Underground are in IMHO much better equipped and much more organized when it comes to rallying their members to work on the mainstream media.  

See here:

Democratic Underground Media Blaster

The story about the missing explosives, by the way, is running in BRIGHT RED at the top of their website.

It's sad how flat-footed the republicans are in comparison.  Very depressing.

I could get only slightly less useful explosive from a demolition yard. It's quite easy to purchase, really. It's not hard to slip it past the normal safeguards. It's unfortunately easy to steal. And there are all sorts of variations on plastique that work quite well, you know. Indeed, the stuff to which we're referring is not what we used to set off atom bombs in the 1940s; a well-rendered plastique shell could do that.

Does it matter if this or something else is being used to blow up our troops? I would suggest "no," but you apparently disagree. That's why, again, it is important to kill the people doing the blowing up, regardless of the source of the arsenal.

You might want to double-check that "Bush knew he was committing insufficient resources" line. I seem to remember some general named Franks saying to the contrary. And I'm at a total loss how having more troops in at the time of invasion would have helped if, say, the explosives had been removed before the invasion (which is, after all, a possibility).

There were nuclear materials? Saddam had WMDs? Case closed then, right?

Or was he simply trying very hard to make them, and we stopped him?

Pick.

OK, so you'll rake Kerry over the coals for not supporting the troops, you'll wrap yourselves in the flag, falling over each other to profess your belief that Bush will keep America and the troops safer, and then, faced with proof there was a colossal screw-up, say "what's the big deal?"

The big deal is bombs blowing up American soldiers and Iraqis. Spin this however you want, it's bad for the American soldiers.

If it's not a big deal, why not just send some more stuff over.

Pffft...

Sadly reminds me in many ways of the development of the Abu Ghraib debacle - Condi Rice apparently knew about it, the memo to the IAEA is dated 10/10, and apparently the New York Times has been working on dropping this bomb for the past two weeks.

Of course, we've destroyed thousands of tons of Iraqi ordinance, but it looks like once again the Administration has been caught flat-footed by the media.  I'm waiting to hear their response.  I hope it doesn't take too long...

I know, I know, you're 100% positive that the explosives the Times referred to are what the loons are using in Iraq. I'm curious as to your sourcing, but we'll let that pass.

So, instead of wasting extensive time on your contentions, allow me to say: Read the article. Even the Times doesn't know when these things went missing. Or how. Or how much is actually still in existence, as opposed to getting bombed during the war.

And, while you're at it, since no one else can do this, kindly explain why it's worse for these explosives to kill Americans than it is for Iranian-supplied explosives to do so.

On your first deleted comment. Read the posting rules, re-post without the offensive language, and we'll discuss.

So let's get this straight: you don't think it's a big deal that the US failed to secure 380 tons of powerful explosive? You don't think it's a big deal that said explosives are in the hands of insurgents who want to kill our soldiers?

Your argument is basically that the insurgents can find explosives anywhere. But this is ridiculous. Even in an enironment where weapons are easily available, you want to take whatever you can away from the enemy. You don't think, "well, they're just going to get guns from Iran anyway, so let's not bother with this pile of rocket launchers in Iskandariyah."

Securing ammo dumps is an easy opportunity to deny weapons to potential enemies, and it should have been seized at the beginning of the occupation. The explosives at Al Qaqaa should have been secured or destroyed. Because they weren't, our enemies now have 380 tons of explosives that they should never have gotten their hands on, and they're using the explosives to make IEDs and car bombs. Since these explosives are so powerful, they're making better IEDs and car bombs than they would have if Al Qaqaa had been secured.

Again, in a worst-case scenario, the armed forces raced past the bunker, didn't see any explosives, kept racing, then didn't secure the place because the CPA didn't assign it a high-enough priority. An error, to be sure. Potentially a deadly one. Proof of malfeasance or utter incompetence? No.

I'm going to have to disagree here: failing to assign a high enough priority to this is incompetence. Either the CPA had no idea how to set priorities, or it didn't have enough people to cover all their priorities. Either one means they weren't doing their job.

What's more, the incompetence extends beyond the CPA (or whatever we're calling our presence over there now). The administration didn't know about this until pretty recently (apparently Condoleeza Rice didn't know until about a month ago). That means the CPA/provisional government/etc. is doing an awful job of gathering information and passing it to people who need to have it.

(1) First, even the Times story isn't clear that the explosives could have been secured. They could have been moved beforehand.

(2) Second, they might also have been blown to itty pieces. The Times story also suggests as muc.

(3) Third, although I'm not a munitions expert, I'd like to point out that if I understand the yield on these things correctly, they're not much nicer than what the Iranians have been sending over the border for the last two years, or what a good demolitions team uses. That, by the way, is where the Administration screwed up, in my mind: We should be talking about the CPA in Tehran.

(4) This might be proof of incompetence; "utter" incompetence is failing to secure anything.

(5) Your last sentence suggests incompetence that either ends at, or extends past, the CPA. I'm not trying to be snide: Which do you mean?

The fact that the new government in Iraq reported these missing items to the IAEA in the first place.  While it's no wonderful development that they are missing, it's very important that the government in Iraq is willing to account for them as such to both the U.S. and an international body like the IAEA.  Have the Iranians reported the "missing" explosives that have found their way to the insurgents in Iraq?  What about the Syrians?    

Again, the coalition forces have destroyed thousands of tons of Iraqi munitions and explosives, many hidden and buried.

The thing that really bothers me about this story is that the Administration once again finds itself on the defensive over a story that it should have known two weeks ago was going to become, ahem, explosive.  Even more disturbingly, the Kerry campaign seems to have known about it before the Administration could even formulate a response.  The Kerry campaign seems to formulate its daily talking points from stories that are just about to break in the Times, the Post, etc. on a regular basis.  It looks to me like these news orgs. are actively feeding him information and coordinating with the Kerry campaign.  All it takes is an email.  

(1) Yep, they could have been moved. But the story suggests normal Iraqi practice was to conceal the explosives near the storage site. How thorough a search was done? It sounds like things were very rushed.

(2) The story suggests that some explosives were destroyed. But it also says that some of the bunkers at the site were undamaged (something like 8 out of 10), so it's reasonable to assume a large quantity of explosive was intact. It would be nice to know how much of an effort US troops were able to make towards figuring out what happened on the site; the story makes it seem like they spent very little time investigating the area.

At any rate, we can't know for sure that the explosives are in the hands of insurgents until a car bomb shows up stamped "MADE IN AL QAQAA." But the story makes it pretty clear that some American authorities believe that the explosives were looted and are being used by insurgents.

(3) I'm not a munitions expert either, but this sentence in the Times story sure suggests these aren't ordinary explosives:

The explosives missing from Al Qaqaa are the strongest and fastest in common use by militaries around the globe.

This doesn't sound like stuff that you could steal from a construction site. (If I'm wrong, I'd be happy to be corrected.)

Alos, do you mean that we should have invaded Iran in addition to Iraq, or that we should have invaded Iran instead of Iraq? If we had invaded Iran without securing muntions dumps, we'd be facing a well-armed insurgency there. Given the way the Bush administration plans wars and counter-insurgency efforts, I don't have too much confidence that it would have gone well.

(4) Plain incompetence is bad enough; I think the CPA could be fairly accused of "utter incompetence", but that should probably be a different post.

(5) Sorry for being unclear. I think the incompetence extends beyond the CPA into the Bush administration. The administration did a poor job of planning for the occupation and an awful job of reacting to changing circumstances. If Rice really didn't know that Al Qaqaa had been (probably) looted until a month ago, she's doing a miserable job of keeping tabs on Iraq, and failing in her responsibility to national security.

"And, while you're at it, since no one else can do this, kindly explain why it's worse for these explosives to kill Americans than it is for Iranian-supplied explosives to do so"

That makes no sense. Are you saying that having MORE  dangerous material available is NOT WORSE? Of course, dead is dead, whether it's from these explosives or Iranian-supplied explosives. But then, can you explain to me why it's "no big deal" to have MORE terrorists than fewer? After all, it only takes one to set off a car bomb. By your reasoning, why stop any WMDs, since the ones we don't stop still kill.

But seriously, think about it. If there's fewer weapons to control/destroy/guard, it's easier to control/destroy/guard them. Isn't it?

in which case President Bush and his advisors should have been notified immediately that the huge cache of explosives that could be used to detonate nuclear warheads, and had also been the subject of great concern to the IAEA, was missing. We were looking for WMDs in Iraq, and had been notified by the IAEA of these previously sealed munitions. It wouldn't exactly have been off-topic to pause and determine if there were explosives there, and to guard them if there were. If they weren't there, the administration should have reported the theft to the IAEA and the UN. It would have been a validation of our mission to prevent an evil man from giving terrorists access to dangerous weapons. Instead we didn't bother to check carefully and make an official report, and the IAEA was denied the opportunity to check the status of this site after the invasion. I guess they weren't considered effective or responsible enough to do that hard work.

Apparently neither the invading forces nor the CPA noticed the problem until so late that it was intensely embarassing to reveal it. Hence the pressure on the Iraq government to keep it dark. At least until after the election. I have a hunch the Bush administration doesn't share the opinion that "it's no big deal."

Two top stories on Yahoo news under the story of Rehnquist's hospitalization and Clinton campaigning for Kerry--

   Bush: I'm Best Candidate to Protect U.S. (AP)

   Tons of Explosives Missing in Iraq (AP)

That pretty much says it all.

What do you think voters care more about? Whether our troops have been maimed and killed by explosives we botched the chance to secure, or whether Kerry spoke loosely about his meeting with members of the UN Security Council?

Claims they're unaccounted for, but it doesn't (and can't) say whether they're destroyed, looted and floating around somewhere, or have already been used, or shuttled across a border and sold.  The story is also completely ambiguous on the point of whether those munitions were moved out of their facilities in the runup to the war.  It notes that Saddam may very well have removed them at that time but leaves the point hanging:

"Other HMX bunkers were untouched. Some were damaged but not devastated. I.A.E.A. experts say they assume that just before the invasion the Iraqis followed their standard practice of moving crucial explosives out of buildings, so they would not be tempting targets. If so, the experts say, the Iraqi must have broken seals from the arms agency on bunker doors and moved most of the HMX to nearby fields, where it would have been lightly camouflaged - and ripe for looting."

It concludes thatL  "Its fate remains unknown." and then segues into a cataclysmic doomsday discussion of nuclear implosion devices.  

The Kerry campaign has gotten a lot of mileage out of this kind of story in the past, and as I said before, I hope the Administration responds.

"Which do they care about more?" is not the same as "will they pin this on Bush and not vote for him as a result?"

One item is something that might have happened -- or might not have -- and is not easily directly linked to being "Bush's fault."  

The other is the candidate himself lying in a cavalier manner on an easily-verified event.

I'm not saying the explosives story won't hurt Bush, but it is not at all clear that undecideds will punish Bush for the explosives more than they will punish Kerry for his congenital, wreckless, idiotic lying.

That's an interesting chicken and egg scenario.

Sure, it's easier to deal with when there's less boom-making capacity. My impression of Iraq, however, is that the place was awash in boom-capacity with or without this. I don't care if the folks who kill use Iraqi or Iranian bombs, so long as we kill them first. But I get the impression that even had we locked this place down tight as a snug little bug in a rug, the relevant loons still wouldn't have to resort to slingshots.

Is the deliberate moral ambiguity this story encourages.  If Saddam did indeed move those explosives out of their facilities by breaking the IAEA seals, it's just another in his long list of crimes.  But the story doesn't even point that out; it doesn't even attempt to, and it doesn't mention the thousands of tons of munitions the coalition forces HAVE destroyed.  Instead, it deliberately paints the worst possible picture, of course, with the United States ultimately being the villain.  

Good show, NYT!  You're batting 1000 for the other side!

Evidently Todd Gitlin really gets to the editors at the Times when he complains that the Times has been a cheerleader for Bush.

Hey Thomas -

If I understand correctly, your argument seems to be that it's more important to eliminate the people doing the blowing up, and less important to deny them access to explosives, because explosives are dead easy to get anyway.  I think it's a find idea to eliminate people who want to blow other people up, but I also think it's a fine idea to deny them access to explosives.  Failing to secure 380 tons (that's 760,000 pounds) of high-capacity explosives in a war zone is going to be bad for the guys on the ground.  Can't think of another way to view it.

Against Franks' estimate of troops needed, I put Shinseki's, for one.  Bush heard what he wanted to hear.

The "nuclear materials" in question were tooling, equipment, and other materials that had been (note the past tense) in use when Saddam had a nuclear program.  They had been identified and secured by the IAEA inspectors and placed under IAEA seal.  The US did not allow the IAEA back in to Iraq after the invasion, and failed to secure many of those facilities, and so now many of them (lock, stock, and barrel, including the buildings themselves) have gone missing.  There was also actual uranium under seal, but that appears to have been accounted for.

For reference, here are links on the nuclear materials disappearance:

http://www.broward.com/mld/mercurynews/9918848.htm

http://www.ocnus.net/artman/publish/article_14489.shtml

The failure to secure this kind of stuff is extremely dangerous, and it is a direct consequence of the sanguine and unrealistic expectations of those who planned the war.  The operative word here is folly.  If you don't see that based on the plain facts, I don't think you want to see it.

As an aside, your account of how easy it is to acquire explosives from demolition yards is disturbing.  I'm suprised that, in our current environment, that stuff isn't more tightly controlled.

Cheers -

The Administration claims that it has destroyed 243,000 tons of munitions and secured another 163,000 tons.  CBS News supplied the information to the New York Times according to the following clarification on the Times' website.

This article was reported in cooperation with the CBS News program "60 Minutes.'' "60 Minutes" first obtained information on the missing explosives. The New York Times article was reported and written by Times reporters in Baghdad, Europe and Washington.

So against the 406,000 tons of munitions the coalition has either secured or destroyed, Kerry is claiming "vast incompetence" and "great blunders" over 380 tons, or less than ONE ONE THOUSANDTH or 1/10th of 1% of the total?

And this <1/10th of 1% is somehow important enough that the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Boston Globe, the Kerry campaign, ABC, CBS, NBC, and CNN can say that it represents, in the words of Senator Kerry:

"one of the great blunders of Iraq, one of the great blunders of this administration."

Thinking of it another way, scattered throughout Iraq was $1,000 in change and we've managed to recover all but about $0.94 of it.  Not too bad.

Me thinks they doth protest too much.

Me hopes the voters can do the arithmetic.

On the troop count issue, let me ask you a question in return. If you are asking people how many troops are needed, and one tells you 100k and the other 200k, how do you choose both without being vulnerable to the "you are just hearing what you want to hear" critique? And if the one who is actually in charge of conducting the war is the one saying 100k, doesn't that give the edge to him? The person with the war plan sort of knows how many troops he needs doesn't he?

And for historical perspective, remember how this issue came up before we actually got to Baghdad and before the 4th ID had made it into Iraq (meaning we actually had less troops on the ground that even Franks had wanted)? Remember how people were saying there was no way we could take Baghdad with that number of troops and even if we waited on the 4th ID we still might not have enough? Who turned out to be right back then? So before we look back fondly on all the people who say we don't have enough troops as if they were prophets, lets remember that at every turn they have said that and they have been proven wrong on a number of occurences of their prophecies.

Of course not being able to identify 380 tons of explosives is not good. But the facts are that the estimates are that Saddam had somewhere between 600,000 and One Million tons, NOT pounds tons, of munitions. 380 tons gets lost in the d*n roundoff!

And has been pointed out earlier, currect estimates are that we have destroyed or impounded some 400,000+ tons and there is still an enormous amount to go.

The NYT story never actually reports when these things went missing. The NYT numbers are contradicted by other reports ranging from 250 down to 32 tons (or maybe Metric Tonnes that isn't clear either). Given the size of the arsenal and the confusion in Iraq before and after the war I'd venture that there is a non-zero chance that the d*n stuff never existed in the first place, or is the same stuff counted multiple times.

So 380 tons of fairly decent explosives -- mind you, not nukes, not even on a daisy-cutter scale...

From TAPPED:

380 tons of RDX and HMX has the explosive charge of 0.6 kilotons of TNT. That's the equivalent of 65 MOABs, the Mother of all Bombs [formally, that's "Massive Ordinance Air Blast"] that are America's largest non-nuclear warheads.

I think this is from an April '03 story:

U.N. weapons inspectors went repeatedly to the vast al Qa Qaa complex -- most recently on March 8 -- but found nothing during spot visits to some of the 1,100 buildings at the site 25 miles south of Baghdad.

see: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1256443/posts

or here: http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,83252,00.html

To break that down, to have a bomb equivaltent to one (1) MOAB, the bomb made from the at-large explosive material would have to be almost six (6) tons.

Not being a munitions expert, I'm not sure the density of the material and thus how physically large and unwieldy a bomb of that weight would have to be.  Not to mention that it would most likely require a semi-truck to transport and not one of those broken-down cars we usually see being driven over there which can barely transport the terrorists, let alone a multi-ton payload.  

So, according to the UN, nothing at all was at the site to be looted.  For those of us on the Right, that's not satisfying because we don't trust the UN anyhow.  For those on the Left, since the UN is practically the Second Coming, this should end the matter.  

At least, as far as Kerry is concerned, since the UN said it's a non-issue 20 months ago, it should be a non-issue now.  But then, truth doesn't matter to John Kerry, only getting elected.

I am a bit new to the blog world and have been reading a lot over the past several weeks. You might think of me as part of the silent majority of years past. Then I read Anom - "the big deal" from above and I am driven anger.

Has politics become a blood sport. A win at any cost, say anything, event. I understand the politicians lying and twisting truth beyond recognition. What I don't understand is when the public begins to pick up their talking points and using them like truth. We are to be the filters of truth. "Anom", I assume you are a bright guy. I assume you care about your nation. I also assume your politics are some different than mine. What I don't understand, is why you would use an "intellectual lie" to win an argument... to win an election?

My son is a member of the US Marines 1/5. He was part of the first soldiers to step off, to start the war. I am sure that my view, of what was happening and is happening is as intense as yours. Maybe for different reasons. I am not driven by who sits in the oval office. I am driven by what is the strength of leadership and resolve of our leaders. Unlike many I choose to trust them and support them. They make decisions of such importance that I could only imagine.

Anom, you state your conclusion and then support it with an "intellectual lie". Not enough boots on the ground. You can say it loud... you can say it often... you can say it to everyone. It still won't make it true and you know it. The hate in your heart has nothing to do with boots, WMD or tons of explosives.

Our inability to move 40,000 troops through Turkey left us boots short from day one. It changed the dynamics of the war plan, before we even began. Our quick moving overwhelming force was to avoid loss of innocent life. Again, it spreads you thin. We raised the risk on our own soldiers for the greater good. Not to win the war, but to win the peace. One of those decisions that I can only imagine. But, I guess from your writing, you have a simple Monday morning answer.

To start the war, our leaders had to answer a go... no-go question. The big problem was, we had a small 3-month window, due the climate. We did not want the battle for Baghdad to occur in 120-degree tempitures with our soldiers in MOP suits. We could have lost thousands and they could have lost 10's of thousands, just because of the wrong window. One of those decisions that I can only imagine.

Vietnam taught us one thing. Let the Generals fight the war and politician should SHUT-UP. I believe this to be true, even if they want to win an election.

I hope in my writing, that I have not pretended to answer any of these questions with simple truths. I only wish to pose questions that show the complexity that we simplify. Lets support our leaders and maybe say just little prayer for the soldiers, our kids.

Thanks

DB

And be assured: some of us do pray, pray for your son and all of our soldiers every day.  More than once a day.

Thank you for your sacrifice and may your son come home alive upon successful completion of his mission.

For historical perspective, Franks originally asked for 200,000.  Shinseki estimated "hundreds of thousands".  Schwartzkopf and McCaffrey both went on record to say the the planned troop levels were too low.

Rumsfeld wanted 50,000 to 75,000.  The conflicts between Rumsfeld and the career military on this issue were numerous and fairly public.  100,000+ was apparently a compromise between Rumsfeld and Franks.  Rumsfeld had a point he wanted to make about military transformation.  He got his way.

In most pre-war discussions of troop strength requirements, the issue was not only how many it would take to defeat Saddam militarily, but how many it would take to provide a sufficiently secure environment after victory to allow basic infrastructure and institutions to be rebuilt.  Wolfowitz, Perle, et al believed this would not be an issue.

This information is well known, you can find it with a simple Google or Nexis search.

Thanks -

But it sure blows up police stations real nice from a briefcase.

(Note:  I am note endorsing this practice.  I'm f--king pissed at this f--kup by the Bush admin and resorting to irony to avoid breaking down completely.)

And a daisy cutter weighs 15kpounds, right around your 6ton estimate.  They have to drop it from a C-130 because nothing else can carry it.

reference: http://www.fas.org/man/dod-101/sys/dumb/blu-82.htm

(yeah I know they're dirty hippies)

DB -

I appreciate and respect what you've expressed in your post.  Please allow me to respond.

I share your distaste for the "win at any cost" game that politics has become.  I agree that the quality of leadership that comes from the Oval Office is more important than who, specifically, sits there.  You are probably right that our politics differ some.

I have nothing but respect for your son's service.   With him there, I imagine your views on these issues is actually much more intense than mine, correctly so.  I hope that no comment I make expresses any disrespect or lack of support for the people on the ground.  They are, willingly, putting themselves in harm's way for our good.

Your point about "Monday morning quarterbacking" is also quite legitimate.  Compared to the folks that actually have to make, and live with, these decisions, my opinions on the matter amount to very little.

That said, I stand by my opinion on the issue of troop strength.  Prior to the war, many of the professional career military, including General Franks, recommended a troop level of 200,000+.  This recommendation was rejected by the civilian leadership.  For what it's worth, it is my belief that they were wrong to reject that advice, and it is also my belief that that decision, and others, have contributed to the difficulty we now face in Iraq.  I will leave aside for now the wisdom of going there in the first place.

You may or may not agree with me, but my point of view is not an intellectual lie.  I read a lot, do my best to pay attention to events as they happen, and try to be as faithful to the facts as I can be.  I am happy to discuss the issue on its merits.  Your points about the backup in Turkey is quite legitimate, and to the point, as is your comment about the time window.  They are perhaps the most relevant comments that have been made on the topic in this thread.  I'm not sure they change my opinion, but they are relevant and I will think about them.  Thank you for sharing them.  In any case, I think it's important to consider and discuss this, because in a week we have to choose who will lead us for the next four years.

Final thoughts:

The lesson you cite is not the lesson I took from Vietnam.

I don't think my comments here give evidence of a hate-filled heart, I found that comment of yours kind of weird.  Can you explain yourself?

I post as "Amos", not "Anom".  Amos is one of the minor prophets, I was reading his book when I signed up here, so I picked Amos as my "posting" alias.

Thanks -

The Fox News story says that the UN inspectors found "nothing" in the context of a search for WMDs. The story says that inspectors found some materials related to chemical weapons (antidotes and documentation), but here's the crucial paragraph:

U.N. weapons inspectors went repeatedly to the vast al Qa Qaa complex -- most recently on March 8 -- but found nothing during spot visits to some of the 1,100 buildings at the site 25 miles south of Baghdad.

If you read the story, it's pretty clear that "nothing" = "no WMDs." The inspectors weren't interested in explosives, as Iraq was allowed to possess them.

Also, the last time I checked, John Kerry was not the New York Times, or any of the other media outlets reporting on this story.

It's hard to believe that all 406,000 tons of munitions that were destroyed consist of the same type of explosives that were at Al Qaqaa. Otherwise the entire country would have been under IAEA seal.

So, I can't really go along with your arithmetic until I get a more precise idea of what the administration is claiming we've destroyed.

And given the timing of this story and how quickly Kerry incorporated it into his speeches today, they're more indistinguishable than ever.

Whenever I read national political stories in the Times now, I just think of it as Kerry campaign literature.  

Don't get me wrong, I'm pissed that the Bush team was caught flatfooted by these guys.  I just wish there was someone inside the Kerry organization that would come out and say they're being fed the stories in advance, because if you have read the accounts of how Kerry crafts his speeches and does his campaign, nothing is extemporaneous.  The wording of every sentence is scrutinized in advance for how it will play.  The Clinton team members have taught him well...

... this is going to consist of small arms, artillery ammunition, mortar rounds, RPGs, artillery rockets, etc., and some probably 'small' quantity of demolition explosives (in the case of Saddam 'small' quantity appears to be a relative term :-). The numbers may also includes some quantity of artillery pieces and related. But regardless the vast majority will consist of explosive ordnance.

And I'm sure it's been discussed, is how the Times will handle criticism of Kerry if he wins.  Because if the Times decides to try having journalistic integrity of some sort, it's going to have to be critical of Kerry...eventually.  My guess is that some media studies grad student has a very interesting, defensible Ph.D. dissertation topic there.  I know the American Enterprise Institute did some work on this kind of bias, and it apparently aroused the interest of a researcher at Johns Hopkins because it was the first study of its kind with any merit behind it, so I expect there will be more.

OooooOOooh and I just can't wait to hear Todd Gitlin try to spin this one into "Cheerleading for Bush."

Read this Slate piece dissing Kerry because he never sticks to his script. They say he's too extemporaneous:

http://slate.msn.com/id/2108429/

I think you're being willfully obtuse.

If you read the story, it's pretty clear that "nothing" = "no WMDs." The inspectors weren't interested in explosives, as Iraq was allowed to possess them.

If the inspectors weren't interested in explosives then where do the accountings come from? IAEA is involved with nuclear materials and UNMOVIC/UNSCOM were concerned with chemical/biologicals. No one was charges with tracking 'ordinary' high explosives regardless of how much there was.

And coming from Slate, it's one of those "gentle jabs" at the candidate to make him realize he should resist his urge for expansive dialectical synthesis and endless expatiation.  But my point is real, despite the humor.  Kerry stumbles and makes his audience go glassy-eyed when he doesn't stick to the message, and infuriates his team (apparently) when he doesn't, since they spend so much time working on what he's going to say.  He didn't have any trouble doing that today, though...it almost seemed as though he...rehearsed those lines last night!

UN weapons inspectors were interested because the Al Qaqaa site had been suspected of producing WMDs. But they weren't interested in conventional weapons. If these guys found "nothing," it means no chemical/biological weapons. That's what the Fox story is talking about.

The IAEA was interested in the 380 tons of conventional explosive because these materials could be used as the trigger for a nuclear weapon. Let's emphasize that: the missing explosives could be used to build a nuclear weapon. That's why the International Atomic Energy Agency is involved in this.

Then the stuff that the administration is talking about isn't comparable to the Al Qaqaa cache. The experts seem to think the missing explosives are way more dangerous than artillery shells or small arms rounds. So sez the NY Times...

After the invasion, when widespread looting began in Iraq, the international weapons experts grew concerned that the Qaqaa stockpile could fall into unfriendly hands. In May, an internal I.A.E.A. memorandum warned that terrorists might be helping "themselves to the greatest explosives bonanza in history."

I don't know, Bob.  Whether it's small arms, artillery, demolition explosives, artillery shells, etc., any of it could have been used to kill Americans.  

What I'm seeing here is when people on the Right say "it doesn't matter if the material used to kill Americans comes from within the country or from Iran it doesn't matter" the people on the Left cry foul.   BUT  When it suits your purposes you're able to claim that this sort of explosives is far worse than the other kinds of munitions we've destroyed as part of the 400,000 tons.

What if this cache had been artillery pieces and shells?  Would that make the theft of it any less alarming?  Would you dismiss the demolition of 400,000 tons of plastique with a flourish that artillery is so much more dangerous?

That the IAEA is suddenly asking (or actually, according to the Times article, it was a European Diplomat) where these key components of a nuclear weapon are...when until a week ago the Kerry campaign's main assertion was that there was no demonstrable reason to go to war over nonexistant WMDs, or components of WMDs, or whatnot...but now they wonder whether maybe there were, perhaps so that the IAEA and those same European Diplomats will have a say in what goes on in Iraq if Kerry  wins?

Doubtless someone on the Kerry team could have consulted a munitions expert on the possible uses and dangers of HMX and RDX before NOW, especially because the IAEA must have records of them?  No, I suppose that with so many advisors busy advising him on his elocution, they couldn't have done it before TODAY.  This MONDAY.  A Week Before The Election.  And neither could CBS News!  

I'm not sure why you're comment hasn't been deleted yet, but I'll respond anyhow...

The Times piece is written nicely to lead to your conclusion.  Problem: it's a creative piece of writing and in no way an iron-clad indictment of Bush.

It in no way "proves" that any of this was even there when our troops raced by on their way to Baghdad.  It is entirely possible that the place was already looted.  The Times piece makes no claim to the contrary.

Not to mention, as has been noted elsewhere in one of these threads, 380 tons is less than a tenth of a percent of the total amount of ordnance secured and/or destroyed by our troops since the start of this whole thing.  If, in the grand scheme of things, we allow less than .1% of the bad stuff slip through, I'd call that a success.

Where all of that high explosive came from in the first place?  Did the Iraqis make it themselves?  Or did they buy it with the help of...A European Diplomat?

Your earlier post said 380 tons is approximately 65 MOABs so I divided 380 tons by 65 to see how many tons would be invested in each MOAB-sized bomb.  

The incredible size is part of my point: sure that's enough for 65 MOABs, but they'd be so friggin' heavy nothing but a semi could carry them.

Yes, a briefcase of this stuff would do significant damage, but it would be far less than MOAB-sized.

They'll blame everything on inheritance unlike when they blame Bush for the recession.

The IAEA was interested in this site.  They had apparently put seals on much of it so it could not be used.  If I'm not mistake, Saddam would have had to remove those seals (what, Saddam breach an international law?  Perish the thought!) in order to use them, etc.  Apparently this was done.  When was it done?  That's the question.  

But no one has proven that this whole thing went down on Bush's watch.  Also, if there were IAEA-sealed items at the site, I'm prone to believe the Fox News story, which wasn't strictly about the UN inspectors, would have included some mention of IAEA-sealed things if there were any present at the time.  I have no proof of that, but it seems pertinent to such a news item.

So, since we have such a shortage of direct evidence to the contrary, I'm standing by the interpretation that the Fox News story shows there was nothing significant at the site in March of '03 be it UN-oriented or IAEA-oriented.

But the Times does its normal job of saying that the U.N. "discovered" them.  Yes, yes.  They were "discovered" (and I use that in the legal sense of the term) after the European Diplomat decided to leave a piece of paper from his European Briefcase on a European Table before some other European Diplomat did.  The explosives in question all came from Very European France, Mostly European Yugoslavia, and Sometimes European China.

Pardon me, but I don't think I've said anything that justifies your comment.

The Bush administration is arguing that the Al Qaqaa explosives are no big deal when you put them in the context of all the muntitions that are floating around Iraq, especially when you look at how many munitions have been secured or destroyed.

If jsteele is right in saying that the 406,000 tons of destroyed or secured munitions mostly consists of "small arms, artillery ammunition, mortar rounds, RPGs, artillery rockets, etc., and some probably 'small' quantity of demolition explosives," then the administration's argument doesn't hold water: the Al Qaqaa materials are more dangerous than the other types of munitions out there. They're more effective and more lethal. In other words, the insurgents can kill more US troops (and Iraqis) with the Al Qaqaa explosives than they can with IEDs made from artillery shells, AK-47s, or RPGs.

Would I be alarmed if 380 tons (or 400,000, or whatever) of artillery pieces and shells were missing? I certainly would be. In fact, I've been alarmed from the very beginning that so many ammo dumps and other storage sites (including ones for nuclear material) were left unguarded, and more since it became clear that insurgents have been attacking our troops using materials that were looted from those ammo dumps.

The current story is the most extreme example of something we already knew: we didn't secure enough munitions early on, because of poor planning and misplaced priorities. But Al Qaqaa is a glaring example because it was such a large cache of dangerous material. As I quoted above, the IAEA worried it was the "greatest explosives bonanza in history."

Apparently on NBC Nightly News tonight they drove a stake through the heart of this story. The summary is online at NationalReview Online

Did you hear that NBC just reported that they were embedded with the 101st Airborne when they were the first to get to the Al Qaqaa facility and NBC says there was NO HMX (or any of those other acronyms) there.

Once again, Kerry bashes the performance of the troops who are (literally) DYING to win the war he is trying to undermine....who says history doesn't repeat itself.

MAYBE YOU CAN SLAM THE DOOR ON THIS THREAD NOW!

I was dreaming about laughing my a** off when the Kerry campaign has to explain the attacks on Bush's incompence.

But then I realized they will simply adroitly shift to 'well why haven't we detroyed the remaining munitions. Senator Kerry would have done this better --- he would have gone to Iraq and dealt with this personally, he can do that you know he served in Vietnam in case  you weren't aware'

The Kerry-Edwards 2004 campaign song:

Anything you can do I can do better

I can do anything better than you

No you can't

Yes I can, Yes I can, Yes I can

Anything you can do I can do better

But I can't tell you how until I get elected

It would be really funny if Kerry cited his experience in destroying rice stockpiles.....you know the one that he got his third purple heart for when he got all the rice stuck where the sun doesn't shine. Now THAT would be funny.

Putting to the side the fact that NBC just staked this one, the whole hem and haw of this is lost on me. Is the problem that we missed a tiny fraction of the ordinance all on the ground in Iraq? That for the last eighteen months Iraqi criminals have been blowing up our troops with some explosives the old thugs had procured, in addition to the ones the Iranians and Syrians provided them? It doesn't change the facts that our troops died. It doesn't change the fact that we haven't cut off the source of the arms and funds not lying around on the ground.

In other words, aside from knowing where some of the big boom sticks (probably didn't) come from, what is the revolutionary advance here? That the Bush administration is learning high-speed-colonialism (with the twist of giving the place back) on the fly, and therefore made as many mistakes as I did on my first date with my wife?

Please: Tell me. I'm actually quite serious.

The problem is that the administration HAS NO IDEA what happened or when. They were responsible for securing these explosives, but they never took an inventory at this site when we invaded, so they never knew WHAT THEY WERE RESPONSIBLE FOR. This is incredible negligence when our whole reason for being there was to find and secure the kind of weapons that were monitored by the IAEA. What if there had been actual Weapons of Mass Destruction? They could have been anywhere by now.

Bush has made it worse by failing to address this issue personally. It looks as though he can't take the heat. Scott McClellan nattering about "priorities" is not a good reply. How can Bush be tough about protecting us from foreign threats when he can't deal with something like this by calling a prompt press conference and fielding a few tough questions?

went missing is that American forces failed to systematically secure the site when we first invaded. We don't know what was there when we went in. I call that incompetence, when the whole purpose of the invasion was to deny Weapons of Mass Destruction to terrorists. I call it worse than incompetence when there's a possibility that the explosives are being used against our soldiers and Iraqi citizens on a daily basis.

Why was the disappearance of this material reported by the Iraqi interim government in October 2004 rather than by the CPA in the spring of 2003?

"Did you hear that NBC just reported that they were embedded with the 101st Airborne when they were the first to get to the Al Qaqaa facility and NBC says there was NO HMX (or any of those other acronyms) there."

I dunno, because I can't quite find the sources about Franks when I google. Before I get to that, I should point out that we had about 145k troops and I'd hardly call that Rumsfeld getting "his way".

As for what I have found concerning Franks, I found the following quotes and links.  

He said here upon his leaving Iraq that the then current troop levels were adequate:

Franks, the commander of the war in Iraq, said in a television interview before his retirement on Monday, he believed the current force of about 145,000 troops in Iraq was enough to cope with the latest attacks on U.S. troops.

Another quote upon reflection saying basically the same thing:

Troop levels in Iraq, which Franks had a hand in setting, are also in order, he said. He said the initial invasion's success in toppling Saddam shows that the number of soldiers allocated for that phase of Iraq operations was adequate.

In probably a more recent quote he looks back and acknowledges that maybe we have too few, yet at the time agreed on the troop level:

He said in his book that he agrees with criticism that the United States sent too few troops to Iraq to secure the peace, but said he also agreed with the troop levels at the time because he believed there would be more international cooperation.

He even noted that Powell called him to question whether he had enough troops:

The debate over U.S. troop strength predates the war. In his memoir, retired Army Gen. Tommy R. Franks, who commanded the invasion force, said Secretary of State Colin L. Powell called him in September 2002 to express concern that the invasion force would be too small.

It is possible, though I can't find the links right now, that Franks previously asked for more troops than that, but it seems fairly certain that he was happy with troop levels and his war plan at the time hostilities began. He was even happy with troop levels when he left Iraq. In hindsight he seems to agree that we should have had more troops for securing peace. So it is possible we are both right.

Hey Seth -

Here are a couple of links referring to Franks initial request for a force of 200,000.  Good for you for not taking my word for it:

http://216.239.39.104/search?q=cache:LRgUBUhQsAkJ:washington.news.designerz
.com/us-commander-says-more-troops-are-needed-to-secure-iraq-for-elections.
html+franks+troop+strength+iraq+200000&hl=en

http://216.239.39.104/search?q=cache:r7tVqW3eGq0J:www.worldpress.org/Europe
/1079.cfm+franks+troop+strength+iraq+200000&hl=en

http://216.239.39.104/search?q=cache:FzhdF7Wy0m0J:www.eurolegal.org/mideast
/iraqun.htm+franks+troop+strength+iraq+200000&hl=en

The first one is interesting, because it quotes Rumsfeld as stating that Franks had requested 200,000.

I have also read Franks' statements that he believes the troop strength we went in with, as well as the current strength, is sufficient.  I can't explain the difference between then and now in his appraisal of what is needed.  He may have changed his mind in the meantime, or he may be, to his credit, standing behind his boss's position.

The broader point I wanted to make, and which I believe is demonstrable, is that many, many of the professional career military (including Franks) recommended a larger force than we went in with, while the civilian leadership, especially Rumsfeld, wanted a much smaller number.  

In Rumsfeld's case, this was at least partly motivated by a desire to demonstrate the effectiveness of a leaner "transformed" fighting force.  To me, that has the flavor of experimenting when very important things are at risk, which disturbs me.

This may all be nothing more than, as DB eloquently puts it in another comment, Monday morning quarterbacking on my part.  I think it is, however, important to hold our government responsible for the actions and policies they take, so I try to pay attention and make the best sense of the situation that I can.

Frankly, I originally posted on this thread because I found Thomas' "what's the big deal" comment cavalier, even flippant, in the context of the topic, and felt that it deserved a reply.

Best -

Seth -

Another thing I should mention.

In at least one of the articles I cited, Bush is credited with favoring Franks' higher estimate of required troop strength vs Rumsfelds lower estimate.

So, I take back my statement that "Bush heard what he wanted to hear".  To his credit, he listened to and responsed to the advice of the general.

Cheers -

It doesn't sound like there is much more to say. You have covered, I think, the more salient points already. Regarding the initial estimate by Franks, this very well could be like any budget discussion that happens every day across America. The person using the budget asks very conservatively in their behalf, the person giving the budget asks very conservatively in their behalf. The end result is somewhere in between where both parties are [hopefully] content, feeling like they won the discussion. Both parties knowingly start high or low in order to give room to bargain.

Given that, I think anyone can see why a General, faced with the prospect of going to war, would deliberately ask for more troops than is probably necessary. You get them, great you have maybe more than you need! You don't get them, then you at least have a fallback position to bargain down to.

That is one way you can reconcile the difference between the higher initial estimate given by Franks and the lower troop level that Franks was eventually satisfied with. Another way to reconcile it is to say Franks is lying today in order to prop up Bush...