THE BLOGGERS MADE US DO IT
Ok, so who is to blame for the New York Times running a horrifically ill-researched and increasingly scandalous report about missing explosives???
Bloggers.
Editor: Leaks Hastened Report on Missing Explosives
On Sunday night, New York Times Executive Editor Bill Keller told Jeff Fager, executive producer of CBS's "60 Minutes," that the story they had been jointly pursuing on missing Iraqi ammunition was starting to leak on the Internet.
"You know what? We're going to have to run it Monday," Keller said.
Congratulations J o s h u a M i c a h M a r s h a ll, you made CBS, the NY Times and above all your candidate look like opportunistic hacks. If this backfires, they are going to hold you responsible.
CBS/NYT Times Story Crumbles Tonight
Things are moving fast on the missing explosives story. Drudge has the siren out and he is behind.
The Russians probably moved the explosives, the Department of Defense has satellite images that might prove it AND Mohamed ElBaradei might have mislead the United Nations Security council about the amount of explosives missing. And for good measure we learn the bunkers were never really sealed!
First, from the Washington Times
Russia tied to Iraq's missing arms
By Bill Gertz
Russian special forces troops moved many of Saddam Hussein's weapons and related goods out of Iraq and into Syria in the weeks before the March 2003 U.S. military operation, The Washington Times has learned.
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."
Financial Times Russians ‘may have taken Iraq explosives’
Brett Baier of Fox News is on a roll.
First, he is reporting that the Department of Defense has satellite imagery from BEFORE the war showing large trucks removing things from Al Qaa Qa. Some have suggested they may release the images.
Second he has gotten his hands on the Jan 2004 "Action Report" from the IAEA. It contradicts what Mohamad Albardi told the UN Security Council.
On Oct 10, 2004, Mohamad Albardi told the UN Security council that 350 tons of explosives were missing based on a search of the compound done in January including 141.2 metric tons of RDX and 194.7 metric tons of HMX.
However, the actual "Action Report" from January that Albardi was supposedly relaying to the UN says that only 3 tons of RDX were missing. No explanation for the discrepancy has been given yet but apparently there are about 130 US tons less explosives missing than we thought.
But the kicker is that according to the IAEA's Action Report, the bunker were only partially sealed. The front door was tagged but the there were ventilations shafts on the SIDE of the buildings that could not be sealed. Quoting from the report: "The shafts were not sealed and could provide removal routes for the HMX and RDX while leaving the front door locked."
This dovetails with reports that earlier the IAEA found explosives missing but the seals were in tact.
I think it is time to put this one out of its misery.
FUNNY FUNNY UPDATE
Remember as the CBS documents story crumbled, Dan Rather kept finding people to say "Hey, I worked on Typewriters in the 70's and they could do a TH" or the Secretary, "They're fake but true!"
I now present for your reading pleasure, The New York Times:
4 Iraqis Tell of Looting at Munitions Site in '03
BAGHDAD, Iraq, Oct. 27 - 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. ...
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.
So we can't produce a 1970's typewriter capable of reproducing these documents but our experts say they were quite common.
Man, this is too easy.
Funny Update 2 If you have not hit the top of the page, the NY Times explains why the screwed this up.
Funny Update 3 From the NY Times again:
Web Offers Hefty Voice to Critics of Mainstream Journalists
The New York Times is also a favorite target of critics of all political persuasions. The paper came in for particularly harsh criticism on conservative sites this week for its article about the disappearance of 380 tons of powerful explosives from an Iraqi military complex. The article quoted the Iraqi interim government as saying that the disappearance occurred after the fall of Baghdad.
What was it Dan Rather used to say.... "We're not saying Bush was a AWOL, we're just telling you what these documents charge."
The Times hits bottom and just keeps blasting.
Serious Update this time, ABC has the "3 tons" story, but I'm going below the fold, this is getting out of hand.
Descrepancy Found in Explosives Amounts
Documents Show Iraqis may be Overstating Amount of Missing Material
Oct. 27, 2004 — Iraqi officials may be overstating the amount of explosives reported to have disappeared from a weapons depot, documents obtained by ABC News show.
The Iraqi interim government has told the United States and international weapons inspectors that 377 tons of conventional explosives are missing from the Al-Qaqaa installation, which was supposed to be under U.S. military control.
But International Atomic Energy Agency documents obtained by ABC News and first reported on "World News Tonight with Peter Jennings" indicate the amount of missing explosives may be substantially less than the Iraqis reported.
The information on which the Iraqi Science Ministry based an Oct. 10 memo in which it reported that 377 tons of RDX explosives were missing — presumably stolen due to a lack of security — was based on "declaration" from July 15, 2002. At that time, the Iraqis said there were 141 tons of RDX explosives at the facility.
But the confidential IAEA documents obtained by ABC News show that on Jan. 14, 2003, the agency's inspectors recorded that just over 3 tons of RDX was stored at the facility — a considerable discrepancy from what the Iraqis reported.
I keep searching so you won't have too.
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