There is really a stunning display of cognitive dissonance going on here. The right-wingers do not seem to have gotten the fact that their candy-coated, gift-wrapped, gold-star story yesterday has completely dissolved down the drain.
You guys crowed and gloated and chortled self-righteously when the NBC/CNN story about the embedded reporter claiming no weapons were found at Al Qaqaa was released.
Then, as the afternoon passed, the story was thoroughly and credibly taken apart, starting with the interview of the NBC reporter at Al Qaqaa, who clarified that they weren't looking for weapons - it was just an overnight pit-stop. (Question: Why didn't NBC bother to interview their own reporter first?!) Even NBC and CNN have backed off from their orginal release.
And now, the morning after, I see a lot less bluster around here. It's a bit quieter on this issue. Still, the hardcore right-wingers are still lobbing insults and "ha-ha-we-told-you-so's".
Wake up, wingnuts! You got punk'd.
Now there is a lot we still don't know about this issue. Lots of questions to be answered. (Even though important figures like Bush and Bremer have yet to address this.)
But the "explosives were already gone when we got there for the first time on April 10th" spin is DEAD.
Tuesday, October 27, 2004
MISSING EXPLOSIVES
No Check of Bunker, Unit Commander Says
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/27/po...rint&position=
Quote:
White House officials reasserted yesterday that 380 tons of powerful explosives may have disappeared from a vast Iraqi military complex while Saddam Hussein controlled Iraq, saying a brigade of American soldiers did not find the explosives when they visited the complex on April 10, 2003, the day after Baghdad fell.
But the unit's commander said in an interview yesterday that his troops had not searched the site and had merely stopped there overnight.
The commander, Col. Joseph Anderson, of the Second Brigade of the Army's 101st Airborne Division, said he did not learn until this week that the site, Al Qaqaa, was considered sensitive, or that international inspectors had visited it before the war began in 2003 to inspect explosives that they had tagged during a decade of monitoring.
Colonel Anderson, who is now the chief of staff for the division and who spoke by telephone from Fort Campbell, Ky., said his troops had been driving north toward Baghdad and had paused at Al Qaqaa to make plans for their next push.
"We happened to stumble on it,'' he said. "I didn't know what the place was supposed to be. We did not get involved in any of the bunkers. It was not our mission. It was not our focus. We were just stopping there on our way to Baghdad. The plan was to leave that very same day. The plan was not to go in there and start searching. It looked like all the other ammunition supply points we had seen already."
[snip]
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.
On Sunday, administration officials said that the Iraq Survey Group, the C.I.A. taskforce that hunted for unconventional weapons, had been ordered to look into the disappearance of the explosives. On Tuesday night, CBS News reported that Charles A. Duelfer, the head of the taskforce, denied receiving such an order.
At the Pentagon, a senior official, who asked not to be identified, acknowledged that the timing of the disappearance remained uncertain. "The bottom line is that there is still a lot that is not known," the official said.
The official suggested that the material could have vanished while Mr. Hussein was still in power, sometime between mid-March, when the international inspectors left, and April 3, when members of the Army's Third Infantry Division fought with Iraqis inside Al Qaqaa. At the time, it was reported that those soldiers found a white powder that was tentatively identified as explosives. The site was left unguarded, the official said.
The 101st Airborne Division arrived April 10 and left the next day. The next recorded visit by Americans came on May 27, when Task Force 75 inspected Al Qaqaa, but did not find the large quantities of explosives that had been seen in mid-March by the international inspectors. By then, Al Qaqaa had plainly been looted.
Colonel Anderson said he did not see any obvious signs of damage when he arrived on April 10, but that his focus was strictly on finding a secure place to collect his troops, who were driving and flying north from Karbala.
"There was no sign of looting here," Colonel Anderson said. "Looting was going on in Baghdad, and we were rushing on to Baghdad. We were marshaling in."
[snip]
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10-27-2004, 08:17 AM
Al Qaqaa missing explosives Updates
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