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Politics : Proof that John Kerry is Unfit for Command -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: American Spirit who wrote (23096)	10/29/2004 1:44:55 PM
From: Selectric II	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 27181

Don't let the facts get in the way of your conclusions.

To: American Spirit who wrote (23096)	10/29/2004 2:03:11 PM
From: jim-thompson	Respond to of 27181

And let us not forget when Larry King asked him recently about being briefed by the Bush administration on the possibility of new Al Qaeda attacks, Senator Kerry said: "They have offered to brief me; I just haven't had time." That pretty much says it all. Folks, the entire election could turn on that one sentence. Spread it far and wide...

To: American Spirit who wrote (23096)	10/29/2004 2:05:58 PM
From: jlallen	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 27181

U.S. Team Took 200 Tons of Iraqi Explosives Friday, October 29, 2004 PHOTOS VIDEO Click image to enlarge STORIES BACKGROUND LINKS •U.S. Military Releases Al-Qaqaa Image•Bush, Kerry Hit Each Other on Iraq Ammo•Search Showed No Explosives at Iraqi Base Before War's End•380 Tons of Explosives Missing in Iraq•Group Claims It Has al-Qaqaa Explosives•Fast Facts: Explosives Missing•Reporter's Notebook: Weapons Galore•Reporter's Notebook: Embedded at Al-Qaqaa WASHINGTON — A U.S. soldier is coming forward Friday to say a team from the 3rd Infantry Division took about 200 tons of explosives from an Iraqi military facility soon after Saddam Hussein's regime fell last year. The soldier will appear before reporters at noon, EDT. The briefing will be shown on the FOX News Channel. The announcement is the latest twist in the mystery over what happened to 377 tons of explosives that the International Atomic Energy Agency said had disappeared. The soldier's story comes as new videotape has surfaced that supports the contention that tons of the explosives were still at the base following Saddam's fall on April 9, 2003. U.S. officials had said they suspected the explosives were taken before U.S.-led forces took Baghdad. Videotape shot by a Minnesota television crew traveling with U.S. troops in Iraq when they first opened the bunkers at the Al-Qaqaa (search) munitions base nine days after the fall of Saddam Hussein shows what appeared to be high explosives still in barrels and bearing the markings of the International Atomic Energy Agency (search). The video, taken by a reporter and cameraman employed by KSTP, an ABC affiliate in St. Paul, on April 18, 2003, was broadcast nationally Thursday on the ABC national network. "The photographs are consistent with what I know of Al-Qaqaa," David A. Kay (search), the former American official who directed the hunt in Iraq for unconventional weapons and visited the site, told The New York Times. "The damning thing is the seals. The Iraqis didn't use seals on anything. So I'm absolutely sure that's an IAEA seal." The Pentagon also released a photograph of Al-Qaqaa taken just before the war, showing several bunkers, one with two tractor-trailers parked next to it. The picture was shot by a satellite on March 17, 2003. Senior Defense officials said their photo shows that the Al-Qaqaa facility "was not hermetically sealed" after international weapons inspectors had paid their last visits to the facility earlier in the month. Officials are analyzing the image and others for clues into when the nearly 380 tons of explosives were taken. The munitions included HMX (search) and RDX (search), key components in plastic explosives, which insurgents in Iraq have used in bomb attacks. But what officials will say is that the image shows the Iraqis were moving something at the site before the first U.S.-launched bombs fell. Meanwhile, an IAEA report obtained by FOX News said the inspectors noted that despite the fact that the Al-Qaqaa bunkers were locked, ventilation shafts remained open and provided easy access to the explosives. The IAEA can definitively say only that the documented ammunition was at the facility in January; in March, an agency spokesman conceded, inspectors only looked at the locked bunker doors. The question of what happened to the explosives has become a major issue in the closing days of the 2004 presidential campaign. Democratic presidential hopeful John Kerry says the missing explosives — powerful enough to demolish a building, bring down a jetliner or even trigger a nuclear weapon — are another example of the Bush administration's poor planning and incompetence in handling the war in Iraq. President Bush says the explosives were possibly removed by Saddam's forces before the invasion. Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld entered the debate Thursday, suggesting the 377 tons of explosives were taken away before U.S. forces arrived, saying any large effort to loot the material afterward would have been detected. "We would have seen anything like that," he said in one of two radio interviews he gave at the Pentagon. "The idea it was suddenly looted and moved out, all of these tons of equipment, I think is at least debatable." The bunker with the trucks parked next to it in the Pentagon's satellite image is not one known to have contained any of the missing explosives, and Defense spokesman Larry Di Rita said the image only shows that there was some Iraqi activity at the base on March 17. Di Rita acknowledged that the image says nothing about what happened to the explosives. Rumsfeld, in one radio interview, also cast doubt on the suggestion by one of his subordinates that Russian soldiers assisted Iraqis in removing the munitions. The Washington Times on Thursday quoted John A. Shaw (search), the deputy undersecretary of defense for international technology security, who said he believed Russian special-forces personnel, working with Iraqi intelligence, "almost certainly" removed the high-explosive material from the Al-Qaqaa facility. Shaw said he believed the munitions were moved to Syria in the weeks before the March 2003 invasion. Senior Defense officials urged caution over the Washington Times article because they could not verify its allegations as true. "I have no information on that at all, and cannot validate that even slightly," Rumsfeld said. The article prompted an angry denial from Moscow. At the core of the issue is whether the explosives were moved before or after U.S. forces reached that part of the country in early April. No one has been able to provide conclusive evidence either way, although Iraqi officials blamed the munitions' disappearance on poor U.S. security after Baghdad fell. The Pentagon has said it is looking into the matter, and officials note that 400,000 tons of recovered Iraqi munitions have either been destroyed or are slated to be destroyed. FOX News' Bret Baier, Ian McCaleb and The Associated Press contributed to this report.

To: American Spirit who wrote (23096)	10/29/2004 2:13:31 PM
From: jim-thompson	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 27181

I'm trying to get all this political stuff straightened out in my head so I'll know how to vote come November. Let's put it all down in black and white. Maybe I'll understand it better. Clinton awards Halliburton no-bid contract in Yugoslavia - good... Bush awards Halliburton no-bid contract in Iraq - bad... Clinton spends 77 billion on war in Serbia - good... Bush spends 87 billion in Iraq - bad... Clinton imposes regime change in Serbia - good... Bush imposes regime change in Iraq - bad... Clinton bombs Christian Serbs on behalf of Muslim Albanian terrorists- good... Bush liberates 25 million from a genocidal dictator - bad... Clinton bombs Chinese embassy - good... Bush bombs terrorist camps - bad... Clinton commits felonies while in office - good... Bush lands on aircraft carrier in jumpsuit - bad... No mass graves found in Serbia - good... No WMD found Iraq - bad... Stock market crashes in 2000 under Clinton - good... Economy on upswing under Bush - bad... Clinton refuses to take custody of Bin Laden - good... World Trade Centers fall under Bush - bad... Clinton says Saddam has nukes - good... Bush says Saddam has nukes - bad... Clinton calls for regime change in Iraq - good... Bush imposes regime change in Iraq - bad... Terrorist training in Afghanistan under Clinton - good... Bush destroys training camps in Afghanistan - bad... Milosevic not yet convicted - good... Saddam turned over for trial - bad... Ahh, it's so confusing! Every year an independent tax watchdog group analyzes the average tax burden on Americans, and then calculates the "Tax Freedom Day". This is the day after which the money you earn goes to you, not the government. This year, tax freedom day was April 11th. That's the earliest it has been since 1991. It's latest day ever was May 2nd, which occurred in 2000. Notice anything special about those dates? Recently, John Kerry gave a speech in which he claimed Americans are actually paying more taxes under Bush, despite the tax cuts. He gave no explanation and provided no data for this claim. Another interesting fact: Both George Bush and John Kerry are wealthy men. Bush owns only one home, his ranch in Texas. Kerry owns 4 mansions, all worth several million dollars. (His ski resort home in Idaho is an old barn brought over from Europe in pieces. Not your average A-frame). Bush paid $250,000 in taxes this year; Kerry paid $90,000. Does that sound right? The man who wants to raise your taxes obviously has figured out a way to avoid paying his own. Pass this on. Not much time is left until the election. Wes Clogston wesclogston@houston.rr.com

To: American Spirit who wrote (23096)	10/29/2004 2:16:42 PM
From: jim-thompson	Respond to of 27181

wonder if osama has a twin brother? got help with this from a democrap friend. I just heard that Osama may be hard to find because we have been looking for a man with a beard! Similar to the way we looked for Saddam without a beard and then find him in a spider hole with a scruffy beard. This leads me to believe that Osama may be right under our noses. Don't laugh! Slap a beard on this guy and he sure has a strong resemblance to Osama! cafepress.com