Missing the point

This WaPo article entitled: Munitions Issue Dwarfs the Big Picture (washingtonpost.com) misses the point on a number of grounds.

"There is something truly absurd about focusing on 377 tons of rather ordinary explosives, regardless of what actually happened at al Qaqaa," Anthony H. Cordesman, a senior analyst at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, wrote in an assessment yesterday. "The munitions at al Qaqaa were at most around 0.06 percent of the total."

Sure, the 377 tons of HMX and RDX is a drop in the bucket when compared to the vast quantities of munitions in Iraq, but that is besides the point. The point of this story is not the explosives themselves. Rather, it is the fact that we went into this war unprepared, ill-equiped and undermanned to fulfill the mission. Our senior military staff were ignored by the civilian leadership in the Pentagon. When Gen Shinseki insisted that to do the job right, would require 3-500,000 troops, he was effectively put out to pasture. This was all about Sec Def Rumsfeld proving his untested theories about doing more with less.

Kerry has seized on the incident to press his charge that Bush mishandled the invasion of Iraq, failing, among other things, to secure sites containing dangerous Iraqi munitions, some of which were stored in bunkers marked with International Atomic Energy Agency seals to designate particular international concern.

Bush administration officials have refused to accept a statement issued earlier this month by a senior official of Iraq's interim government that the munitions disappeared after the April 9, 2003, fall of Baghdad "due to a lack of security." Iraqi authorities have not offered any supporting evidence, and Bush administration officials have suggested the explosives may have been removed earlier by Iraqi forces.

Exactly. Bush refuses to accept reality. He is surrounded by synchophants who do nothing but echo his wet dreams that things are going according to plan in Iraq. He is an irresponsible buffoon masquerading as commander in cheif.

"The issue has been out there for a long time," said James Bodner, who helped formulate Iraq policy in the Clinton-era Pentagon. "Are we properly manned to carry out the specific military tasks that need to be accomplished? If the answer is, 'Yes, we have enough troops,' then why are these facilities unguarded?"

Exactly. Yet, Bush continues to insist that "if the commanders on the ground ask for more troops, they'll get them". From where is a mystery to any thinking person. Do you feel a draft? The facts are that any requests for more resources from the commanders on the ground are shot down before they get to the Pentagon, likely because there are unwritten orders to that effect that trickle down from on high.

Whatever the case, the military significance of the loss, in a country awash with far larger amounts of munitions, is open to question.

Really? How absurd. Had we NOT gone into Iraq on a pre-emptive strike against an enemy who posed no immediate threat, and has been proven to be nothing more than a toothless tiger ever since the Gulf War in 1991, then these munitions would not be in the hands of terrorists and/or insurgents. They would still be in their bunkers. The IAEA had them under seal, along with the other dual-use materiel that has also been looted because it went unguarded by coalition troops.

Matthew Bunn, a Harvard University expert in nuclear weapons and terrorism, said that although he is concerned by the removal of the explosives, he is far more worried by IAEA reports that large quantities of sophisticated equipment, such as electron beam welders, were looted and removed from Iraq's nuclear weapons program. "That material, which would be quite useful to a nuclear weapons program, was also well known to the United States, was not guarded and today is probably in hostile hands," with Iran being a likely recipient, said Bunn, who noted that he has been advising the Kerry campaign but does not speak for it.

So, we went into Iraq on the premise that Saddam would give the material and know-how for WMD to terrorists or terrorist-sponsoring nations (yeah, like he just might have helped Iran with nukes!) and in the process, fulfilled that worry because we didn't adequately secure the weapons and munitions that were there. Explain to me how that is a good thing!

Melissa Fleming, an IAEA spokeswoman, said yesterday that the IAEA warned the United States in April 2003 of concerns about security at Qaqaa. Other U.N. officials said repeated efforts were made for more than a year to get answers from the U.S. government about the explosives and other weapons-related materials that had been under U.N. seal before the war.

A fresh request to the Iraqi government generated the Oct. 10 reply that the explosives were no longer at Qaqaa.

There you have it. The Bush administration engaged in a cover-up. They screwed up and refused to let that little secret out of the bag. They refuse to accept responsibility for their screw-ups. The US had a responsibility to inform the UN about the dual-use material and the adminitrsation used every trick in the book to keep this story from getting out into the public domain.

Feel safer now?