ABC News, via Josh Marshall:
"Barrels inside the Al-Qaqaa facility appear on videotape shot by ABC television affiliate KSTP of St. Paul, Minn., which had a crew embedded with the 101st Airborne Division when it passed through Al-Qaqaa on April 18, 2003 — nine days after Baghdad fell.Experts who have studied the images say the barrels on the tape contain the high explosive HMX, and the U.N. markings on the barrels are clear.
"I talked to a former inspector who's a colleague of mine, and he confirmed that, indeed, these pictures look just like what he remembers seeing inside those bunkers," said David Albright, president of the Institute for Science and International Security in Washington.
The barrels were found inside sealed bunkers, which American soldiers are seen on the videotape cutting through. Inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency sealed the bunkers where the explosives were kept just before the war began.
"The seal's critical," Albright said. "The fact that there's a photo of what looks like an IAEA seal means that what's behind those doors is HMX. They only sealed bunkers that had HMX in them."
After the bunkers were opened, the 101st was not ordered to secure the facility. A senior officer told ABC News the division would not have had nearly enough soldiers to do so.
It remains unclear how much HMX was at the facility, but what does seem clear is that the U.S. military opened the bunkers at Al-Qaqaa and left them unguarded. Since then, the material has disappeared."
You can examine the photos of the IAEA seal here.
Giuliani: This proves that it was the troops' fault.
Posted by: dmbeaster | October 28, 2004 at 09:13 PM
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.
Posted by: Trickster | October 28, 2004 at 10:39 PM
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.
Posted by: Trickster | October 28, 2004 at 10:41 PM
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:
Who is behind the cover-up, and how long did they expect to pull it off?
Posted by: Charles V | October 28, 2004 at 11:37 PM
Josh Marshall has a transcript of David Kay's appearance on Aaron Brown.
Posted by: hilzoy | October 28, 2004 at 11:44 PM
General Franks is to speak on the issue tomorrow.
Posted by: Sebastian Holsclaw | October 28, 2004 at 11:51 PM
Is that an informative or declarative notice Sebastian?
Posted by: Postit | October 29, 2004 at 12:02 AM
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.
Posted by: Charles V | October 29, 2004 at 12:21 AM
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?
Posted by: Anarch | October 29, 2004 at 12:34 AM
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?
Posted by: hilzoy | October 29, 2004 at 12:50 AM
Any news from Newsnight?
Posted by: Anarch | October 29, 2004 at 01:33 AM
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.)
Posted by: hilzoy | October 29, 2004 at 01:42 AM