Bill, go back to the drawing board and try to come up with your 15th explanation:

A US film crew has footage of the explosives at al-Qaqaa that later went missing. This development may be the downside of embedding for the US military. It makes things hard to deny later on if you leave a filmed trail. For instance, the Russians can't have absconded with the explosives before the war if a US camera crew still sees them there in April of 2003.

http://kstp.com/article/stories/S3723.html?cat=1

Nothing in that story conclusively shows the specific missing explosives. The story is filled with qualifying phrases like "may show." Just because a box is labeled "explosives" does not mean it is the missing RDX or PETN or HMX. It could be run-of-the-mill explosives or ordnance.

Sorry, TomJ, but try again. One day you may actually be right about something, just like the blind squirrel and the acorn...

Most mainstream media is now reporting that it appears the stuff was moved before U.S. troops arrived, and that the Russians probably moved it. Even the NYT is backtracking on the story.

Yeah right Bill, that must be why ardent Bush supporter and campaigner Rudy Giuliani this morning blamed the al-Qaqaa fiasco on....the troops:

"No matter how you try to blame it on the president the actual responsibility for it really would be for the troops that were there. Did they search carefully enough? Didn't they search carefully enough?"

http://www.johnkerry.com/video/102804_giuliani_clip.html

Further confirmation that explosives were still at QaQaa when US troops arrived there:

Col. John Peabody, engineer brigade commander of the 3rd Infantry Division, said troops found thousands of five-centimetre by 12-centimetre boxes, each containing three vials of white powder, together with documents written in Arabic that dealt with how to engage in chemical warfare.

A senior U.S. official familiar with initial testing said the powder was believed to be explosives. The finding would be consistent with the plant's stated production capabilities in the field of basic raw materials for explosives and propellants.

http://www.globalsecurity.org/org/news/2003/030405-chem-readiness01.htm

Um. No. That's not RDX or HMX or PETN. Sorry, try again.

Bill, the evidence is becoming overwhelming:

"At the Pentagon, an official who monitors developments in Iraq said US-led coalition troops had searched Al-Qaqaa in the immediate aftermath of the March 2003 invasion and confirmed that the explosives, which had been under IAEA seal since 1991, were intact. Thereafter the site was not secured by U.S. forces, the official said, also speaking on condition of anonymity."

http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=JPost/JPArticle/ShowFull&cid=1098677410357

Hawkish Andrew Sullivan:

This televised evidence lends credence to the notion that al Qa Qaa was indeed looted after the occupation, and not before. But there's a question: why does the Pentagon not know for sure? Why is their investigation ongoing? The missing armaments have been known to the Pentagon for well over a year. The very fact that they still don't know what happened - or even when the site was looted - by itself proves negligence with respect to this issue. And it's worth reiterating that this is no indictment whatsoever of the troops. They were doing what they were told. The only people scapegoating the troops are, yes, the Republicans. Et tu, Rudy?

Yes, in a country with 600,000 tons of HE, if we can't keep track of every single ounce, then that means that Bush sucks. Come on, man, this has got to be the lamest attempt to attack him yet, and considering how stupid the previous ones have been, that's saying a lot.

Game, set, and match for President Elect Kerry:

The strongest evidence to date indicates that conventional explosives missing from Iraq's Al-Qaqaa installation disappeared after the United States had taken control of Iraq.

Barrels inside the Al-Qaqaa facility appear on videotape shot by ABC television affiliate KSTP of St. Paul, Minn., which had a crew embedded with the 101st Airborne Division when it passed through Al-Qaqaa on April 18, 2003 -- nine days after Baghdad fell.

Experts who have studied the images say the barrels on the tape contain the high explosive HMX, and the U.N. markings on the barrels are clear.

"I talked to a former inspector who's a colleague of mine, and he confirmed that, indeed, these pictures look just like what he remembers seeing inside those bunkers," said David Albright, president of the Institute for Science and International Security in Washington.

http://abcnews.go.com/WNT/story?id=206847

Or not.

TomJ, look up the legal definition of "hearsay".