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October 28, 2004

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Giuliani: This proves that it was the troops' fault.

Kudos to Bird Dog on Tacitus who recognized the import of the new information and issued a public mea culpa (see the 18:10:27 update). Here's to the rest of the right-wing blogosphere similarly looking to their souls.

This story wouldn't be such a huge deal on its own. But it fits so neatly into Kerry's campaign narrative:

They're incompetent - they went in without a plan, and specifically without a plan to turn tactical victory into a strategic one - they didn't listen to the generals that told them they needed more troops. Kerry has been saying these things on the trail in every Iraq speech and he said them in every debate.

And then with that extra little bonus thing of making it look like they weren't really all that interested in securing materials related to Iraq's nuclear program.

We already knew immediately after the invasion that looting was rampant in Iraq, including the looting of sensitive materials. Those who deny the reality of that well-established fact are engaged in doublethink.

Anyway, now that the video proof has dispersed their smokescreen, we can address what I always considered to be the most damning part of the story, which Josh Marshall pointed out in his first post on the Nelson Report on October 24:

What also emerges in the Nelson Report is that the Defense Department has been trying to keep this secret for some time. The DOD even went so far as to order the Iraqis not to inform the IAEA that the materials had gone missing. Informing the IAEA, of course, would lead to it becoming public knowledge in the United States.

Who is behind the cover-up, and how long did they expect to pull it off?

Josh Marshall has a transcript of David Kay's appearance on Aaron Brown.

"AB: 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: 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.

General Franks is to speak on the issue tomorrow.

Is that an informative or declarative notice Sebastian?

Oops, so much for those satellite photos so desperately waved around by the Bush administration. Somebody should tell FoxNews.

...a comparison of features in the DoD-released imagery with available commercial satellite imagery, combined with the use of an IAEA map showing the location of bunkers used to store the HMX explosives, reveals that the trucks pictured on the DoD image are not at any of the nine bunkers indentified by the IAEA as containing the missing explosive stockpiles.

Wait -- they broke the seals on the bunkers and just LEFT THEM #*&!ING OPEN? I'm sorry for the shouting and the swearing but... no, seriously, I have to be reading this wrong. Right?

Nope, Anarch, you read that right. Even as we speak, I am killing time waiting for the rebroadcast of Newsnight, so that I can see it with my own two eyes. -- Personally, I don't understand why people who supported the concept of the war support this President, who has discredited it for a generation. But then, what do I know?

Any news from Newsnight?

Alas, it was preempted by "Breaking News": helicopters supposedly containing Arafat taking off from his compound in Ramallah. Drat. Now, to sleep (perchance to dream? I'm still sick and a bit feverish, so probably yes.)

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