Redstate

By streiff Posted in User Blogs — Comments (2) / Email this page » / Leave a comment »

Late yesterday the AP sucked up the courage to do a minimalist rewrite of a DoD press release thereby doing more to cast light on the cloud of blue smoke emitted by the New York Times.

In the course of copying a press release they actually managed to commit reportage, a lost art at the AP. Check here for a summary.

Today, ABC news wades into the fray with an interesting piece entitled Discrepancy Found in Explosives Amounts and they aren't talking about what Kerry is wailing about.

The information on which the Iraqi Science Ministry based an Oct. 10 memo in which it reported that 377 tons of RDX explosives were missing -- presumably stolen due to a lack of security -- was based on "declaration" from July 15, 2002. At that time, the Iraqis said there were 141 tons of RDX explosives at the facility.

But the confidential IAEA documents obtained by ABC News show that on Jan. 14, 2003, the agency's inspectors recorded that just over 3 tons of RDX was stored at the facility -- a considerable discrepancy from what the Iraqis reported.

That's right. The IAEA had certified just three tons of RDX in January 2003. However, on the March 9 visit to al Qaqaa the IAEA did not inventory the RDX stocks, and they didn't inventory the HMX, either. The inspected the seal and videotaped the contents of the bunkers.

So that still leaves 239 tons of HMX right. I mean that is like 10 bazillion Alfred Murrah buildings, isn't it.

Well it gets much better, read on.

The IAEA documents from January 2003 found no discrepancy in the amount of the more dangerous HMX explosives thought to be stored at Al-Qaqaa, but they do raise another disturbing possibility.

The documents show IAEA inspectors looked at nine bunkers containing more than 194 tons of HMX at the facility. Although these bunkers were still under IAEA seal, the inspectors said the seals may be potentially ineffective because they had ventilation slats on the sides. These slats could be easily removed to remove the materials inside the bunkers without breaking the seals, the inspectors noted.

So now the entire timeline becomes inoperative.

It appeared that there was a window of opportunity between about April 11/12 when 2d BCT 101st Airborne left the area, and May 7 when TF 75 inventoried the site and found the bunkers empty. Now we know that no physical inventory of the munitions was ever conducted, the IAEA relied on videotape of the bunker interiors. A valid technique if the IAEA seals were not broken.

But it is now clear that the IAEA seals did not secure the bunkers and that the IAEA states the explosives could have been moved without disturbing the seals. In this case, the videotape proves nothing.

John Kerry is so big on acknowledging mistakes. We're awaiting his apology.... waiting.... waiting...