Tuesday, October 26, 2004

Iraq explosives were missing before US troops arrived

The New York Times reported yesterday that nearly 400 tons of high explosvies was missing in Iraq.

An explosive issue for the campaign, this "revelation" was sized upon by John Kerry as proof of further imcompetence by President Bush.

Drudge is reporting that NBC News has proof that the explosives were missing before US troops arrived.

But tonight, NBCNEWS reported: The 380 tons of powerful conventional explosives were already missing back in April 10, 2003 -- when U.S. troops arrived at the installation south of Baghdad!

An NBCNEWS crew embedded with troops moved in to secure the Al-Qaqaa weapons facility on April 10, 2003, one day after the liberation of Iraq.

According to NBCNEWS, the HMX and RDX explosives were already missing when the American troops arrived.

"The U.S. Army was at the site one day after the liberation and the weapons were already gone," a top Republican blasted from Washington late Monday.

The International Atomic Energy Agency inspectors last saw the explosives in January 2003 when they took an inventory and placed fresh seals on the bunkers.


Drudge did a count of how many times this "story" was mentioned by the major networks.

**ABCNEWS Mentioned The Iraq Explosives Depot At Least 4 Times
**CBSNEWS Mentioned The Iraq Explosives Depot At Least 7 Times
**MSNBC Mentioned The Iraq Explosives Depot At Least 37 Times
**CNN Mentioned The Iraq Explosives Depot At Least 50 Times

Lets see how many times they mention the NBC news "revelations".

The administration's response to the news?

A senior Bush official e-mailed DRUDGE late Monday: "Let me get this straight, are Mr. Kerry and Mr. Edwards now saying we did not go into Iraq soon enough? We should have invaded and liberated Iraq sooner?"

Even though all of main stream media is against President Bush, NBC just couldn't resist a "scoop".

UPDATE: NRO has a quote from NBC confirming the explosives were missing when US troops got there.
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Posted by Marc at 6:34 AM
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1 comment:

PTET said...

Gee, well, if *Drudge* says it then that settles it ;>

According to TPM, the confusion here appears to have arisen because of mixed messages from the US administration & the Iraqi government:
http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2004_10_24.php#003801

He writes: "My point here is not to say that this could not have occurred. What I am trying to show is that Pentagon appointees like Di Rita don't seem to have any clear idea what happened to this stuff. And in an attempt to push back the story, they're cooking up various theories, most with very short half-lives, that just don't seem credible to a lot of folks who follow these issues... If you look at the multiple contradictions in the different stories administration officials told reporters over the course of Monday, it's hard not to get the sense that they're caught without a good explanation and they're just making this stuff up as they go along."

Now, that's his opinion of course - but unlike Fox/Drudge, he doesn't pretend that opinion is fact.

Toodle pip.

PTET

4:52 PM

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