Nbc Blows A Hole In The Kerry Attack About The Explosives

[Shotgun]

NBC BLOWS A HOLE IN THE KERRY ATTACK ABOUT THE EXPLOSIVES [10/25 09:09 PM]

Jim Miklaszewski of NBC News pretty much dismantled the New York Times attack on behalf of Kerry today.

NBC News: Miklaszewski: “April 10, 2003, only three weeks into the war, NBC News was embedded with troops from the Army's 101st Airborne as they temporarily take over the Al Qakaa weapons installation south of Baghdad. But these troops never found the nearly 380 tons of some of the most powerful conventional explosives, called HMX and RDX, which is now missing. The U.S. troops did find large stockpiles of more conventional weapons, but no HMX or RDX, so powerful less than a pound brought down Pan Am 103 in 1988, and can be used to trigger a nuclear weapon. In a letter this month, the Iraqi interim government told the International Atomic Energy Agency the high explosives were lost to theft and looting due to lack of security. Critics claim there were simply not enough U.S. troops to guard hundreds of weapons stockpiles, weapons now being used by insurgents and terrorists to wage a guerrilla war in Iraq.” (NBC’s “Nightly News,” 10/25/04)

If Jill Abramson, managing editor of the New York Times, had a shred of concern over her paper's reputation for getting the facts right never mind objectivity or fairness, she would be running the correction - or at least this blatantly contradictory information - in the giant headline font and above-the-fold location that today's story got. But I guess the interest in echoing the sentiments of Maureen Dowd is more important than getting it right at the Old Gray Lady.

http://www.nationalreview.com/kerry/kerryspot.asp

 

[wilheim]

NRO.com :biglaugh:

 

[GAMEFACE]

The weapons were long gone before US troops arrived, it doesn't surprise me one bit they'd misrepresent the facts once again.

 

[wilheim]

Nice try but no way they were gone



U.N.: 400 tons of Iraq explosives missing

By WILLIAM J. KOLE
The Associated Press
10/25/2004, 10:14 p.m. CT


VIENNA, Austria (AP) — The U.N. nuclear agency warned Monday that insurgents in Iraq may have obtained nearly 400 tons of missing explosives that can be used in the kind of car bomb attacks that have targeted U.S.-led coalition forces for months.

International Atomic Energy Agency chief Mohamed ElBaradei reported the disappearance to the U.N. Security Council on Monday, two weeks after he said Iraq told the nuclear agency that the explosives had vanished from the former Iraqi military installation as a result of "theft and looting ... due to lack of security."
The disappearance raised questions about why the United States didn't do more to secure the Al-Qaqaa facility 30 miles south of Baghdad and failed to allow full international inspections to resume after the March 2003 invasion.

The White House played down the significance of the missing weapons, but Democratic presidential hopeful John Kerry accused President Bush of "incredible incompetence" and his campaign said the administration "must answer for what may be the most grave and catastrophic mistake in a tragic series of blunders in Iraq."

Al-Qaqaa is near Youssifiyah, an area rife with ambush attacks. An Associated Press Television News crew that drove past the compound Monday saw no visible security at the gates of the site, a jumble of low-slung, yellow-colored storage buildings that appeared deserted.

"The most immediate concern here is that these explosives could have fallen into the wrong hands," IAEA spokeswoman Melissa Fleming said.

The agency first placed a seal over Al-Qaqaa storage bunkers holding the explosives in 1991 as part of U.N. sanctions that ordered the dismantlement of Iraq's nuclear program after the Gulf War.

IAEA inspectors last saw the explosives in January 2003 when they took an inventory and placed fresh seals on the bunkers, Fleming said. Inspectors visited the site again in March 2003, but didn't view the explosives because the seals were not broken, she said.

Nuclear agency experts pulled out of Iraq just before the U.S.-led invasion later that month, and have not yet been able to return for general inspections despite ElBaradei's repeated urging that they be allowed to finish their work. Although IAEA inspectors have made two trips to Iraq since the war at U.S. requests, Russia and other Security Council members have pressed for their full-time return — so far unsuccessfully.

Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman said U.S.-led forces searched the Al-Qaqaa facility after the invasion.

"Coalition forces were present in the vicinity at various times during and after major combat operations," he said. "The forces searched 32 bunkers and 87 other buildings at the facility, but found no indicators of WMD (weapons of mass destruction)."

Saddam Hussein's regime used Al-Qaqaa as a key part of its effort to build a nuclear bomb. Although the missing materials are conventional explosives known as HMX and RDX, the Vienna-based IAEA became involved because HMX is a "dual use" substance powerful enough to ignite the fissile material in an atomic bomb and set off a nuclear chain reaction.

Both are key components in plastic explosives such as C-4 and Semtex, which are so powerful that Libyan terrorists needed just a pound to blow up Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, in 1988, killing 170 people.

Insurgents targeting coalition forces in Iraq have made widespread use of plastic explosives in a bloody spate of car bomb attacks. Officials were unable to link the missing explosives directly to the recent car bombings, but the revelations that they could have fallen into enemy hands caused a stir in the last week of the U.S. presidential campaign.

"These explosives can be used to blow up airplanes, level buildings, attack our troops and detonate nuclear weapons," senior Kerry adviser Joe Lockhart said in a statement. "The Bush administration knew where this stockpile was, but took no action to secure the site."

White House press secretary Scott McClellan said the administration's first concern was whether the disappearance constituted a nuclear proliferation threat. He said it did not.

"We have destroyed more than 243,000 munitions" in Iraq, he said. "We've secured another nearly 163,000 that will be destroyed."

McClellan said the IAEA informed U.S. mission in Vienna on Oct. 15 about the missing explosives at Al-Qaqaa. He said national security adviser Condoleeza Rice was notified "days after that," and she then informed President Bush.

ElBaradei told the council the agency had been trying to give the U.S.-led multinational force and Iraq's interim government "an opportunity to attempt to recover the explosives before this matter was put into the public domain."

But since the disappearance was reported Monday in The New York Times, ElBaradei said he wanted the Security Council to have the letter dated Oct. 10 that he received from Mohammed J. Abbas, a senior official at Iraq's Ministry of Science and Technology, reporting the theft of 377 tons of explosives.

The letter from Abbas informed the IAEA that since April 9, 2003, looting at the Al-Qaqaa installation had resulted in the loss of 215 tons of HMX, 156 tons of RDX and six tons of PETN explosives.

Diplomats said there was nothing to suggest that ElBaradei, who had irritated the Bush administration before the war by insisting there was no evidence that Saddam had revived his nuclear program, had intended to keep the report a secret until after the Nov. 2 election.


Associated Press

 

[Shotgun]

The weapons were long gone before US troops arrived, it doesn't surprise me one bit they'd misrepresent the facts once again.

Wonder how long Kerry is going to peddle this lie?

I kind of feel bad for him...this October Surprise was likely set up a long time ago . They were going to talk about this all week according to Joe Lockhart. And now...pffffft!

It is eerily similar to the Dan Rather's forged documents; the desire to win is so desperate that they have to make stuff up.

 

[GAMEFACE]

The facts are the weapons were last seen in 1998 on Clintoons watch and were gone upon US troops arriving on location. How in the fukk is Bush responsible for that? Even you know the race is over.

 

[GAMEFACE]

Funny **** Wilm, a NBC embedded reported states the facts and you stick your head back into the pile of shittt michael moore spews.

 

[American]

The libs have assured us that there's no WMD's and nothing to fear from Iraq. This shouldn't be a problem.

 

[Redneckman]

Hey Wil, IT WAS REPORTED BY NBC!!!!!!! Get a clue

 

[GAMEFACE]

Amazing there were no weapons, Kerry now admits there were weapons. these phonys will do and say anything for a vote or two.

 

[blueedwards]

kerry is cleary grasping at straws now...this should really backfire and take whatever hope he had left. only a man with poor character would try to capitalize on this inaccurate story.

 

[eek.]

The explosives were there guys, snug and safe....right up until you invaded.
The IAEA has been kept out of Iraq so the UN can't find out how much went 'missing'.
(BTW. Osama sez thanks muchly)

IAEA inspectors last saw the explosives in January 2003 when they took an inventory and placed fresh seals on the bunkers, Fleming said. Inspectors visited the site again in March 2003, but didn't view the explosives because the seals were not broken, she said. Nuclear agency experts pulled out of Iraq just before the U.S.-led invasion later that month, and have not yet been able to return for general inspections despite ElBaradei's repeated urging that they be allowed to finish their work.

 

[blueedwards]

eek, you mau be right. however, this news was known 18 months ago. kerry knew it then...he even refenced it in the debate with bush in early october. so, to have the news story break, implying that it was just discovered, with a week to go in the elections, and for kerry to pile on and call it a huge blunder as if bush decided not to guard this cache when everyone knew the stuff was gone over a year ago is reprehensible. you want this guy to be president? holy crap.

 

[blueedwards]

everyone knows that the media has a liberal bias but, come on. first the blatant lies about bush's national guard service and now this. its almost too much to take. these frickin' goof balls think they can get away with these lies just because they are the ones airing the stories? pretty soon main-stream america will doubt everything they see on cbs and cnn.

 

[docmercer--banned]

Blue Edwards:

Give me thy break!

Bush has been given kid gloves by the Media ...

C'mon ... you guys spent 48 million cause Clinton got head in the Oval Office

Bush ... hmm, lets see: in 94 they spread lies that Anne Richards was a Lesbian (which is really ironic considering the Uproar by Kerry over Cheney's daughter) and in the S Carolina primary in 2000 the Bushies spread rumors McCain had a black daughter as well as being mentally unbalanced from his POW stint in Vietnam

Politics is dirty .. if ya think Bush is a Saint, think again as Rove and Company play as dirty as they come

 

[blueedwards]

bush has been given kid gloves by the media?

wow.

what planet are you on?

 

[docmercer--banned]

Name how the treatment of Bush has been any worse than Clinton?

Republican / Democrat .. it does not matter ... ya can dig up crap on any of em

I cant think of an election where America was presented 2 worse candidates for the Presidency .. they are flappin clones of each other ... flip/flopper on every issue ... neither has presented an actual game plan relating to the Mess in Iraq, health care or the economy

Then again, being that Bush / Kerry are Skull & Bones members and cousins ....