First of all, I want to give a shout out to Dave Sweeney and Ryan! About 30 of us went to the Mount Pleasant Winery on Saturday (Craig went too!) and we had a blast! The weather was great, we played some cards, ate tons of food, drank wine, and then watched the first World Series game.
Speaking of the World Series….ok that’s enough of that. Just remember, the Cards won the National League title and what happened with the Red Sox was just a bad mirage. 
On to politics…
Remember the news about 360-380 tons (~770,000 lbs) of RDX and HMX explosives? Quick reminder: The Iraqi Government and IAEA (International Nuclear Inspectors) said the stuff was missing from Al QaQaa, the largest ammo depot in Iraq for such things, and was probably looted. The week before the war around mid-March 2003, IAEA put their seal and lock on the explosives then left town. The administration said these explosives were probably moved by Saddam during the invasion (which lasted three weeks) because the army divisions who were there on April 3rd and 10th didn’t find the explosives. Is there evidence to the contrary? Of course. The 3rd infantry who was there first said they didn’t search extensively but found a white powdery substances that wasn’t a chemcial weapon (Globalsecurity.org) and didn’t leave a security detail as per orders, the 101st said they didn’t do an extensive search on the place (and the NBC emdedded reporter, Lai Leng Jew, said as much, too ) and didn’t leave a security detail because Baghdad was where they were needed, the Iraqi manager of the site said the explosives were still there post-invasion, a pentagon offical said they were there post-invasion in a report via the AP, and lastly, a week after the 101st left Al QaQaa, an embedded reporter from KSTP(MN) GOT THE STUFF ON CAMERA (here and here).
Want more? Read this! (This is sub-filed under “Holy Shit!”) David Kay, the man in charge of searching for WMD in Iraq, was on CNN.
Here’s former weapons inspector David Kay on Aaron Brown this evening delivering the news …(a little more of my commentary after this)
Aaron Brown: We saw at the top of the program there is new information to factor in. Pretty conclusive to our eye. So we’ll sort through this now. Take the politics out of it and try and deal with facts with former head UN weapons inspector, US weapons inspector, David Kay. David, it’s nice to see you.
David Kay: Good to be with you, Aaron.
AB: I don’t know how better to do this than to show you some pictures have you explain to me what they are or are not. Okay? First what I’ll just call the seal. And tell me if this is an IAEA seal on that bunker at that munitions dump?
DK: Aaron, about as certain as I can be looking at a picture, not physically holding it which, obviously, I would have preferred to have been there, that is an IAEA seal. I’ve never seen anything else in Iraq in about 15 years of being in Iraq and around Iraq that was other than an IAEA seal of that shape.
AB: Was there anything else at the facility that would have been under IAEA seal?
DK: Absolutely nothing. It was the HMX, RDX, the two high explosives.
AB: OK now, I’ll take a look at barrels here for a second. You can tell me what they tell you. They, obviously, to us just show us a bunch of barrels. You’ll see it somewhat differently.
DK: Well, it’s interesting. There were three foreign suppliers to Iraq of this explosive in the 1980s. One of them used barrels like this, and inside the barrels a bag. HMX is in powder form because you actually use it to shape a spherical lens that is used to create the triggering device for nuclear weapons. And particularly on the videotape, which is actually better than the still photos, as the soldier dips into it, that’s either HMX or RDX. I don’t know of anything else in al Qaqaa that was in that form.
AB: Let me ask you then, David, the question I asked Jamie. In regard to the dispute about whether that stuff was there when the Americans arrived, is it game, set, match? Is that part of the argument now over?
DK: Well, at least with regard to this one bunker, and the film shows one seal, one bunker, one group of soldiers going through, and there were others there that were sealed. With this one, I think it is game, set, and match. There was HMX, RDX in there. The seal was broken. And quite frankly, to me the most frightening thing is not only was the seal broken, lock broken, but the soldiers left after opening it up. I mean, to rephrase the so-called pottery barn rule. If you open an arms bunker, you own it. You have to provide security.
AB: I’m — that raises a number of questions. Let me throw out one. It suggests that maybe they just didn’t know what they had?
DK: I think you’re quite likely they didn’t know they had HMX, which speaks to lack of intelligence given troops moving through that area, but they certainly knew they had explosives. And to put this in context, I think it’s important, this loss of 360 tons, but Iraq is awash with tens of thousands of tons of explosives right now in the hands of insurgents because we did not provide the security when we took over the country.
AB: Could you — I’m trying to stay out of the realm of politics. I’m not sure you can.
DK: So am I.
AB: I know. It’s a little tricky here. But, is there any — is there any reason not to have anticipated the fact that there would be bunkers like this, explosives like this, and a need to secure them?
DK: Absolutely not. For example, al Qaqaa was a site of Gerald Bull’s super gun project. It was a team of mine that discovered the HMX originally in 1991. That was one of the most well-documented explosive sites in all of Iraq. The other 80 or so major ammunition storage points were also well documented. Iraq had, and it’s a frightening number, two-thirds of the total conventional explosives that the US has in its entire inventory. The country was an armed camp.
AB: David, as quickly as you can, because this just came up in the last hour, as dangerous as this stuff is, this would not be described as a WMD, correct?
DK: Oh absolutely not.
AB: Thank you.
DK: And, in fact, the loss of it is not a proliferation issue.
AB: Okay. It’s just dangerous and its out there and by your thinking it should have been secured.
DK: Well look, it was used to bring the Pan Am flight down. It’s a very dangerous explosive, particularly in the hands of terrorists.
AB: David, thank you for walking me through this. I appreciate it, David Kay the former head US weapons inspector in Iraq.
(end transcript)
What does this mean? Whether or not you think invading Iraq was right or wrong, the evidence from the beginning of the war to now DIRECTLY POINTS TO THE BUSH ADMINISTRATION’S INCOMPETENCE. Not only were there not enough troops to stop general looting, but they didn’t have enough troops to stop munition dumps from being looted. This isn’t a “Whoops!” Any idiot intelligence official knew where the munitions in Iraq were! Doesn’t that freak you out that “Iraq had two-thirds of the total conventional explosives that the US has in its entire inventory?!” Al QaQaa is just the tip of the iceberg!!!! Blatant incompentence. THIS SHOULD HAVE BEEN PLANNED FOR!! Support our troops! Vote BUSH OUT OF OFFICE!
(BTW, to the religious right friends of mine, Bush tolerates gay civil unions–oops! There goes your “moral” high ground. Well, any high ground was abandoned once you supported Bush and his war…A vote against W would be the right thing to do!)
