ABC and CNN Tout Video of Powder in One Bunker as Vindication
While FNC's Bret Baier on Thursday night revealed that a January 2003 International Atomic Energy Agency report listed the "total tonnage of high explosives, H.M.X. and R.D.X." as "219 tons, not 377 tons," in a story soon adopted by other outlets, ABC's Martha Raddatz touted video from an ABC affiliate which she contended "is the strongest evidence to date that the explosives disappeared after the U.S. had taken control of Iraq." The video, taken April 18, 2003 by KSTP-TV of Minneapolis staffers embedded with the Army's 101st Airborne, showed soldiers at al Qaqaa opening barrels and boxes of a powder. "It is unclear how much HMX was at the facility, if that was indeed HMX," Raddatz asserted on World News Tonight, "but what seems clear from that tape is that U.S. soldiers opened up some of those bunkers, left them unguarded, and the material...has since disappeared."
CNN's Aaron Brown pounced on the video as proof the media had been vindicated and the Pentagon discredited, as did the New York Times. In three separate NewsNight segments Brown contended that "it seems to me that the argument is over" and it's "game, set and match." A headline on the front page of Friday's New York Times trumpeted: "Video Shows G.I.'s at Weapon Cache." See: www.nytimes.com
At the end of Thursday's Nightline, however, Ted Koppel related how "a friend who is a senior officer in the Third Infantry Division" reminded Koppel that when he was embedded with the unit they stopped one night by al Qaqaa on their way to capture the Baghdad airport, and the friend "believes that the explosives had already been removed by Saddam's forces before we ever got there. The Iraqis, he said, were convinced that the U.S. was going to bomb the place."
After failing to run a story Wednesday night about satellite photos showing trucks outside the bunkers or how the U.S. Army brigade commander noted that the heavy American equipment flow on roadways would have prevented trucks from removing the tons of material, the CBS Evening News caught up with both topics on Thursday night. But otherwise, David Martin simply repeated the Monday story: "Two weeks ago, one Iraqi official notified the International Atomic Energy Agency the explosives had disappeared some time after April 9, 2003, the day Baghdad fell, because of 'the theft and looting due to lack of security.' That date is important because once Baghdad fell, the U.S. was responsible for security in Iraq."
Now, a more detailed rundown of the October 28 coverage cited above:
-- FNC's Special Report with Brit Hume. From the Pentagon, Bret Baier held up a satellite photo: "Pentagon officials just released an image from the al-Qaqaa facility taken two days before the war began. Here it is. It's coming down on e-mail. [holding up photo] This is the printed version of it. You can see the red arrow is a truck, a large truck. The yellow arrow is a large transporter, it's called a vehicle transporter. Officials are not saying that this shows that the explosives are in those vehicles, but it does show vehicle activity at the al-Qaqaa site two days before the war began."
Baier added: "The last time the International Atomic Energy Agency could definitively say what was in the bunkers at al Qaqaa is January of 2003 when IAEA inspectors logged all the explosive there. Fox News obtained the IAEA action report the inspectors filed at that time. The total tonnage of high explosives, HMX and RDX logged in that report is 219 tons, not 377 tons according to the documents. An IAEA spokesperson said today the other 158 tons of missing RDX was stored elsewhere outside of the facility, but the organization has yet to provide documentation of those logs. In January 2003, the inspectors stated that 219 tons of explosives was stored in nine different bunkers. The inspectors then locked all the bunkers, attaching IAEA tags and seals to the doors. But on the bottom of the first page of the action report is this warning, quote [text on screen]: 'Of note was that the sealing ton bunkers was only partially effective because each bunker had ventilation shafts on the sides of the buildings. These shafts were not sealed and could provide removal routes for the H.M.X. while leaving the front door locked.'"
Baier concluded: "So even though IAEA inspectors returned in March of '03, they only checked some of the seals and cannot definitively say that all or any of the explosives were inside those bunkers."
For a look at the satellite photo: www.defenselink.mil
-- CBS Evening News. David Martin, over zoom in on satellite the photo: "A satellite photo released today by the Pentagon falls well short of solving the mystery of the missing explosives. Taken before the war, it shows trucks around the bunkers which held the explosives. There's no way of knowing what they're doing, although one interpretation is that Saddam Hussein had given the order to empty the bunkers. That's what Defense Secretary Rumsfeld thinks happened."
Donald Rumsfeld on the radio: "It's very likely that Saddam Hussein moved munitions when he knew the war was coming."
Martin: "But two weeks ago, one Iraqi official notified the International Atomic Energy Agency the explosives had disappeared some time after April 9, 2003, the day Baghdad fell, because of 'the theft and looting due to lack of security.' That date is important because once Baghdad fell, the U.S. was responsible for security in Iraq.
"CBS News and the New York Times obtained copies of that letter. The story broke on Monday, and ever since, the Pentagon has been scrambling to find out what really happened in the fog of war. March 1, 2003: Inspectors for the IAEA visit the weapons complex for the last time and verify the bunkers holding the explosives are still under seal. April 3rd: The first American troops reach the complex as they push toward Baghdad. They clear the compound of enemy fighters but do not search the bunkers. Their commander doubts anyone could have made off with the explosives after he got there because it would have required a convoy of trucks, and the roads were bumper to bumper with the American invasion force. American troops continued to pass through the complex on their way to Baghdad. They rummaged through its bunkers but never sealed it off. So it is possible the explosives could have been carried away by looters bit-by-bit in pick-up trucks.
"It may never be known exactly when the explosives disappeared. But in claiming that it happened after Baghdad fell, the Iraqi interim government is, in effect, laying it at the feet of George Bush, [video of Bush and Allawi in Rose Garden] the man who brought them to power. David Martin, CBS News, the Pentagon."
-- ABC's World News Tonight. Peter Jennings announced: "There was some new information today about those explosives and when they might have gone missing. ABC's Martha Raddatz is at the Pentagon."
Raddatz explained, over KSTP-TV (Minneapolis) video showing soldiers inside one bunker opening round barrels and some boxes: "It is the strongest evidence to date that the explosives disappeared after the U.S. had taken control of Iraq. This tape was shot by KSTP, an ABC affiliate embedded with the 101st Airborne Division when members of the division passed through the Al Qaqaa facility on April 18th, nine days after Baghdad fell. Experts who have studied the images say the barrels seen here contain the high explosive HMX. The UN markings on the barrels are clear."
David Albright, Institute for Science and International Security: "I talked to a former inspector who's a colleague of mine, and he confirmed that this indeed is the, these pictures look just like what he remembers seeing inside those bunkers."
Raddatz, over zoom in on seal on door: "The barrels were found inside locked bunkers. Inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency, or IAEA, had sealed the bunkers where the explosives were kept, just before the war began."
Albright: "The seal's critical. The fact that there's a photo of what looks like an IAEA seal means that what's behind those doors is HMX, the only sealed bunkers that had HMX in them."
Raddatz: "After the bunkers were opened, the soldiers did not stay long. They were not ordered to secure the facility. One senior officer told ABC News they would not have had nearly enough soldiers to do that. It is unclear how much HMX was at the facility, if that was indeed HMX. But what seems clear from that tape is that U.S. soldiers opened up some of those bunkers, left them unguarded, and the material, Peter, as you know, has since disappeared."
For the ABCNews.com version of the Raddatz story, with a RealPlayer clip of her World News Tonight piece: abcnews.go.com
For KSTP's posted version of the "5 Eyewitness News" story, with several pictures and video: kstp.com
-- CNN's NewsNight. Aaron Brown pounced a few hour later ABC's revelation: "We begin five days out from Election Day with the new wrinkle in the story that has dominated the campaign for four straight days and no doubt will tomorrow. We'll get to the politics of the missing explosives in a few minutes. First, the videotape shot by embedded reporters nine days after the fall of Baghdad. The tape shows American soldiers at the Al Qaqaa munitions dump. It also shows sealed IAEA bunkers. Does it close the deal? Does it end the dispute? From the Pentagon tonight, CNN's Jamie McIntyre."
Following McIntyre's story, though the video showed only a fraction of the alleged 377 tons, Brown pressed the Pentagon to give up: "There's lots of questions, who might have stolen it, where it is now, all that stuff. I want to go back to what the Pentagon is saying in reaction to the tape. They are not ready to concede game set match on this yet, right?"
McIntyre: "No. I mean, no one is disputing that this is strong evidence that the HMX, or at least part of it, was there on April 18th, but now they're saying, well, we don't know what happened to it. They have some indications that a large amount of explosives were destroyed by U.S. troops, but again, they can't-"
Brown: "But Jamie, they had, they're entitled to deal with this as they wish, of course, but they had maintained up till that moment that this tape emerged that, and the secretary says this in the radio interview, the stuff was moved before?"
McIntyre: "Well, they said that, they argued that that was more likely, but they never argued that it was impossible for it to have disappeared afterwards."
Brown: "Is that argument now off the table?"
McIntyre: "Well, clearly, barring something that would be really unexpected, this would clearly indicate that some amount, a pretty substantial amount, based on the pictures of that, was there on April 18th. So now the question is what happened to it after that?"
In a later segment Brown approached David Kay from the same angle: "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?"
Kay: "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..."
In a subsequent "Brown Table" session, Brown asked Time's Joe Klein: "Joe, on the explosives story, it seems to me that the argument is over. We now have pictures of American soldiers. The pictures are time-stamped. They are looking at barrels of this stuff. We know where they are, what it is. Where does the Bush people -- where does that campaign go with this story now? Just forget it?"
Klein: "They may continue to hammer at it if we hammer at it and if the Kerry campaign hammers at it. The really striking thing to me, Aaron, was that they pulled out once again the satellite photos of the trucks outside the bunkers, the very stuff that now is so embarrassing to us because they were proven to be false when we made the argument about weapons of mass destruction. It just -- it smacks of desperation and it goes to what John was just saying."
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