Posted on 10/26/2004 5:07:22 PM PDT by focusandclarity
(CNSNews.com) - The New York Times on Tuesday defended its report on a missing cache of explosives in Iraq after Republicans accused the newspaper of ignoring the facts in a rush to attack President Bush.
The Times reported Monday that 380 tons of explosives had gone missing from the Al Qaqaa military facility in Iraq, which triggered a swift and harsh attack on Bush from Sen. John Kerry, who quickly produced an ad citing the article.
The Republican National Committee released a compilation of recent news reports on the missing explosives Tuesday, which it said proved that the Times and Kerry campaign were ignoring the facts to attack Bush.
The NBC Nightly News revealed Monday evening that it had an embedded reporter at Al Qaqaa on April 10, 2003, one day after the fall of Baghdad, and that none of the 380 tons of explosives were present.
"NBC News was embedded with troops from the Army's 101st Airborne as they temporarily take over the Al-Qaqaa weapons installation south of Baghdad," Pentagon correspondent Jim Miklaszewski reported Monday. "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 Times' spokeswoman, Catherine Mathis, issued a statement to CNSNews.com on Tuesday afternoon defending the newspaper's report:
"Our front page story of October 25 reported accurately that a senior official at Iraq's Ministry of Science & Technology informed the International Atomic Energy Agency in a letter on October 10 that the materials were lost from the Al-qaqaa site after April 9, 2003, through the theft and looting of the governmental installations due to lack of security.'
"The IAEA took an inventory of the materials in January, 2003. In early March, right before the beginning of the war, the IAEA went to the site and found that the seals on the bunkers were still intact.
"Pentagon and White House officials told the Times, as the story says, that the materials vanished sometime after the U.S.-led invasion.
"The Times story also reported that U.S. forces visited the vast site on their way to Baghdad and saw no materials bearing the IAEA seal.
"We are continuing our reporting on the disappearance."
You have to wonder how many things were blown up in this amount of time that this may have been used in (ie: terrorism?)
I was waiting in line today for tickets to a Bush rally at our local Republican headquarters. There was a long line and a blonde haired greaser was walking by the line telling the Bush backers how they were "duped" and that Bush and Cheney were leading us to "globay tyranny" over the love of oil. He then said that we put Osama Bin Laden and Saddam in power and that there were massive oil pipelines we fought for in Afghanistan. I had had enough, so I began questioning him in a respectful manner on his facts (of which, of course, he had none). By the end of the conversation, he yelled an obscenity and said he didn't like either candidate. A few in the line starting saying "Vote Nader."
Yes, the voters of the duped and mentally stunted - Kerry supporters.
I agree with you. I think the president just demanding an investigation is not enough and the investigation will take too much time. And people are voting NOW.
I've just finished reading A Matter of Character (great book) and Rove and others in the administration decided they would not do what Clinton did. They would not leap on every negative news story and get their spin out there. They would stay on message and ignore the press.
That is only effective to a point. And totally ineffective one week out of an election.
LOL! Good for you. I can never remain calm enough long enough to have that kind of conversation with a nutjob, but you don't know how much I wish I could. It's something I will have to work on.
Bush Failure to Secure Explosives /Misjudgments that Have Made America Less Secure
or watch it here:
Never let the facts get in the way of a good smear. The NYT's is a POS. AND the Grey Lady is dead, replaced by a toothless street walking prostitute.
The truth has not stopped M. Moore from telling his lies, so why should the NYT be any different?
You can also include the Philadelphia Inquirer and Boston Globe.
Insurgents Hauling 380 Tons Of Explosives Not Exactly A Covert Act
"Unfortunately for the New York Times, no one gave a thought about the logistics of the notion that small bands of insurgents made off with 380 tons of explosives under the noses of the Coalition with no one noticing. CQ reader and retired Army Reserve Captain Ian Dodgson got paid to think about logistics, and he did some "cocktail-napkin" math that escaped the geniuses at the Paper of Record:
We're familiar with the NY Times story and the IAEA accusations that the "missing" explosives were looted from the Al-Qaqaa military base due to US negligence in securing the facility.
If I were a guerilla "looter" and I was planning such an operation from a military standpoint, here's what the task would require:
Assumptions:
-Each "looter" could haul comfortably about 25 pounds per trip to a truck. (of course after 12 hours that would require superhuman endurance)
-I'd allow 5 minutes per round trip to the truck
-Work day 12 hours
-assume security breaks down 1 week after war starts (that allows 2 weeks before the US troops arrive)
-each pickup truck can carry about 1/4 ton of explosives (I did a quick calculation based upon the dimensions and weight of a block of C-4 and the dimensions of an average small pickup) and it takes 15 minutes to either load or unload the truck.
-the secure hiding place for 380 tons of explosives is 30 minutes away.
Calculations:
-380 tons / [((12hrs/dayX60min/hr) / (5 min per load)) X (25 lbs per load) X 14 days] = 15 loaders X 2 = 30 loaders/unloaders
-30 loaders/unloaders times 200% for breaks, rest, inefficiency, etc. = 60 loaders and unloaders.
-380 tons / [(12hrs/day / 1 hr/round trip,load,unload) X (.25 tons per trip) X 14 days] = 10 trucks and drivers X 1.5 (contingency) = 15 trucks and drivers.
-4 trucks + 10-15 men to supply water, food and other logistical requirements
Total = 19-20 trucks, 90 men working continuously for two weeks to "loot" facility.
Bottom line this operation would take the resources of AN ENTIRE COMPANY (approx. 100 men) OVER TWO WEEKS, good Intel to know exactly where the "right" explosives were hidden and a means of breaching huge steel doors and concrete of an ASP.
And all of this would have to be done in an area with numerous intel overflights that would be looking for exactly this kind of activity in the combat zone, and not get noticed at all. Like so much of what the New York Times, CBS, and the Kerry campaign feeds us ... it just doesn't add up.
"Pentagon and White House officials told the Times, as the story says, that the materials vanished sometime after the U.S.-led invasion."
It was before we got to the site, though, by all reports I have seen. It would have been impossible to hide that many trucks carting it out after we reached the site on the way to Baghdad....The roads were filled with our trucks and tanks.
http://www.scrappleface.com/MT/archives/001890.html
scrappleface.com weighs in:
Saddam Worried Explosive Cache Now in 'Wrong Hands'
(2004-10-25) -- When Iraqi military interrogators informed the imprisoned Saddam Hussein that 377 tons of explosives had disappeared from a huge weapons storage facility, the former Iraqi president expressed concern that the extremely powerful chemical agents might "fall into the wrong hands."
His remarks bolstered claims by Democrat presidential candidate John Forbes Kerry that President George Bush had made a "great blunder" by failing to secure the weapons cache at Al Qaqaa.
"When Al Qaqaa was under Saddam Hussein's control, inventory management was efficient and reliable, and Americans could sleep at night," said Mr. Kerry, who is also a U.S. Senator. "But once these weapons of nearly mass destruction (WNMD) came under the care of George W. Bush, they vanished. And who knows what kind of crazed, America-hating killers have them now?"
The missing materials include HMX (high melting point explosive) and RDX (rapid detonation explosive). Less than a pound of such substances brought down Pan Am flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, in 1988.
However, chemical experts agree that HMX and RDX posed no threat to anyone as long as they were controlled by the legitimately-elected former president of the Republic of Iraq.
The Pentagon is reportedly negotiating a deal with Mr. Hussein to allow him to oversee Iraq's remaining weapons depots as a kind of prison work-release program while he awaits trial.
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