Oh, and to punish the MSM vote a straight Republican ticket this year (yes I’m a partisan hack, what of it?)

PRE-INVASION

In the months and weeks leading up to the war, UN inspectors visited Al Qaqaa frequently. On 1/15/03, they specifically checked on HE (the now-AWOL high explosives) stored there. In March, right before we invaded, the UN was on-site particularly often (3/1/03, 3/3/03, 3/4/03, 3/6/03, 3/8/03, 3/9/03, and 3/15/03), monitoring various materials and projects. On one or more of these March visits, the UN checked the seals on the bunkers where the HE were stored. In particular, the seals were checked on 3/15/03.

On 3/17/03, the UN announced the withdrawal of all inspectors. (Our impending invasion forced them to leave, in other words, even though they wanted to stay and continue their work.) On 3/20/03, we invaded.

POST-INVASION

On 3/22, Tommy Franks said “this will be a campaign unlike any other in history, a campaign characterized by shock, by surprise, by flexibility, by the employment of precise munitions on a scale never before seen, and by the application of overwhelming force … Our plan introduces these forces across the breadth and depth of Iraq, in some cases simultaneously and in some cases sequentially.”

He also said that one of his top seven objectives (second only to regime change) was “to identify, isolate and eliminate Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction.” He forgot to mention that he didn’t have enough troops to properly (i.e., on a timely basis) search and secure what the AP has called “Iraq’s largest military industrial complex,” which comprises 1,100 buildings spread over several square miles. This would obviously be a likely location to find WMD, if they existed anywhere. (Incidentally, the way we neglected this location is a pretty solid indication we never truly believed we would find WMD, there or anywhere.)

Note that this site was not out of our way. It’s located on the way to Baghdad. Also, it’s not hidden. On the contrary. Given its size, it’s just about impossible to miss. But we did, nevertheless (with regard to properly searching and securing it).

Also, it’s not as if we didn’t know exactly where to look when we got there. The UN had been crawling all over the joint with dozens of inspectors, for weeks and months, sometimes on a daily basis. Yet there are ample indications we paid not the slightest attention to the information they had, or to the warnings they tried to give us. After all, why should we? It’s just the UN, after all.

A brief history of the conquest can come in handy. On 3/24 we were told “our forces are operating throughout Iraq, on the ground and in the air.” On 4/1 we were told “the ground attack actually started before the air war, with thousands of Special Forces pouring into all regions of the country.” By 4/2, we were “within 30 miles of Baghdad” (roughly in the vicinity of Al Qaqaa, in other words). By 4/4, we were at the airport. By 4/7, we had secured the airport as well as “most of the major roads into and out of Baghdad” (that was nice, while it lasted). We had also “visited two of Saddam’s presidential palaces.” On 4/9, we toppled the statue. On 4/11 we were told “pockets of resistance remain” (nice to see all the progress we’ve made since then). On 4/12 we were the told the regime was “no longer in control of Iraq” (too bad we weren’t, either). On 4/14 we were told “the regime is at its end … gradually, the indications of every-day life are returning in Iraq, and the Iraqis are adjusting to the freedom from the tyranny of the regime” (I guess there’s still a certain amount of “adjusting” left to be done). On 4/15 we were told “only a few Iraqi cities remain contested” (that was nice, while it lasted). We were told about “remaining pockets of resistance.” (These statements can be found here.)

On 5/1 Bush did his “mission accomplished” stunt.

POST-INVASION AT AL QAQAA

While all this cool stuff was happening, what about Al Qaqaa?

Apparently the first time we stepped foot there was 4/4. Troops sniffed around and found various signs of “chemical preparedness.” However, there is no indication anything resembling a comprehensive search was attempted. There was also no mention of any signs of looting. There is no mention that anyone paid any attention to HE material, checking to see if the material was present or not present, or if IAEA seals were intact or breached. There’s also no indication troops stayed there to secure the site. By the way, this report is highly useful because it was written at the time, long before this controversy arose.

A more recent report corroborates all of that (except with regard to the question of looting): “As the rest of PerkinsÔøΩ brigade moved on, the 3rd Battalion spent two days in the area, sweeping for other Iraqi forces, Perkins said. The troops didnÔøΩt specifically search for any high explosives, although they were aware that Al-Qaqaa was an important site for what was believed to be IraqÔøΩs weapons of mass destruction programs … They didnÔøΩt specifically search for the 377 tons of high explosives, HMX and RDX, that are missing … some looting at the site had taken place”

Fox said it this way: “The 3rd Infantry soldiers stayed long enough to battle the Iraqis and to give the facility a brief inspection before heading out to continue on their prime objective ÔøΩ reaching the Iraqi capital.”

Note that the UN had warned us about this place, before and after the invasion. We knew the site contained (or was supposed to contain), among other things, vast amounts of dual-use (i.e., nuke-related) HE, under IAEA seal. But apparently the troops who arrived on 4/4 had been given no instructions regarding these HE, and indeed there’s no indication they paid the slightest attention to the subject of HE.

The question of looting is interesting. The account written at the time makes not the slightest mention of looting. However, the recent account (of the same events) indicates that there was some evidence of looting. Interesting. What’s more interesting is that the commander who showed up a few days later (see below) indicates he saw no signs of looting.

Other troops made a short visit there on 4/10. But like the earlier group, they apparently had no awareness of the HE at this site. The commanding officer (Anderson) said “We happened to stumble on it … I didn’t know what the place was supposed to be. We did not get involved in any of the bunkers. It was not our mission. It was not our focus. We were just stopping there on our way to Baghdad. The plan was to leave that very same day. The plan was not to go in there and start searching. It looked like all the other ammunition supply points we had seen already … There was no sign of looting here … Looting was going on in Baghdad, and we were rushing on to Baghdad … I thought we would be there for a few hours and move on. We ended up staying overnight.”

Also, the Pentagon has directly admitted that with regard to this group, “Orders were not given from higher to search or to secure the facility.” The reason for this negligence? “They [high-explosive weapons] were everywhere in Iraq.” But no one has claimed that anywhere in Iraq was there ever a known stockpile of this kind of material, on nearly this scale.

Note that Bush has not even attempted to explain why these troops (or the earlier group that stopped by on 4/4) apparently received no guidance to check for the safety of the HE materials that the UN had repeatedly warned us about.

Note that this visit (4/10) has been touted by countless sources on the right, from the administration all the way down to Drudge, as proof-positive that the stuff was gone before we arrived that day. This specious idea appears in a great deal of the current news coverage and commentary, which is intensely misleading, as a result. Here’s how it goes:

It is often said that the troops who visited on 4/4 and/or 4/10 did not find HE. True. This is taken as proof that the HE was already gone. Nonsense. What we’re not told is that these troops didn’t find HE because they didn’t lift a finger to look for HE, beccause they hadn’t been instructed to do so. Most reports also obscure the reality that this is a massive installation with 1,100 buildings. It’s asinine to suggest that in a place this vast they would have accidentally stumbled on a stockpile they weren’t aware of, and weren’t trying to find. The sad reality is that they should have known about the stockpile, and they should have and could have checked on it. But none of that happened.

Anderson, quoted above, has set the record straight on all this.

So after our guys left the joint on or about 4/10, when did Americans next step foot in the place? Quite possibly, not until May. Apparently the Iraq Survey group “did not give the area a thorough search until May, when they visited on three occasions, starting May 8. They did not find any material or explosives that had been marked by the IAEA.”

4/10 (when our troops made a quick visit) to 5/8 (when ISG finally made the first of series of search visits) is four weeks. During this period, what measures were in place to secure Al Qaqaa, reportedly Iraq’s largest military industrial complex?

Apparently none. So far, at least, not a shred of information has emerged to indicate that even a single American soldier (or Iraqi soldier, for that matter) was stationed at Al Qaqaa to secure it, or for any other purpose, in the period between 4/10 and 5/8.

So what went on at Al-Qaqaa in the period between 4/10 and 5/8? We have little or no indication that any coalition forces paid any attention whatsoever during that interval. But we do know quite a bit about what about happening elsewhere in Iraq, at that time. Rampant looting. And that’s what was happening at Al Qaqaa, also. Eyewitness reports now confirm that: “what set off much if not all of the looting was the arrival and swift departure of American troops, who did not secure the site after inducing the Iraqi forces to abandon it.”

(By the way, I’m being conservative by using the 5/8 date in this analysis. There is reason to believe that ISG didn’t fully search the place until 5/27: “Lt. Gen. William Boykin, the Pentagon’s deputy undersecretary of defense for intelligence, said that on May 27, 2003, a U.S. military team specifically looking for weapons went to the site but did not find anything with IAEA stickers on it.”)

POST-INVASION ELSEWHERE IN IRAQ: RAMPANT LOOTING

On 4/8, the CNN headline was “Rampant looting across Iraq.” The report said: “Thieves armed with AK-47 assault rifles are breaking into homes, shops and ministries, walking away with everything from furniture to kerosene, residents say … Reuters correspondents traveling with U.S. forces report similar scenes from across the country, including on the outskirts of the capital Baghdad … Gen. Ali Shukri of the Middle East Center at Britain’s Oxford University, said U.S. and British forces had to act quickly or risk losing fledgling goodwill for the invasion … ‘People are not going to believe the statement that says we’re out to build Iraq. Iraq is being destroyed under the eyes of the coalition forces,’ Shukri told the BBC … correspondents say looting appears indiscriminate … Small-time looters roam Basra and other cities with wheelbarrows full of stolen goods. Some use donkeys to haul heavy goods across cities as shells land and gunfire crackles … Looters have cleaned out bombed factories, houses and buildings, taking away industrial equipment, household appliances, and even pillows, mattresses and live chickens … Reuters correspondent Matthew Green, with U.S. Marines on the outskirts of Baghdad, watched scores of young men make off with home generators and other booty from a factory on Monday … ‘They were literally emptying the premises,’ he said … Reuters correspondent Sean Maguire, traveling with a unit of the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force in Baghdad, saw residents scurrying through the dusty back streets carrying furniture and other items apparently from deserted official buildings.”

On 4/8, the WaPo headline was “Rampant Looting Sweeps Iraq.” The report said: “The apparent success of the U.S. military campaign was undercut by scenes of unchecked lawlessness and looting across the country, including in Baghdad … Garner … predicted the mayhem and looting would soon be calmed … Mosul … descended into anarchy this morning with widespread looting … looters pulling furniture from nearby government buildings … Looters ransacked offices of the Baath Party, the army and security services and carted off furniture and air conditioners … A mob stormed the central bank offices and tossed newly minted currency around like confetti. Men and boys grasped whole stacks of the bills, which bear Hussein’s portraits. There appeared to be no hard currency remaining in the vaults … Mosul’s regional government building was stripped bare of furniture. A lone man pushed a gilt sofa from the governor’s office three stories down the stairs. A boy who looked no older than eight cradled fluorescent lighting.”

USAToday, on 4/10: “The Republican Guard troops might be gone, but they left behind millions of hungry, desperate Iraqis who now are engaged in a binge of looting at government installations and in residential neighborhoods. The situation is apparent in Saddam City, an impoverished enclave of more than 2 million mostly Shiite Muslims. Cars, trucks, even donkey carts there were filled with loot. Stolen goods range from brand-new Mercedes Benzes to plastic chairs stolen off patios. U.S. soldiers tried to restore a vestige of law and order. But mostly, they did little to check the rampant looting around the city. Looters carted off bottles of wine and whiskey, guns, and paintings of half-naked women from the luxury home Saddam’s playboy son Uday. They also picked clean Uday’s yacht and made off with some of the white Arabian horses he kept. What they could not carry, they trashed. Thousands of looters who at first had confined themselves to government sites began cleaning out factories and stores around Baghdad. They piled goods from bathtubs to mattresses to TVs to orange juice on carts.”

Notice the explicit reference to “factories around Baghdad.”

Houston Chronicle, on 4/9 (from the NYT): “Humanitarian workers in Iraq say the military push to Baghdad has left behind cities empty of police officers and filled with chaos, casualties and the rampant looting of everything from medicine to ceiling fans. Baghdad itself has hospitals overflowing with so many dead and wounded that the Red Cross has lost count. The situation, they say, is close to anarchy.”

On 4/12, even Fox News admitted that Baghdad was “chaos-laden.” The report mentions “widespread” and “rampant looting, vandalism and arson in government offices.”

More: “Much of the looting in Baghdad and other cities has targeted government ministries and the homes of former regime leaders, but looters also have ransacked foreign embassies, stolen ambulances from hospitals and robbed some private businesses … Aid organizations, as well as many Baghdad residents, have pleaded with U.S. officials to crack down on the looting … ‘The humanitarian situation is worsening as a consequence of widespread lawlessness,’ said InterAction, a Washington-based coalition of more than 160 U.S. aid groups. Iraq-based relief workers with CARE reported that hospitals are ‘in absolutely dire straits,’ with some looted and others closed to prevent looting … Abbas Reta, 51, a Baghdad engineer with five children, was distraught at the looting of schools and hospitals … ‘If one of my family is injured where will I take them now? When the schools reopen, my children will have no desks to sit on … The Americans are responsible. One round from their guns and all the looting would have stopped.’

With all this going on, it’s easy to understand why a site with only “a level II priority on a list of 500 sites to be searched and secured” would merit little or no attention from us. Even though this meant that Iraq’s largest military-industrial installation was rapidly turning into probably the largest terrorist-arming bonanza in the history of the world.

The news wasn’t all bad, though. While Al Qaqaa (not to mention countless schools and hospitals in Baghdad and elsewhere) was apparently left to be picked over by any number of industrious, hungry, and/or nefarious locals, we did manage to protect the Oil Ministry, with “24-hour guard by troops and about 50 tanks that block every entrance, and sharpshooters … stationed on its roof and in windows.” As far I know this building contains not even a single oil well, and also probably not a single barrel of oil. But it sure is comforting to know we properly secured all those file cabinets and desks.

(”The oil ministry remained untouched. Other government buildings were ransacked and the irrigation ministry, just next door to the oil ministry was burned.”)

What seemed to irritate Rummy at the time was not the looting but the idea that people objected to the looting. On 4/11, Rummy said “freedom’s untidy, and free people are free to make mistakes and commit crimes and do bad things.” He also said the looting was not bad as some said, and the looting was “part of the price” for what we were doing. CNN also said “Rumsfeld appeared irritated by questions about the looting, asserting that repeated images of Iraqi citizens ransacking buildings represented ‘a fundamental misunderstanding’ of what was happening in Iraq.”

Incidentally, it’s been suggested (by sociologist JR Brown) that the tolerance of looting was an explicit business strategy (courtesy of our MBA president): “By allowing uncontrolled public looting, Bush has ensured that every stick of furniture, light fixture, and every other item that could be stolen will have to be replaced by the approved contractors … Using bombing to achieve this level of destruction to generate work for the contractors would have taken months. Allowing the Iraqi criminal element uncontrolled looting rights accomplished the job much more efficiently.”

WHAT OUR GOVERNMENT HAS SAID ABOUT THIS

In an effort to explain all this, our government has made a serious of statements that are painfully lame.

Comsider these statements that are diametrically opposed. A Pentagon PR guy says on 4/9 there were already looters all over the place: “When troops from the 101st Airborne Division’s 2nd Brigade arrived at the Al-Qaqaa base a day or so after other coalition troops seized Baghdad on April 9, 2003, there were already looters throughout the facility, Lt. Col. Fred Wellman, deputy public affairs officer for the unit, told The Associated Press.”

This is directly at odds with the officer in command, on the scene at that time, who recently said “there was no sign of looting here.”

But let’s give Wellman the benefit of the doubt, just for a moment. If looting was already underway, as Wellman asserts, why, apparently, was no unit ordered to stay and secure the joint? No answer to this question is forthcoming from Wellman, or anyone else, as far as I can tell. According to Wellman, we saw looters, yawned and turned our back. (Apparently consistent with our attitude about looters elsewhere.)

An AP correspondent who was embedded in the vicinity offers this succcint and utterly logical explanation for why our troops did what they did: “The enormous size of the bases, the rapid pace of the advance on Baghdad and the limited number of troops involved, made it impossible for U.S. commanders to allocate any soldiers to guard any of the facilities after making a check”

More contradictory statements. Consider this from Fox: “Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman said coalition forces were present in the vicinity of the site both during and after major combat operations, which ended May 1, 2003 ÔøΩ and searched the facility but found none of the explosives material in question.”

Then why is our government acting like it just found out about all this? The State Dept has said “We first learned about this particular — the absence of these particular explosives on October 15th” [2004]. This is a stunning statement, since the ISG learned of the missing materials on 5/27/03. I think a truer statement would have been “it was on 10/15/04 that we first determined that continuing this coverup was untenable.”

McClellan recently said “President Bush ordered an investigation of the disappearance shortly after being notified by the IAEA on Oct. 15.” ISG knew of the missing materials 18 months ago. Why was there no investigation then? Why did it take the IAEA and the NYT to wake us from our slumber?

The Pentagon said “Coalition forces were present in the vicinity at various times during and after major combat operations. The forces searched 32 bunkers and 87 other buildings at the facility, but found no indicators of WMD … While some explosive material was discovered, none of it carried IAEA seals.” It’s nice that forces were “present,” but did they search the joint promptly and thoroughly? No. The first sign of a thorough search, and the first awareness we had that critical items were missing, was in May, well after Baghdad fell.

As far as “32 bunkers and 87 other buildings,” this statement is artfully vague with regard to when this search happened. There is no reason to believe this search was done prior to May. It certainly did not take place on 4/10, and it’s highly unlikely that this statement describes the activities of the group who visited on 4/4. This statement appears to describe the work done by ISG in May.

By the way, since this site has 1,100 buildings, the White House is suggesting that roughly 90% of the site was never searched, perhaps even to this date.

The Pentagon says this site was “a level II priority on a list of 500 sites to be searched and secured.” No one has explained why Iraq’s largest military industrial complex was assigned such a low priority.

We’re told the site “was visited dozens of times by U.S. troops in the months following the invasion.” It’s nice to know that there were “visits.” Did our troops happen to “stumble on it,” as the 4/10 commander indicated? There’s certainly no indication that we ever sent anyone there specifically to check on the HE, until May.

As far as “dozens” of visits, not a shred of evidence has appeared that there were any visits whatsoever between 4/10 and 5/8. There are accounts of two visits (4/4 and 4/10), and no others (prior to ISG arriving in May). Also, given that we classified Al Qaqaa as such a low priority (”a level II priority on a list of 500 sites to be searched and secured”), it’s hard to understand how we managed to have time for “dozens” of visits.

The Pentagon has said it’s “very highly improbable” that the stuff could have been stolen “once U.S. forces arrived in the area,” because “two major roads” that pass nearby “were filled with U.S. military traffic in the weeks after April 3, 2003, when U.S. troops first reached the area … a large-scale operation to remove the explosives using multi-ton trucks would have almost certainly have been detected … The movement of 377 tons of heavy ordnance would have required dozens of heavy trucks and equipment moving along the same roadways as U.S. combat divisions occupied continually for weeks prior to and subsequent to the 3rd I.D.ÔøΩs arrival at the facility.”

(”3rd I.D” is a reference to the troops who stopped by on 4/4.)

How about a grass-roots operation using lots of little trucks? How about an operation involving smugglers who had half-a-brain and were clever enough to stay away from the major traffic on the major roads? How about smugglers who were clever enough to make their vehicles look ordinary? “Dozens of heavy trucks and equipment?” Given that they had a month or more in which to accomplish their work, all they needed was one pickup truck working around the clock and achieving one trip per hour. Not rocket science, especially given the mind-boggling profit opportunity (as I detail below).

Anyway, what’s stunning about that Pentagon statement is that it’s tantamount to admitting that we had no security posted at Al Qaqaa itself. Rather, we were relying on the idea that smugglers would get stuck in traffic, or naively drive directly toward checkpoints. After all, if we had indeed directly secured Al Qaqaa, that would be the appropriate statement to make now, not some lame hope about nearby traffic. But then again, as one official said, “you can’t just leave a guard at every place.” Not even at the largest weapons site in Iraq. In other words, our government has virtually admitted that Al Qaqaa was unguarded.

We’ve been told “it was impossible to provide 100 percent security for 100 percent of the sites.” We already knew that. What we haven’t been told is why there was apparently no security whatsoever at the single most important site.

The administration is quick to point out that we’ve found and destroyed lots of other weapons. True. But that’s no excuse for looking the other way while the largest weapons sites in iraq is thoroughly looted. Unlike most of the other stuff we’re finding, we knew exactly where this material was located. And this stuff is far more dangerous than most of the other stuff we’re finding.

The administration has been quick to characterize these materials as “conventional” (i.e., not posing a nuclear proliferation risk). An official even described it as “stuff you can buy anywhere.” (Anywhere in the Middle East, maybe, at this point, thanks to our collosal negligence.)

Yet Negroponte saw fit to mention HMX to the Senate, and it was part of a long paragraph that strictly discussed numerous nuke-related items. In other words, when it was politically helpful to beat the nuke-scare drum, HMX was treated as scary. Now the shoe is on the other foot, and McClellan tells us “move along here, nothing to see, it’s just conventional.” This is hypocrisy.

Another comment on how dangerous this stuff is. David Kay is the CIA’s former chief weapons hunter in Iraq. According to the LA Times Kay said “HMX and RDX were ’superb explosives for terrorists’ because they were stable compounds that could be transported safely and used for large-scale attacks.” Far more valuable to terrorists than ordinary shells, in other words.

Some have claimed “there is no evidence HMX or RDX have been used against coalition forces in Iraq.” That’s nonsense. On the contrary: “Insurgents targeting coalition forces in Iraq have made widespread use of plastic explosives in a bloody spate of car bomb attacks.”

It’s true that roadside IEDs targeting our forces are often based on artillery shells and the like. But the explosive of choice for car-bombings seems to be RDX and similar materials. And obviously many industrious bombers are finding clever ways to combine these methods.

(In an artful act of hair-splitting, the administration has claimed there is no evidence that the “_missing_” RDX has been used against us. They haven’t bothered to explain whether it’s possible or practical to ID this particular batch, compared with some other batch, especially after it’s been detonated.)

So I don’t buy the idea that this stuff is no more dangerous than the zillions of artillery shells that litter the countryside. For example, I somehow I don’t picture plane hijackers smuggling artillery shells in their carry-on luggage.

This attempted “drop-in-the-bucket” defense is another attempt to trivialize something that’s far from trivial. This is like Rummy telling us that widespread looting was unavoidable “untidiness.” Or Limbaugh comparing Abu Ghraib to fraternity pranks.

VARIOUS OTHER CLAIMS AND COUNTERCLAIMS

Some are speculating that the stuff got moved before we invaded. But UN inspectors were crawling around the country until just days before we invaded. We undoubtedly had constant satellite surveillance. This was a known major weapons site. Hard to understand how we managed to not notice 40 large trucks leaving a major known weapons site, at this critical time. If our birds are that blind someone needs to explain why we bother having them. And if we had suddenly seen suspicious activity at this site, we surely would have asked the UN to send some inspectors to take a look. Surely it would have been a great opportunity to prove to the world that Saddam was trying to cheat. We would have been happy to have one more reason to pull the trigger.

Incidentally, those who claim that our pressure on Saddam induced him to move all his good stuff to Syria, and also claim we were deaf dumb and blind with regard to detecting this or stopping this, are also providing a good reason to believe we made a terrible mistake by pursuing this course.

Some are claiming that Saddam moved the stuff in the early days of the invasion (this would mean the period roughly from 3/20 to 4/2; by the end of that period, we were in the vicinity of Al Qaqaa). But we were flying roughly 1,000 sorties a day. We had complete air supremacy. How could we not notice 40 large trucks leaving the largest weapons site in the country? Also, he didn’t have much time to get this done. What indicates that he had the resources to pull this off? Also, this theory is directly contradicted by eyewitnesses.

Some are arguing that moving this stuff would have been too hard for looters. Really? Iraq is now crawling with people who are industrious, hungry, unemployed and angry. Many of them are ex-troops who suddenly have time on their hands and an empty wallet. The epidemic of looting during the relevant period is well-documented. There’s no indication we provided an iota of security at this site, during the period 4/10 to 5/8. This location is just 30 miles from Baghdad, a city of over 5 million people. Easy access to lots of labor, lots of vehicles, lots of potential customers. This site was packed with modern industrial equipment of every variety. It would have been an irresistible magnet for looters. If looters didn’t have a heyday at Al Qaqaa in the period of 4/10 to 5/8 (if not longer), it’s awfully hard to explain why this site gained a magical immunity that seemed to be unique in the entire country. Indeed, eyewitness reports now confirm the looting at Al Qaqaa, after our guys pulled out and headed to Baghdad.

Someone, arguing that the job could not have been done by looters, helpfully calculated that the job would have required 90 men working for 14 days. Given that we apparently left the site wide-open for four weeks or more, and given the abundant local labor, this challenge seems highly surmountable. The economics are also compelling, if not staggering. If I assume that laborers are available for $10/hour, and if I assume I can sell the stuff for just $1 a pound, that still leaves me with a profit opportunity of about $600,000. Not bad for a two-week business venture. Makes a Halliburton no-bid contract look like a shoestring charity venture. And I have a feeling I might be understating the sales potential by one or two orders of magnitude.

Former weapons inspector Kay has some thoughts about all this: “I must say, I find it hard to believe that a convoy of 40 to 60 trucks left that facility prior to or during the war, and we didn’t spot it on satellite or UAV. That is, because it is the main road to Baghdad from the south, was a road that was constantly under surveillance. I also don’t find it hard to believe that looters could carry it off in the dead of night or during the day and not use the road network. ”

Some are arguing that Saddam could have done something wicked with this stuff, eventually. In other words we’ve gone from a situation where Saddam may have, potentially, hypothetically, in the future, given the stuff to terrorists, to a situation where we can be pretty certain the stuff is now in the hands of terrorists. That was a good result for 1,000 lives and $200 billion, wouldn’t you say?

Incidentally, even if you take the most extreme view, that the material was never there at all (i.e., the UN and Saddam were completely in cahoots), there is no reasonable explanation for the fact that our troops on 4/4 and 4/10 apparently made no effort whatsoever to check for the presence of this material, and that apparently no such effort was made until May. This despite the fact that the UN had cautioned us repeatedly, both before and after the invasion, that this material needed to be secured. It appears that until May we couldn’t be bothered to check for it properly, or to secure it properly.

The bottom line is that we became responsible for this stuff on 3/17, when we forced the UN to leave (until then, they were responsible). Yet we apparently didn’t even begin to make an effort to find and secure this stuff until 5/7, at the earliest. That’s an interval of over seven weeks.

By the way, Al Qaqaa is not the only example of our failure to secure important sites. It’s been known since more than a year ago that a uranium site was looted while left unguarded for a couple of weeks. Locals dumped the uranium and used the barrels for drinking water.

Speaking of other important sites, a top Iraqi science official has said there are other sites that might be getting looted right now, but we can’t stop it: “It may be already too late to salvage many of these sites, which are controlled by bandits and beyond the control of Iraqi forces.” He also said “it was impossible” that the missing material could have been removed before Saddam fell (i.e., 4/9, give or take), and he referred to witnesses who provided certified statements. He also said “officials at Al-Qaqaa, including its general director… made contact with US troops before the fall in an effort to get them to provide security for the site.” Needless to say, that effort was fruitless.

By the way, we’re also hearing now about the mysterious disappearance of nuke-related equipment.

CONCLUSION

We were told that one of the main reasons for the war was to keep scary stuff from falling into the wrong hands. We were supposedly approaching this problem with “overwhelming force.” Yet the result of our decisions was that the largest weapons site in Iraq was left unprotected for seven weeks or more. This seems to have happened both because we didn’t have enough troops, and also because there just didn’t seem to be any interest in protecting this site.

Before the invasion, we knew where this stuff was, and it wasn’t an immediate, direct threat to us. Then we told the UN to go to hell, and we took over. Now no one knows where it is, but it’s most likely headed in our direction, one way or another. We didn’t manage to find it but it will probably manage to find us. But it’s nice to know that we’re all safer as a result.

As the Times has said, “the invasion of Iraq has now achieved what Saddam Hussein did not: putting dangerous weapons in the hands of terrorists.”

These 754,000 pounds of missing explosives are the equivalent of one Lockerbie every hour for the next 86 years, or 128 million deaths, or 600 Hiroshimas.

Bush says he’s trying to create a “responsibility society,” a society where “each of us understands we are responsible for the decisions we make in life.”

Bush and Rummy were repeatedly warned, before and after the invasion, that more troops were needed. They ignored this advice. The UN tried to warn them about these weapons, at this site. They ignored this advice. The results of this bad judgment are devastating. Needless to say, this is the president who still insists he sent enough troops, and still insists the word “mistake” is hardly part of his vocabulary.

This “responsibility” president is also now trying to shift the blame to the military: “One of the lessons we’ve learned of history is that it’s important to listen to the commanders on the ground and our military leaders when it comes to troop levels … And that’s what this president has always done. And they’ve said that we have the troop levels we need to complete the mission and succeed in Iraq.”

In practically the same breath, Bush has the audacity to claim that Kerry is now “denigrating the actions” of our troops. Yet another attempt to shift blame off himself and onto the military. Kerry knows, and everyone knows, that the troops didn’t cause this mess, Bush did.

Here’s how this point was expressed by General Merrill McPeak, former chief of staff of the Air Force: “The President seems to think Senator Kerry could not possibly be criticizing him since the President thinks he has never made a mistake. LetÔøΩs be perfectly clear: it is the President who dropped the ball. Senator Kerry is being critical of George Bush, not the troops. By embarking on the line of attack, George Bush is deflecting blame from him over to the military. This is beneath contempt.”

In a few days the electorate will, perhaps, finally hold Bush responsible. If we don’t, maybe it means we deserve the shafting we’re getting.

… but I hope they hurry. You don’t begin to understand “hunt and peck typing” until you’re just a brain in a jar.

LOL

Now I don’t feel so bad!

Jamie Irons

Details at: American Digest: Blogger’s Head to Be Rebuilt at JPL

… but I hope they hurry. You don’t begin to understand “hunt and peck typing” until you’re just a brain in a jar.

Yeah, I spent last 2 weeks being particularity nasty to poor sweet old ladies. There is no end of fun once you register Republican.

Given that there are apparently many remaining “undecideds” with an election just days away, you can perform a valuable service by answering the following: Is your dramatic (and welcome) resurrection the result of adult or fetal stem cells?

You’re back!

Thank heaven you’ve recovered from Hyper-Cerebral Blogosis!

(That was a hilarious piece!)

Jamie Irons

” Arthur Ochs Sulzberger, Jr. (aka ‘Pinch’) is the person responsible for the tone and the direction of the Times. He is the Publisher, but not through merit or inate talent — no matter how much the internal spin machine of the Times may try to convey that image. Nope, Pinch is merely the person who hit the biggest win in the American media DNA lottery. Ultimately, this shining example of nepotism’s ability to turn those who would normally be the last into those who are the first, is the one driving the lurching bus of America’s most influential media organ. As long as he remains at the wheel, and there is no reason to believe that he will soon be gone, the Times will continue, at bottom, to reflect the attitudes and aspirations of the privileged liberal social milieu that created him.”

– American Digest: Praise the New York Times but Pass the Ammunition July, 2003