kchoya
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Post by kchoya on Oct 26, 2004 10:04:57 GMT -5
Take this for what you will (I know some of y'all's opinions on Drudge), but here's a report on the missing explosives story that seems to be one of the hot stories of the week: www.drudgereport.com/nbcw.htmA blurb: Dem vp hopeful John Edwards blasted Bush for not securing the explosives: "It is reckless and irresponsible to fail to protect and safeguard one of the largest weapons sites in the country. And by either ignoring these mistakes or being clueless about them, George Bush has failed. He has failed as our commander in chief; he has failed as president."
A senior Bush official e-mailed DRUDGE late Monday: "Let me get this straight, are Mr. Kerry and Mr. Edwards now saying we did not go into Iraq soon enough? We should have invaded and liberated Iraq sooner?"
Top Kerry adviser Joe Lockhart fired back Monday night: "In a shameless attempt to cover up its failure to secure 380 tons of highly explosive material in Iraq, the White House is desperately flailing in an effort to escape blame. Instead of distorting John Kerry’s words, the Bush campaign is now falsely and deliberately twisting the reports of journalists. It is the latest pathetic excuse from an administration that never admits a mistake, no matter how disastrous."
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Post by TrueHoyaBlue on Oct 26, 2004 10:40:16 GMT -5
I got a dead link in trying to connect through, in the blurb Drudge offers, as always, an "interesting" take.
However, as reported in a number of sources, these explosives were contained and secured, under IAEA seal, from 1991 right up through the invasion. Mention was made in March 2003, when US troops searched through the property, as they thought the munitions could potentially be used in making WMD. Once they discovered that it was merely 380 tons of conventional weapons, they apparently decided that it wasn't a target worth protecting.
That, it seems to me, is the central issue.
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Boz
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Post by Boz on Oct 26, 2004 11:32:52 GMT -5
I normally don't join these conversations (not because I'm not interested, but I waste enough time on the other board, I'd never get anything done if I did both). I think kc chose the wrong excerpt though. I don't think it matters what the campaign spinners have to say. I think this is the substantive portion of Drudge:
But tonight, NBCNEWS reported: The 380 tons of powerful conventional explosives were already missing back in April 10, 2003 -- when U.S. troops arrived at the installation south of Baghdad. An NBCNEWS crew embedded with troops moved in to secure the Al-Qaqaa weapons facility on April 10, 2003, one day after the liberation of Iraq. According to NBCNEWS, the HMX and RDX explosives were already missing when the American troops arrived.
Now, there's a little bit of spin on Drudge's part as well, given the following story on MSNBC.com, which only kind of (not conclusively) confirms what he states as fact and also raises some other questions:
<http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6323933/>
In either case, I don't think its possible that U.S. troops found the weapons there in March, since they didn't arrive until April. The explosives were last sealed in January, leaving ample opportunity for them to be removed before or even during the invasion. In any case at this point, I don't think its entirely fair to say the troops saw 380 tons of explosives and decided it wasn't worth guarding.
I'm not saying that couldn't have happened, that may be the case. I'm simply saying that there is another plausible (even credible) explanation.
Obviously the most distressing thing is that no one knows where the explosives are. For me though, its also sad that the media is so unreliable. I'm not sure who has it right here, Drudge, NBC, NYTimes, CBS, I just know I don't trust any of them.
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Post by jerseyhoya34 on Oct 26, 2004 12:45:44 GMT -5
There is an important interview on www.talkingpointsmemo.com. According to the NBC/MSNBC embed who was there, there was not a formal search of the facility as such, but their being there on 4/10/03 was only a pit stop onto other parts of Iraq. A quick spot check of the facility one week earlier found explosives.
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Post by PushyGuyFanClub on Oct 26, 2004 13:22:17 GMT -5
Three points. 1. Facts surrounding disappearance remain murky. 2. Not sure this can be construed as a failure of presidential leadership. The day that the President of the United States gets into the business of micromanaging wars will be a sad day for this country. 3. If these explosives are sooooo dangerous (which they are) -- and I pose this question to you, John Kerry -- does this mean Saddam Hussein was... Nevermind.
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Post by jerseyhoya34 on Oct 26, 2004 13:28:25 GMT -5
Important points, there. John Kerry has always said that Saddam was a threat. The point is that there was a right way to deal with the threat and a wrong way.
I think that this represents a policy failure more than anything else. Rummy said that we knew that Saddam had weapons and we knew where they were. In that case, one would have hoped that we would have secured all known weapons sites in the early stages of the war, maybe complementing the sweep from Kuwait with some tactical paratrooper drops into select locations.
However, our policy and approach seems to have focused heavily on the immediate objective, Saddam Hussein, rather than on securing what we needed to "win the peace," which is exemplified by our not securing this site (among, possibly others), and our not protecting other locations with soft power, i.e. the art museums etc.
It also represents a failure to have enough troops on the ground. If troop levels indeed prevented us from securing this site, then we should have had more boots on the ground. Albeit, maybe the issue is training of sufficient special forces.
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kchoya
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Post by kchoya on Oct 26, 2004 13:39:49 GMT -5
Does anyone else get the impression that no matter what the administration did re Iraq, it would have been the wrong choice according to John Kerry?
Go in to Iraq and take out Saddam Hussein -- Bush should have been securing the peace.
Go around Iraq looking for stockpiles of weapons -- Bush should have gone after Saddam.
Go in to Iraq -- Bush should have waited and gotten a UN stamp of approval.
Explosives missing -- Bush didn't act quick enough.
Bin laden not found -- Bush diverted too much attention away from looking for Bin laden.
If we found Bin Laden -- well, it doesn't solve the problem because he's just one person and al queda is still around.
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Post by PushyGuyFanClub on Oct 26, 2004 14:56:40 GMT -5
Ahhh...the political season. But I don't blame John Kerry for playing the blame game. He's got an election to win. After all, the White House just got a new pastry chef! Yum.
People will be debating this Iraq war for a long time. There will be college courses that discuss it. It is an historic event for Arab-American relations and a watershed in the history of tecordism (if anyone is keeping such a history). What we have done in Iraq and Afghanistan is truly unprecedented. I think so in a good way, and the situation with Libya, IMO, is an example of how it is good.
That said, there were clearly military mistakes. What POTUS said in the Q&A debate was telling: he listens to his generals. In this history of warfare, the military has always been slow to adapt to new battle techniques. This phenomenon explains the disasters that were Pickett's Charge, trench warfare, some Vietnam operations, et al. I see the failures in Iraq as growing pains. That does not make them excusable, but I think we are embarked on a mission that is fundamentally sound and getting better (despite recent tragedies). I may be wrong. For every tragedy in Iraq, there is a complementary event that demonstrates how the military is adapting and better achieving the objective to secure Iraq and help set up a democratic government, which will truly be a watershed event.
In terms of the explosives, more explosives were secured and destroyed than disappeared. I think this is important to note. For Kerry to hold Bush accountable for the minutia of military operations is purely political. (Not saying this is a totally "minute" case, but the alleged "outsourcing" in Tora Bora is certainly one). General Shinseki went on record as saying that more troops would be needed. Did other Generals agree? I don't know. Anybody? If they did not, and Bush listened to his generals, than this is not a failure of presidential leadership. Hasn't another one of Kerry's main critiques than Bush doesn't listen? (Please spare me the obvious "Well, Bush clearly didn't listen to Shinseki.")
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Boz
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Post by Boz on Oct 26, 2004 14:57:01 GMT -5
My main point in joining this conversation was to point out my frustration with media reporting. I simply can't seem to find too many outlets that are interested in an honest and -- just as importantly -- thorough report of actual events. Most seem to pick and choose what they like and run with THAT story.
I don't doubt that we didn't secure all weapons caches. I don't know if any army has enough boots for what that task would have required, given the ammo dump that is the country of Iraq. Many in the media are jumping on this report now, but very few are reporting the thousands of tons we have secured and destroyed. On the other hand, Drudge and some others seem to be convinced that there is nothing to this, which seems to be contradicted somewhat by the NBC reporter.
My question is this. The IAEA report indicates that it knows EXACTLY what kind and how much explosives are missing from AQQ. Shouldn't the IAEA also know whether or not these mysterious vials that "may or may not have been explosives" are the items in question? It doesn't seem as though anyone is prepared to say definitively what these are, which seems in contradiction of what IAEA knows.
It does seem somewhat clear that the military left behind some explosive devices. Did they leave behind hundreds of tons of explosives? I don't think we know that yet.
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Post by PushyGuyFanClub on Oct 26, 2004 15:02:31 GMT -5
John Kerry has always said that Saddam was a threat. If you believe that, you believe that, but we have already had this discussion.
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Joe Hoya
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Post by Joe Hoya on Oct 26, 2004 21:03:09 GMT -5
In terms of the explosives, more explosives were secured and destroyed than disappeared. I think this is important to note. For Kerry to hold Bush accountable for the minutia of military operations is purely political. (Not saying this is a totally "minute" case, but the alleged "outsourcing" in Tora Bora is certainly one). General Shinseki went on record as saying that more troops would be needed. Did other Generals agree? I don't know. Anybody? If they did not, and Bush listened to his generals, than this is not a failure of presidential leadership. Hasn't another one of Kerry's main critiques than Bush doesn't listen? (Please spare me the obvious "Well, Bush clearly didn't listen to Shinseki.") I wish everyone in this country could read those wise words. Excellent post.
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Post by jerseyhoya34 on Oct 26, 2004 21:33:21 GMT -5
I disagree with Pushy's point, however well-articulated it may be. Just because a President listens to the generals does not make the decision well-founded or even correct. I think groupthink was rather pervasive in the run up to war. Powell browbeaten, Shinseki retired... Add to the fact that these countervailing pressures were removed, add in Bush's existing dislike for those who challenge him (See Debate #1, attitudes toward hostile questions, calling others unpatriotic). Add in pressures on Administration officials, including Dick Clarke, to find the proverbial link between Iraq and 9/11, and we have ourselves an environment, created by the President (and VP) in which dissent in the decision-making process is discouraged. The result of this was that Powell's hesitations were overlooked, Shinseki's wise advice was overlooked etc.
So, the issue to me isn't so much whether he listened to the generals. There were pressures in place that would have ensured that the generals if not department secretaries "said the right things" rather than the correct things based on the intelligence available, which even the President doubted at first, bringing about Tenet's infamous "slam dunk" claim.
Due to this decision-making environment, I absolutely see a failure of Presidential leadership. The President, to me, is not only responsible for the decisions, but the environment in which decisions were made. We can argue about the former, but I see the latter in this case as being a clear failure. John Kennedy fell into the same trap during the Bay of Pigs, but he managed to overcome it brilliantly in the Cuban Missile Crisis. I do not see Bush doing the same thing should another crisis arise because of his demeanor, approach, and advisors.
So, I also disagree with Joe. Pushy's words are not necessarily wise words. The Bush Admins decision-making 30 years earlier could have meant the destruction of the United States. In the Cuban Missile Crisis, Kennedy engendered an environment in which people challenged the core assumptions about the crisis with the result that they decided something other than air strikes would be the best way to secure mobile weapons. They managed to succeed, obviously, due to a clever blockade process. In Bush's yes vs. no world, I do not think the same assumptions would have been challenged with the result that, using Bush's approach, we probably would have settled on surgical airstrikes, which would have prompted nuclear missile launches into the United States.
Also, the argument about more being destroyed and secured vs. not being destroyed or secured is a risky argument, if not dangerous. No one would set that as a goal for an Iraq with WMD. No one would set that as a goal even for a country with powerful conventional weapons. The argument is an ex post facto rationalization of a serious failure. The weapons at that site, which folks call one of the most important weapons sites in Iraq, are sufficient to blow up thousands of airplanes or thousands of Oklahoma City Federal Buildings. That is significant, and your comments seem to play down that significance. Within the context of Iraq, that is enough, perhaps, to topple the regime (assuming they hit all the targets without US impediment).
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Post by jerseyhoya34 on Oct 26, 2004 21:35:46 GMT -5
If you believe that, you believe that, but we have already had this discussion. I don't believe that, I know that. He has been pretty clear in saying that Saddam was a threat, although he does not buy into Bush and Cheney's conception of what the threat entailed, which is why he sought a more effective inspections process and so forth in the lead up to war. I should note that it is also difficult to be consistent when the justification for war changes, but I suspect those changes are simply a reflection of Bush's nuance that he developed in Texas.
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Joe Hoya
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Post by Joe Hoya on Oct 26, 2004 22:12:59 GMT -5
Honestly, why is the fact that a weapons cache was stolen 18 months ago an issue now? Solely because of any perceived impact it could have on the election. The truth is that many more weapons caches were likely destroyed or captured than disappeared. I really don't think that one missing cache is as big a deal in comparison to the amount of weapons that did not disappear as some in the media would have us believe. If this was October 2005, we wouldn't be discussing this. But it's 2004, an election year, and so it's news. The part I wanted to focus on in PushyGuy's post was the part about blaming every last piece of everything on the President. I personally feel that much of the job loss of the last 4 years might be related to 9/11. If the administration were to say this, they'd be accused of using 9/11 as a political ploy. If they say nothing, then Kerry's people can say whatever they want. Nobody in the Kerry camp wants to mention that almost two million new jobs have been created over the last couple years, and that unemployment is at 5.4%, which is still relatively low. I don't think that the overall loss, then, is the important aspect. The important part is what is happening that can continue to happen going forward, and that is an increase in jobs. To sum up, pinning blame on President Bush for every mistake to happen on the ground in Iraq is ridiculous. Would you prefer he personally commanded every single soldier, a la the kings of old? I bet not, considering how much the Kerry camp likes to mention that he didn't fight in Vietnam. So which is it, micro-manage and let everything be the President's responsibility, or let experienced generals lead the ground operations? I'd choose the latter. I'm kind of getting tired of reading and writing about this election, so I may not post much on it anymore. I've had my fill of being ridiculed (not necessarily on this board) for who I voted for, and I've also had my fill of the lies being spread by the Senator's campaign. I sincerely hope that he does not get elected. If you go watch the little video on www.KerryOnIraq.com, you'll see part of my beef with him. Yes, the video is compiled by members of his opposition. However, the substance is 100% John Kerry. I will agree with Jersey that he felt Saddam was a threat; he said as much in 2001. However, if he was a threat, why leave him in power? The Senator acts like we should have done just that.
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Post by PushyGuyFanClub on Oct 27, 2004 15:37:26 GMT -5
In an unprecedented maneuver, Ed Morrissey at captainsquartersblog.com applies logic to this situation:
"it would have taken 100 men working 12 hours a day for two weeks to shlep the stuff away. And that would surely have been spotted by somebody."
If this is true, a bunch of yahoos (anybody know the Arabic, or perhaps Urdu, equivalent of "yahoo"?) in pickup trucks did not cart these explosives away. If 100 yahoos working 12 hours/day over two weeks did loot these explosives, then that is an oversight so egregious that I retract all of my previous statements...even the ones deemed excellent by JoeHoya (who I think approved my message in addition to his own).
As Norm Podhoretz then writes, "It seems far more likely that Saddam had the materiel moved. According to one report, the United Nations last visited the facility on March 8, a week before the war began. But the U.N.'s major report on the facility came out two months earlier. Saddam could have been moving the materiel out over the course of the two months before the war began — maybe into Syria. Who knows? That's the point. Who knows? Certainly not the Times. Certainly not John Kerry." [And I think Norm was reading my posts yesterday.] "But they'll both do or say what they feel they need to do or say to secure the result they want on Nov. 2."
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Cambridge
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Post by Cambridge on Oct 27, 2004 15:38:46 GMT -5
Fair or unfair the encumbant administration takes credit and blame for everything that has occured during its tenure. It is silly and ridiculous to turn around and point fingers about political motivations-- everything for the last four years has been to this end. On both sides of the aisle. To all of a sudden cry foul seems a little ridiculous. Let's just admit both sides have taken the gloves off and neither is going to convince the other side. Right now they're hoping to inflict enough damage on the other side to steal a little bit of the undecided vote.
BTW...who the hell is undecided? I mean the two seem pretty far apart. I think we can agree on that at least.
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kchoya
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Post by kchoya on Oct 28, 2004 15:01:51 GMT -5
380 tons. 3 tons. I guess John Kerry doesn't want the truth to get in the way of trying to make a political point: "But the confidential IAEA documents obtained by ABC News show that on Jan. 14, 2003, the agency's inspectors recorded that just over three tons of RDX were stored at the facility — a considerable discrepancy from what the Iraqis reported." www.abcnews.go.com/WNT/story?id=204304&page=1
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Post by showcase on Oct 28, 2004 21:51:15 GMT -5
So where does the footage from that the Denver affiliate embed news crew that showed IAEA seals on the bunkers and explosives within fit into the spinsanity?
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nychoya3
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Post by nychoya3 on Oct 29, 2004 0:39:30 GMT -5
Damn Showcase, can't you keep up! Now the explosives don't matter, because Iraq is flooded with them anyway! Also, if they weren't secured, it was the soldier's fault (according to Rudy). Furthermore, it's outrageous that John Kerry would attempt to make the manifestly incompetent management of the war into a political point. And 4 days before the election, no less. Now, you should be caught up, and ready to enjoy the spin. www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2004_10_24.php#003835This pretty well sums up the story. It's bad enough it happend once, but a similar tale was played out across the country. Nuclear materials are unaccounted for! For a war that was supposed to restrict the access of terrorists to WMDs (and, presumably, nasty stuff like the explosives in question) we sure did an awful lot to make it easy for them to get their hands on them.
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Post by showcase on Oct 29, 2004 7:49:37 GMT -5
My bad - I thought we were still on the first iteration of spin indicating why this was a non-story. I wasn't aware that now that the blame had to fall somewhere, it had already been shifted to the troops. It is nice to see those righteous defenders of the US soldier blame the incompetence of ground troops that were spread too thin to cover all these sites in the first place. Whose ingenious idea was it to ignore the advice of the experts and insist that a small force with a rolling start was all that was needed in Iraq?
I don't see this particular story as a bombshell but rather as a vignette that reinforces the theory that the civilian leadership in the DoD and White House are not nearly as clever as they think and can make no room for recognizing that possibility. People like that have no business calling the shots in this period in history.
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