Pssst, pssst, over here I got some really good stuff to sell

[mslacat]

Hey it really good stuff, it will blow your sock off, I picked up over seas, in Iraq. It don't get better than Iraqian blow. It may be a little hot, but I can sell you the whole 700,000 lbs for a dirt cheap. I have high-melting explosive, rapid-detonating explosive, and pentaerythrite tetranitrate. For a little more I can hook you up with PETN, but thats gona cost a little extra. Whata say intrusted.

[Cat-theotherwhitemeat]

Hey it really good stuff, it will blow your sock off, I picked up over seas, in Iraq. It don't get better than Iraqian blow. It may be a little hot, but I can sell you the whole 700,000 lbs for a dirt cheap. I have high-melting explosive, rapid-detonating explosive, and pentaerythrite tetranitrate. For a little more I can hook you up with PETN, but thats gona cost a little extra. Whata say intrusted.

Can I be the first to say....what the Hell?? I think you've been smoking too much pentaerythrite tetranitrate.

[SonomaCat]

You just can't go wrong with pentaerythrite tetranitrate jokes... it's a goldmine of comedic material.

mslacat: I assume your post was in reference to the tons of explosives that we lost in Iraq? Let's hope that a bunch of kids found them are are just using them to blow up miles of barren desert or other such harmless fun (kinda like really, really badass firecrackers).

[mslacat]

I was reading a story about the explosives missing, and was absolutely blow away (no pun intented) about how someone goes about stealing 350,000 tons of explosives and no one notices. I mean there are trucking companies here in Montana that the job (aside from the big bang factor) of moving 350,000 tons of anything would be a major job. Then where the heck do you store it!

[El_Gato]

My question is: What's the point of this whole story?

What, were W and Cheney standing watch at the post where these explosives were & fell asleep?

Or we're supposed to believe that the military will be MORE vigilant of these kinds of things under the Frenchman & the ambulance chaser?

MY point is NO Commander in Chief can micro-manage an operation of this size. To blame W for this blunder is ludicrous but then again, ludicrous and Democrat are redundant, aren't they?

Don't get me wrong; I'm no W fan. I just think the whole process sucks these days. I will NOT be voting for president for the first time in my adult life. If you placed the following boxes on the ballot, this is how I see the election would play out:

Voting AGAINST Bush: 31%
Voting FOR Bush: 29%
Voting AGAINST Kerry: 25%
Voting FOR Kerry: 15%

[velochat]

Subject: Pres Bush Tragedy

NEWS:
A tragic fire on Monday destroyed the personal
library of President George W. Bush. Both of his
books have been lost.

A presidential spokesman said the President was
devastated as he had not finished coloring the
second one.

[mslacat]

El_Gato
I do not think I made this a Bush/ Kerry thing at all, I just happened! Now that you mention it could Kerry have done a worce job!?

[velochat]

I found this stunning:

http://www.pipa.org/OnlineReports/Pres_ ... 21_04.html

Facts don't penetrate some circles.

[kmax]

And here when I read that first post I thought mslacat was trying to use our message board to send secret terrorist messages. I was getting all set to prepare the board an infusion of covert FBI Cat Fans and subpoena's into everyone's posting history, etc., etc. Huh, guess I'll have to find something else to do today.

['93HonoluluCat]

Let's recap--and brought to you in a quick hour via theNYT's search functionality.

1. First, the Times ran a big lead story saying that the explosives were definitely removed before the invasion.

It was, of course, a piece that positively reeked of serving Kerry up an issue before the election. Particularly humorous, to a fashion, the language liberally employed through the article so transparently aimed at conjuring up monstrous Dr. Strangelove scenarios so as to herald the coming apocalypse ("greatest explosives bonanza in history,"It's like Mars on Earth," "easily move into the terrorist web across the Middle East", "Nagasaki","blackened and eviscerated", "No Man's Land.")

Scared yet? The nuclear winter is here, man!

2. Mere hours after they 'broke' the story--the Times-Kerry axis had this story on tap. It was almost as if John Kerry had been holding his "great blunders" line in reserve once the Times got the piece up! (Oh, and cherub Edwards was mouthing off about the "clueless" Bush supporters--mining the Valley girl vote when not making sure his hair was comme il faut for the cameras).

3. Next, Krugman dutifully picks up the story. What's his op-ed called? You guessed it, a "Culture of Cover-Ups"! (Someone should tell Krugman that his credibility would be so greatly enhanced if, even just once, he had a single nice thing to say about this Administration. But, I guess, that's asking a little too much since Bush is the devil incarnanate and bearded Kruggie plays ennobled dissident so well--garnering so many big awards by easily wowed Euro crowds drooling over him).

4. Next, the NYT gets into (somewhat) defensive mode. But, no repentence, just yet:

President Bush's aides told reporters that because the soldiers had found no trace of the missing explosives on April 10, they could have been removed before the invasion. They based their assertions on a report broadcast by NBC News on Monday night that showed video images of the 101st arriving at Al Qaqaa.

By yesterday afternoon Mr. Bush's aides had moderated their view, saying it was a "mystery" when the explosives disappeared and that Mr. Bush did not want to comment on the matter until the facts were known.

But others would be 'moderating' their views soon too, of course.

5. Next, the Times does its level best to distance itself from a story that, it appears, could be crumbling around them. After all, the key to this entire story (in terms of the political damage it could cause Evil Georgie) is that the explosives dissapeared after the invasion. There's quite a bit to mine here, and time is short, but here are some highlights:

President Bush addressed for the first time today the mysterious disappearance of 380 tons of explosives in Iraq, accusing his campaign rival, Senator John Kerry, of exploiting the issue without knowing, or caring about, the truth. Mr. Kerry, meanwhile, continued to hammer away on the issue.

Do me a favor. Substitute, in the quote above, the words "New York Times" where "Senator John Kerry" or "Mr. Kerry" is mentioned. Funny,huh?

Oh, and then there's this:

The very fact that Mr. Bush mentioned the missing explosives, after two days of silence since their disappearance was first reported, signaled that his campaign strategists recognized the issue's political potency in the final week of a presidential race that both sides agree could be exceedingly close.

People in the Kerry campaign clearly think too that the missing explosives may be a powerful issue...

Again, subsitute "the New York Times" for "the Kerry campaign" in the immediately preceding passage. And, note the transparent spinning in the quote above. First, POTUS was hiding for two days! Like, totally silent dude! And, now he's, you know, talking about it. So it must be a big deal! He's feeling the heat! It's got some, er, "political potency" to it...(Yawn. Can't they at least start doing all this boulot Lockhart with more subtletly?)

Then this:

The timing of the disappearance is crucial. The stockpile was found to be intact in March 2003, when United Nations weapons inspectors checked it just days before the American-led invasion. On April 10, one day after Saddam Hussein was toppled, American troops visited the Al Qaqaa depot, not finding any big cache of explosives but apparently not looking very closely either.

The troops' commander has explained that his unit was on its way to Baghdad and had simply paused at Al Qaqaa to plan the next stage of their advance.

If it could ever be established that the explosives disappeared while Mr. Hussein was still in power, Mr. Kerry's assertions that the disappearance illustrates the Bush administration's incompetence would be diluted.

Mr. Bush encouraged the idea today that the timing remained very uncertain. Accusing Mr. Kerry of making "wild charges," the president said American-led forces had seized or destroyed more than 400,000 tons of munitions in Iraq.

Note what the Times is trying to get away with here!?! It's Bush who is encouraging the "idea" that "the timing remained very uncertain." Translation: We at the Times continue to believe the timing is certain, not ambiguous, so that the explosives were removed after the invasion. But, as contrary facts are emerging, we can't say this anymore (at least not without greatly embarrasing ourselves--though we very much did in our initial 'gotcha' piece). Now, rather than accept some responsibility for all this--we are stepping back and distancing ourselves from the entire mess. See, it's now Mr. Kerry's assertions re: the administration's incompetence that "would be diluted." But, bien sur, nary a mention that our assertions (our headlined, hyped, hyperbolic reporting) was perhaps innaccurate.

All pretty shameless, no?

6. Next, roll-back mode begins in earnest:

The disappearance of the explosives has roiled the
presidential campaign since the report on Monday, by The New York Times
and CBS News, that some of them may have been removed from an ammunition dump after American troops passed by and failed to secure the area.
Officials from the International Atomic Energy Agency had warned
American officials before the war began that nearly 380 tons of high
explosives were hidden at the stockpile called Al Qaqaa. [emphasis
added]

"Some of them may have been removed"? Sorry, but that wasn't how W. 43rd St. copy read. Again, so we don't forget, the initial story read thus: "White House and Pentagon officials acknowledge that the
explosives vanished sometime after the American-led invasion last year."

So now the Times is mis-characterizing it's original story. Without, of course, even beginning to broach whether they need to prostrate themseleves into full-blown mea culpa mode. But no, Raines has been expunged, so sky's the limit! Party on folks--get out the vote!

7. Signpost moving time. This story is no longer about Bush's personal responsibility in facilitating the greatest terrorist bonanza since the advent of modern history through grotesque negligence. Now,
per this Times piece, the story has become much more, er, sober:

The disappearance of the explosives -- first reported in Monday's New York Times -- has raised questions about why the United States didn't do more to secure the facility and failed to allow full
international inspections to resume after the invasion.

Hmmm...

8. Le rollback continu. Buried in this Reuters piece carried on the Times website:

Bush and Pentagon officials said the material might have been moved from the site before U.S. forces arrived.

Perkins also said it was ``very highly improbable'' that enemy forces could have trucked out such a huge amount of explosives in the weeks after U.S. forces first arrived there, considering the high level of U.S. military presence and how clogged the roads around the site were with U.S. convoys.

9. Time to play defense--but rollback now complete!

Looters stormed the weapons site at Al Qaqaa in the days after American troops swept through the area in early April 2003 on their way to Baghdad, gutting office buildings, carrying off munitions and even dismantling heavy machinery, three Iraqi witnesses and a regional security chief said Wednesday.

The Iraqis described an orgy of theft so extensive that enterprising residents rented their trucks to looters. But some looting was clearly indiscriminate, with people grabbing anything they could find and later heaving unwanted items off the trucks.

Two witnesses were employees of Al Qaqaa - one a chemical engineer and the other a mechanic - and the third was a former employee, a chemist, who had come back to retrieve his records, determined to keep
them out of American hands. The mechanic, Ahmed Saleh Mezher, said employees asked the Americans to protect the site but were told this was not the soldiers' responsibility.

The accounts do not directly address the question of when 380 tons of powerful conventional explosives vanished from the site sometime after early March, the last time international inspectors checked the seals on the bunkers where the material was stored. It is possible that Iraqi forces removed some explosives before the invasion.

The Times is now busily casting about for Iraqi "witnesses." But, no witness accounts can keep them from now admitting what I've bolded above: that some of the explosives may have gone missing before the invasion. Wowser! And still--not an inkling of a retraction or apology. Not even a full-blown, transparent clarification or such re: the initial story.

10. MoDo picks up where Krugman left off. She doesn't give one little Qa-Qaa about the facts, of course. Just spin, Cheney is Frankenstein, spin, George is hopelessly dumb, spin etc etc. You've read it all before....

11. Now, of course, and not reported in the NYT at this hour--comes this http://www.washingtontimes.com/national ... -6257r.htm<a> Bill Gertz bombshell[/url] from the Washington Times. Gertz is probably the best reporter at that paper--so I take it seriously (though I've always been dubious that massive amounts of Iraqi weaponry were moved to Syria or Iran).

Money grafs:

John A. Shaw, the deputy undersecretary of defense for international technology security, said in an interview that he believes the Russian troops, working with Iraqi intelligence, "almost certainly" removed the high-explosive material that went missing from the Al-Qaqaa facility, south of Baghdad. "The Russians brought in, just before the war got started, a whole series of military units," Mr. Shaw said. "Their main job was to shred all evidence of any of the contractual arrangements they had with the Iraqis. The others were transportation units." Mr. Shaw, who was in charge of cataloging the tons of conventional arms provided to Iraq by foreign suppliers, said he recently obtained reliable information on the arms-dispersal program from two European intelligence services that have detailed knowledge of the Russian-Iraqi weapons collaboration...

"That was such a pivotal location, Number 1, that the mere fact of [special explosives] disappearing was impossible," Mr. Shaw said. "And Number 2, if the stuff disappeared, it had to have gone before we got there."

The Pentagon disclosed yesterday that the Al-Qaqaa facility was defended by Fedayeen Saddam, Special Republican Guard and other Iraqi military units during the conflict. U.S. forces defeated the defenders around April 3 and found the gates to the facility open, the Pentagon said in a statement yesterday.

A military unit in charge of searching for weapons, the Army's 75th Exploitation Task Force, then inspected Al-Qaqaa on May 8, May 11 and May 27, 2003, and found no high explosives that had been monitored in the past by the IAEA.

The Pentagon said there was no evidence of large-scale movement of explosives from the facility after April 6.

Look, this version of events ain't airtight either. But, one thing is for sure. The NYT won't give it as much copy as their version of events which, as it turns out, is materially erroneous in terms of any judicious preponderance of the evidence test--as and where we sit today. Just don't look for any corrections or retractions. It's the Times, after all--and they're typically above such messiness. Wild-eyed Kerry ran with their story, you see, and now it's a Bush-Kerry explosives thang.

Meanwhile, the Times regally takes in the passing show--one they erroneously hyped up and published. They could have run a more sober piece--there is still a lot for Bush to be embarrassed about here--even in the Gertz piece scenario (why didn't Bush get good buddy Vlado to stop the arms-shuttling out of Iraq). But, instead, the Times tried to score a mega-October surprise style gotcha and hand it over to JFK the Second. And, it looks like they came up real short.[/u][/b]

[SonomaCat]

It kind of sounds like other newspapers and sources beyond the NYT are suggesting that somebody dropped the ball regarding the weapons stockpile. From the "Today's Papers" summary in Slate today:

The Bush campaign has continued to assert that it is likely or at least possible the explosives were moved while Saddam was in power. As the Wall Street Journal flags, former weapons searcher David Kay said he finds that "hard to believe." Wire service AFP quoted a named Iraqi scientist, whose work involved the depot, saying it's "impossible" that anything was removed before the Baghdad fell, because Saddam ordered that "not even a shred of paper" leave the site.

[mslacat]

OK maybe the explosives were removed before we got there, or maybe after. By why the heck are we left to debate this. If we had 350 tons of explosives possibly laying around in a shelter should, not we have secured it or at least verified it! Why can not some shoot over an inentory or documentation definitavly saying it was there or not. It is 350 tons of #%@* explosives!!!!
If you took over a company , and some one came over to you and said that the company had 50 million dollars in a bank acount, you would not take their word for it! You would send an accountant to secure your assets. The fact that we are debating whether the explosives were not there are not should be enough for anyone to say who is running the ship.

[velochat]

I haven't heard that we have secured much of anything in Iraq following the "mission accomplished" photo. I presume that Honolulu is presenting the Fox News / Rush Limbaugh rebuttal. The missing explosives are just one of a laundry list of things not secured in Iraq, including our country's dignity.

[SonomaCat]

Honolulu -- You might already do this so this observation might be a moot point, but with your writing skills and passion for the subject matter, you really should be a writer for somebody. You just as well try to get paid for doing what you already do for us for free!

[mslacat]

Honolulu -- BAC is is right on the mark, about how well you stated your point it was very interesting and I really did learn alot from your post, Thanks

['93HonoluluCat]

Honolulu -- BAC is is right on the mark, about how well you stated your point it was very interesting and I really did learn alot from your post, Thanks

Honolulu -- You might already do this so this observation might be a moot point, but with your writing skills and passion for the subject matter, you really should be a writer for somebody. You just as well try to get paid for doing what you already do for us for free!

Thank you both for your compliments. However, I think writing for a living would be too stressful. What do I write? How do I word the article? Will I make the deadline? Will I have a job?

No, I enjoy it as a pasttime too much to want to do it for a job.

BTW, I too, learn something from the non-ranting, posts from the other side of the political spectrum that are on this board.

[El_Gato]

2 responses:

msla, I didn't state that YOU were making it an issue; I'm sick of how quickly the candidates & the media TWIST these things into something "MAJOR". The really sickening issue this election cycle has been the major media's TOTAL disregard for verification on some of these stories & their complete willingness to assist the Frenchman in his bid to take the White House (and all of our wallets).

velo, I'm not going to write a major article like Honolulu (which was very good, btw), but first of all, are you denying that Saddam used WMD's against his own people in the 90's? To use them, I believe he must have HAD them first. Don't know if he made them or bought them, but you CANNOT deny that he had them. Second, EVERYONE from both parties who knew the data/facts/evidence before the war agreed with W et al that it was highly likely that Saddam had and/or was making WMD's. Does that make the war right? I'll let you decide, but even the staunchest Democrat who knew the evidence has stated that they felt Saddam did in fact possess WMD's or the capability to produce them.

Again, I'm not a big W fan, but I DO find it amazing that so many idiots in this country truly believe that a president would LIE and/or MANUFACTURE a reason to go to war. Give me a break; NOTHING stated by the Frenchman, the media, or the typical Bush-basher will EVER convince me that ANY president would be willing to sacrifice American lives & dollars on a lie, simply for his own political and/or financial gain. (Although I do believe Clinton lobbed a few missiles in order to take our attention away from the one in his pants...)

[Bleedinbluengold]

Seriously, I used to think the same thing about Clinton, but I don't anymore. The more I try to undertand Clinton and how he operated in the political arena, the more I think he decided that launching cruise missiles in hopes of killing bin laden would have no political fallout, compared to invading Afghanistan. In other words, launching cruise missiles was an "easy sell" and at that time, launching an invasion would have probably been an impossible sell.

Anyway, I think Clinton realized the extreme risk that bin laden posed to the US, and tried to eliminate the risk as best he could without facing extreme opposition amongst Americans or their Allies. Clinton was always political, and I think this is an example of how well he succeeded in his profession.

[El_Gato]

Bleedin,

You need to read Dick Morris' book about Clinton & you'll go right back to believing those missle attacks were strictly for HIS benefit.

[velochat]

El Gato,

I appreciate Honolulu's effort. The article was a little too long to rebut or read for that matter. Saddam poisoned kurds, he is a horrible man. He was receiving US support at the time, as millions of Iranis and Iraqis killed each other. We were on Saddam's signed. He was disarmed following his eviction from Kuwait. The sanctions worked. Hans Blix was completely accurate, unlike the W administration, which is hopelessly dishonest.

Saddam was little or no threat to us and had no ties to Al Qaida, that have ever been found. Iraq is a hotbed of terrorism now, because we attracted them there like a bear to honey.

I get a kick out of the efforts to discredit the NY Times. The truth hurts and is not found on Fox News. I think W will win and that this country is in extreme deep trouble. We are not respected by the world anymore; they fear, understandably, that we're nuts. The efforts to win the peace in Iraq have been disastrous, as our good military people were undermanned and honesty and openness has banned from the White House. Nixon was re-elected, too, even though he was committing criminal acts. Johnson also deserves credit for that mistake, which he and Nixon both drug out too long, at the cost of thousands of lives. We're doing the same thing today, but the outcome will be much worse in the long run.