Another one? Haven't we exceeded the quota for bombshells on this story?

Criminee, man, I need to get some rest...

NZB

I think you might be interested in this, from the Turkish Press:
Mohammed al-Sharaa, who heads the science ministry's site monitoring department and worked with UN weapons inspectors under Saddam, said "it is impossible that these materials could have been taken from this site before the regime's fall."

He said he and other officials had been ordered a month earlier to insure that "not even a shred of paper left the sites."

"The officials that were inside this facility (Al-Qaqaa) beforehand confirm that not even a shred of paper left it before the fall and I spoke to them about it and they even issued certified statements to this effect which the US-led coalition was aware of."

He said officials at Al-Qaqaa, including its general director, whom he refused to name, made contact with US troops before the fall in an effort to get them to provide security for the site.

You can read the whole story at
http://www.turkishpress.com/news.asp?id=31993

You can object that scientists who worked under Saddam's regime cannot be trusted to tell the truth, but it is these same scientists--exactly the same ones in this case--whose evidence we have sought and followed in discovering and seeking to control weapons sites. No evidence is perfect, but all the on-site evidence we have from Iraqui and American military sources is INconsistent with the White House attempts to say the material either left early.

The Administration's attempts to turn the blame for this idiotic error onto the troops in the field, by pretending to "defend" them from supposed Kerry charges of incompetence, when no one had so accused them or criticized them at all, is shameful.

Is it really impossible to contemplate that the Bush White House might have messed up even one detail, one time, made even one error in this messy thing? jeez.

Sean, you guys are really grasping at straws.

What, was Saddam unavailable for comment?

You're missing the point. John Kerry would have personally guarded even those three tons, sold them, and contributed the proceeds to save Social Security.

Now the left is quoting the Turkish press. Sheesh.

Unfortunately, the damage has been done to Bush. The NY Times, CBS, the UN and the Kerry campaign lied their way to an October Surprise. You gotta hand it to the Democrat Party machine. They're able to sanctify a traitor and a liar, and demonize a good man. Too bad the Republicans, conservatives and moderates don't understand that this election truly is a battle for the heart and soul of America; something Democrats understood all along.

Raving, you hit it right on the head.

Buck up campers. The damage may have been done but so what. It just means more voters will have to be successfully challenged on Tuesday is all.

I was in the Navy and have handled explosives. I did not see anything in the video that appeared to be under UN Seal. I have, in support of UN sanctions, placed seals on (non-explosive) cargo heading to Iraq.

The lack of military security commented on in the video is a strong indicator of the cluelessness of the journalists involved. Nobody secures an explosives depot by sitting on top of it. Bad things (TM) happen to people who surround in close proximity kilotons of explosives. I drive by the Umatilla chemical weapons depot a couple times a year, and I never see troops hanging out around the bunkers there, either.

The reasons I don't believe these missing explosives are all fairly simple.
1. Looking for WMD was a Big Deal. Everyone involved in the fight, from the slick-sleeved recruit Private up to the Division Commanders knew that being the guy who found WMDs would get a HUGE attaboy in his (and now hers) service jacket.
2. The bunkers these explosives were supposedly stored in had IAEA seals. See reason #1, everyone would have had an eye open for those seals.
3. As stored, these explosives are a powder. Given reason #1, it boggles the mind to imagine that huge amounts of white powder wouldn't have been noticed.
4. The troops on the scene reported the tire tracks of large trucks in dried mud at the scene. Since there wasn't rain during and immediately after the invasion, those large trucks were there earlier.
5. During the time in question the road networks were crammed with our military convoys. It would have been physically impossible for enough trucks to carry three hundred and eighty tons of anything to have been moving in the area. There wasn't room on the road nets, for one thing. There were too many checkpoints, for another.
My conclusion? Third ID hit the area, gave it a quick and dirty once over and found nothing of note. Sometime very shortly after the spooks charged with looking for WMD gave a more detailed look around. Since those guys are spooks, CIA, DIA, MI and assorted other alphabet agencies and are notorious for closed mouths, we didn't hear of those inspections, nor will we.
The stuff was gone when we got there.

It's not just the Iraqui scientistswho say so. I quoted them to add to the chorus, thinking you had probably not heard that info as yet. So, as of now, neither the journalists, nor the Iraquis on the scene, nor the US soldiers who were there, nor the inspectors, report ANY information consistent with the White House version, and all they do report is, in each of its elements, inconsistent with or contrary to the Bush version. This gives you no pause at all?

If the Pentagon version is to be believed, all they have to do is release the satellite surveillance they no doubt have of the site, covering the weeks leading up to and immediately after the invasion. That would be conclusive. What? They were NOT surveilling the site? If true, that would be a confession of exactly what they are accused of.

Does nothing, really nothing, ever stop you in your tracks long enough to wonder if maybe the guys at the top are not, after all, infallible??

Sean - the aerial photos of trucks parked outside the kaka bunkers, before our troops got there, were shown on FoxNews tonight. Also, in an earlier thread it was reported that soldiers arriving at kaka depot saw large truck tire marks in the dried mud.