"That's 440,000 tons of arms and explosives"

Yes, but how much of that 440,000 tons is explosives similar to those that went missing? And, how much of that was just metal or other materials?

"and John Kerry thinks 377 tons that - as we've now learned - went missing before American forces reached the arms depot - represents a great "blunder."

When it went missing is still up in the air. The IAEA says it was there in January. The UN says one of the explosive types was still there on March 16. And, the compound appears to have been unguarded for seven weeks until May 27 when the IAEA returned and found it all gone. (link)

Is anyone else sick of the fact that Kerry purports to support the troops, but wants to make them the scapegoats? He has never supported our men and women in arms, and there is no reason to think he will if for some tragic reason he would steal the election with his ambulance chasers.

Not supporting our troops? Look at Bill Hobbs who just casually dismissed the disappearance of the explosives that are almost certainly being used to kill and maim our brave troops. That is a deep insult to those who have risked their lives for Iraq war effort and a slap in the face to their families. I would think you would put aside partisan politics and want to get to the bottowm of what caused this tragic incident. See here:

'The insurgents probably are using weapons and ammunition looted from the nearby Qa-Qaa complex, a 3-mile by 3-mile weapons-storage facility about 25 miles southwest of Baghdad, said Maj. Brian Neil, operations officer for the 2nd Battalion, 2nd Marine Regiment, which initially patrolled the area.
The facility was bombed during last year's invasion and then left unguarded, Neil said. "There's definitely no shortage of weapons around here," he said.'

http://www.centredaily.com/mld/centredaily/news/world/9849036.htm

Sure, Kerry is blaming the troops. He says it was our responsibility, and claims they were stolen while our troops were on guard. Do you read that diferently and if so, then who does Kerry say is responsible?

The conservative response to the news of the disappearance of the munitions seems almost designed to prove that conservatives really are as bad as Michael Moore says they are.

In a mass email, RNC Chairman Ed Gillespie mutters darkly that what's really going on is that liberals are trying to suggest that "U.S. troops were derelict in their duty" — and over at The Corner the party line has already congealed in enthusiastic concurrence. Maybe the stuff was gone before the war, the Cornerites agree. But even if it wasn't, it was just a screwup by the 101st Airborne anyway. "And count me astonished that if the 101st didn’t know what they were doing that should be an issue from which one candidate would dare attempt to take partisan advantage," thunders Cliff May in full-blown mock outrage mode — even though he's the first to have actually suggested that. "High-ranking Bush-Cheney officials/surrogates, if not Bush himself have to ask: Does John Kerry trust the U.N. bureaucracy...more than the U.S. armed forces?" adds Kathryn Jean Lopez apocalyptically.

Got that? We don't really care if the stuff is gone or what policy decisions led to it not being locked down in the first place. And anyone who criticizes those policy decisions is an unpatriotic opportunist who's vilifying the U.S. military and cozying up to the UN.

Answer my question Tom, who are you blaming?

Last night, Charles Krauthammer on the Fox All-Stars segment of Brit Hume's news coverage made the very insightful point that there was NO organized insurgency at the time. So your willing to buy the ridiculous idea that loose bands of looters just trucked off 380 tons of the stuff while the US controlled the roads and had eyes in the sky around Baghdad and the outskirts? And you just don't hide the stuff in a house. Not to mention the UN couldn't find all the stuff in its 3/03 visit. And the US (3rd ID) had to clear the site of Iraqi military on their way to Baghdad. And there is no evidence the stuff has been used by terrorists in Iraq to kill US military personnel. It happened 19 months ago, don't you think IF the terrorists had the stuff they would be using it by now. There is no doubt that Saddam MOVED the stuff before the US got there. It's the only plausible explanation. Kerry is so desperate he'll even use a bogus story for political points.

made the very insightful point that there was NO organized insurgency at the time

He should know, right? Oh wait, he doesn't know. In fact, he's probably wrong. Saddam and others may have planned for an insurgency before the start of the war.

As for who should be blamed for al Qaqaa, al Tuwaitha, and all the other cases of extraordinary incompetence, I and I'd imagine almost everyone else are not blaming the troops nor even the generals. The blame goes straight to the top: the Commander in Chief. He's the one who hired Rumsfeld and signed off on his plans.

Well fact is the missimg explosives charges don't fit the facts on the ground.

Uh-oh ... The head of the Iraqi Science Ministry's site monitoring department says there's no way the explosives were snagged from al Qaqaa before the former regime fell.

"It is impossible that these materials could have been taken from this site before the regime's fall," Mohammed al-Sharaa told the AFP. "The officials that were inside this facility (Al-Qaqaa) beforehand confirm that not even a shred of paper left it before the fall and I spoke to them about it and they even issued certified statements to this effect which the US-led coalition was aware of."

Does this guy have an axe to grind? Is he biased? I can't say I know anything about him. But if he's some Baathist or dead-ender why is he the guy in charge of protecting these sites now?

And how about those certified statements issued to coalition officials?

Which ones?

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/afp/iraq_us_explosives

With regard to whether the troops are "scapegoats" in this debacle, I will defer to General Merrill McPeak, former chief of staff of the Air Force:

"The President seems to think Senator Kerry could not possibly be criticizing him since the President thinks he has never made a mistake. Let’s be perfectly clear: it is the President who dropped the ball. Senator Kerry is being critical of George Bush, not the troops. By embarking on the line of attack, George Bush is deflecting blame from him over to the military. This is beneath contempt."

Currently looking for the link, but I read a story earlier today that says not a single pound of the missing explosives has been used by insurgents against U.S. troops. These high-tech explosives have chemical signatures that can be detected in the rubble.

Iraq was a giant arms depot, with RPGs and AK-47s and cheap explosives readily available before the invasion. It still is, though less so by some 440,000 tons because of the actions of the U.S. military. Against that awesome success, 377 tons - or less than one percent compared to what we have secured and destroyed - is missing. No one seems to know when it was taken or by whom.

But the stuff is valuable. I'd wager $10 that someone on Saddam's payroll before the invasion had it crated up and sold it for cash that's probably now in a Swiss bank account.

Funny what conservatives pass off as proof: "I'd wager $10 blah blah blah." Don't you have any objective standard at all for proving something? Or is it all what you believe and what you feel in your gut? It is just that kind of thinking by Bush that has gotten us into so much trouble in Iraq.

There's no use debating the story because both sides have their "take" on the missing stuff and will not budge regarless of the truth.

There's an interesting op-ed in todays Boston Globe by Peter W. Galbraith, who describes trying to explain to Paul Wolfowitz in 2003 what he had witnessed in Iraq, particularly the looting of the Iraqi equivalent of the CDC (looters stole live HIV and black fever virus, and other potentially deadly materials), and the looting of the Tuwaitha nuclear facility. In both cases, the sensitivity of the sites was no secret -- except from US troops. No one bothered to inform them.

It looks like the same thing happened at Al QaQaa. The troops did the job they were given, but nobody told them what the job was supposed to be. George Bush says John Kerry is "denigrating" US forces by criticizing the screw up. Nonsense. Kerry is criticizing the people who didn't do their jobs. And that wasn't the troops.

http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2004/10/27/eyewitness_to_a_failure_in_iraq/

380 tons of RDX is a lot.

It only took 400-700 lbs of C4 to blow a hole in the USS Cole.

Your lack of concern is disturbing.

Ah what the heck. See link
Pics of the site before start of war?

Drudge's 'the Russians did it' story is up now at the Washington Times, all based it seems on the say-so of John A. Shaw, the deputy undersecretary of defense for international technology security, whose theory about Russian involvement even Di Rita seems to be distancing himself from.

Shaw does at least provide the adminsitration's 9th or 10th theory of what happened. It had to have been taken out before the war because the US watched the place so closely no other explanation is possible. "That was such a pivotal location, Number 1, that the mere fact of [special explosives] disappearing was impossible," Shaw told the Times. "And Number 2, if the stuff disappeared, it had to have gone before we got there."

You can't make this stuff up.

Or, I guess, actually you can.

Meanwhile, back on planet Earth, the New York Times talks to some of the folks who looted the place during the early weeks of the occupation.

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/28/international/middleeast/28bomb.html?oref=login