Talk Elections

DRUDGE has picked it up -

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This is a cut & paste from another site:

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NBC THE GOOD GUYS TONITE
NBC BLOWS A HOLE IN THE KERRY ATTACK ABOUT THE EXPLOSIVES [10/25 09:09 PM]

Jim Miklaszewski of NBC News pretty much dismantled the New York Times attack on behalf of Kerry today.

NBC News: Miklaszewski: “April 10, 2003, only three weeks into the war, NBC News was embedded with troops from the Army's 101st Airborne as they temporarily take over the Al Qakaa weapons installation south of Baghdad. But these troops never found the nearly 380 tons of some of the most powerful conventional explosives, called HMX and RDX, which is now missing.

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The New York Times today discusses the “missing” 380 tons of explosives from Iraq however does not put that in perspective. In approximately 18 months, 110,000 tons have been destroyed and 138,000 tons have been secured. The unaccounted 380 tons of explosives are less than 1/10th of 1%. Further, the New York Times states, albeit buried in the article, “By late 2003, diplomats said, arms agency experts had obtained commercial satellite photos of Al Qaqaa showing that two of roughly 10 bunkers that contained HMX appeared to have been leveled by titanic blasts, apparently during the war. They presumed some of the HMX had exploded, but that is unclear.

Other HMX bunkers were untouched. Some were damaged, but not devastated. I.A.E.A. experts say they assume that just before the invasion the Iraqis followed their standard practice of moving crucial explosives out of buildings, so they would not be tempting targets. If so, the experts say, the Iraqi must have broken seals from the arms agency on bunker doors and moved most of the HMX to nearby fields, where it would have been lightly camouflaged - and ripe for looting.” The ground forces in Iraq should be proud of this success as it is a historic achievement.

Every soldier serving today, understands that John Kerry’s comments on this issue are additional insults to those that are serving. Those of us in uniform are thankful that George W. Bush did learn the lesson of Vietnam and is not micro-managing like Robert McNamara.

Here we go again

Let's see what......... NBC says


http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6323933/

So much for your "october surprise." 

You really don't seme to understand the bulk involved.  If terrorists showed up and took 50 pounds each, you'd need 16,600 of them to carry it.  The bulk is just too great.

So they must not be missing? What sort of argument is this? Anyways, trucks can take away much more than 50 pounds at a time.

And the correct answer to your calculation is 15,600.

A guy here in California had an entire vacation house stolen.

That link is to an AP story, not an NBC/MSNBC story.

TheOldLine

NBC's reporting on this was not just a cut and paste from AP.

Your link is a cut and paste from the AP.

TheOldLine

Oil was more important.

NBC doesn't just automatically put that stuff on their website.

Wrong on the weight; these are metric tons.  The trucks were mentioned on another thread.  You'd need 40 and you'd need someone to load them. 

It's exceptionally hard to do something like this, without a lot of support.

Yeah, I guess it couldn't have happened. The explosives are still there. And 9/11 never happened.

what?

drudge said it?

say it isn't so!

He picks up everything good like the Kerry intern story.

No, NBC has stuffed it back in the New York Times' face.  The Times is wrong then, wrong now and wrong in the future.

So they must not be missing? What sort of argument is this? Anyways, trucks can take away much more than 50 pounds at a time.

And the correct answer to your calculation is 15,600.

A guy here in California had an entire vacation house stolen.

Wrong on the weight; these are metric tons.  The trucks were mentioned on another thread.  You'd need 40 and you'd need someone to load them. 

It's exceptionally hard to do something like this, without a lot of support.

Yeah, I guess it couldn't have happened. The explosives are still there. And 9/11 never happened.

You really don't understand the concept, do you?  It would be entirely possible for a group of terrorists to grab some explosives, possibly using a truck, a lot, several thousand pounds.  It's not possible, without a great deal of organization, to transport 300 metric tons from a site.

They were not stolen.  

So there's no missing 380 tons of high explosives?

Boy, NBC really showed NBC.

Explain to me why it's not possible? They probably had several days.

If it's not possible they're gone, then they must be there.

Oh, yeah, we've found parts of the explosives, in bombs aimed at our troops.

If they tried to carry it out, at 50 pounds per man, it would take more than 16,600 men to do it (or 8,300 over two days).  If they are using trucks, one story indicated it would take 40 trucks, exclusive of loading and eventually unloading.  There, I have dumbed it down for you so that you can understand it.

Trying to distribute it would take even more effort.

Basically this is something that takes time, more than several days.  If it's a small group, about 2 dozen, try about two weeks to a month.  If this were 2 or 3 guys with a truck, they'd still be doing it.

Love him or hate him, Drudge is FLASHING right now regarding NBC refuting the Times piece.  The embedded reporters from the networks in that place are an important fact.  This was on the NBC nightly news.

maybe the explosives were taken by an African swallow.

 you, I can do the math.

They're trying to prove a negative, that no one saw them after the invasion. How exactly are they doing that?

It's just a report from the mainstream media, I didn't start it fern.

<<jFOOL's expletive showing his lack of verbal skills deleted>> you, I can do the math.

Obviously, you don't understand how the math works in this case.  A single truck cannot carry 300 metric tons.  It will take 40 trips by a single truck, or 40 trips divided among several truck to load that much weight.  Those trucks each have to be loaded and if there is less than 40, unloaded.  This isn't something that could be done in two or three days, unless you have several hundred people doing it, and 40 trucks.

With this much weight, it cannot be easily done.

How could more than 1 truckload be involved? No!!!!!!

Of course I understand that 1 person didn't move it in an hour. We don't know how it got taken, but we do know that it's gone, and is in the hands of people not friendly to our boys over there.

The RADICAL ISLAMISTS have killed more Muslims than they have U.S. soldiers.  I am not minimizing our losses but the bad guy's main targets are the people who want freedom in Iraq.  They kill Iraqi cops, soldiers, civilians, et al 500 to 1 over combatants wearing the coalition stripes.

Did you ever see the magician's trick where someone goes into a box and the magician runs swords through the box?  Then he opens the box and the guy isn't in there?  Why doesn't the guy inside get all cut up?  Simple, he wasn't in the box.  Same principle.

The Pentagon questions (along with NBC) if there were any explosives there.  It looks like they were removed prior to the Airborne showing up.  These explosives may have been in the numerous batches that were destroyed.  This 300 metric tons amounts to 0.1% of the total explosives destroyed by US forces so far.

Basically, unless it was a large organized group, with extensive transport, these expolsives were not stolen.  Now, possibly a group of terrorists could looted a lot of explosives, but not this amount.  One truck cannot carry 300 tons in on trip.

Rent the movie Goldfinger and you will see the problem.

This is 380 tons of non-ordinary explosives.

ONE POUND OF IT TOOK DOWN PAN AM FLIGHT 103

http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/news/world/10007264.htm?1c

When I want someone who cares about security, I'm never going to look for a Republican.

well ok fern

Or ZERO TONS, POUNDS OR OUNCES based on NBC's reporting.

http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=JPost/JPArticle/ShowFull&cid=1098677410357

At the Pentagon, an official who monitors developments in Iraq said US-led coalition troops had searched Al-Qaqaa in the immediate aftermath of the March 2003 invasion and confirmed that the explosives, which had been under IAEA seal since 1991, were intact. Thereafter the site was not secured by U.S. forces, the official said, also speaking on condition of anonymity.

--------------

Furthermore, in regards to this story the White House is claiming they knew nothing of the missing weapons until 10 days ago...which can't be true if Drudge's theory is correct.

I'm not buying it until I see some much better evidence than gossip on Drudge

Drudge only went with NBC news version.

Link to NBC saying this?

MSNBC's story has the same quote as above...that a Pentagon office said that the seals were checked immediately after the invasion and that they were intact.

It would next to impossible to move 300 tons of explosives, without a massive and well organized effort.  I'm betting Drudge.  They might have been accounted for at some other location.

There is no NBC story.  Drudge said there will soon be an NBC story. Its true, there are many unknowns and this will not be solved by election day.  Bush may dodge this bullet.

But a group of former Baathists military officers working with a crew could probably scrounge up a couple trucks and a good sized work crew.  They wouldn't have to bring it far, could bring it to a storage point and have had plenty of time now to distribute it through out the country.  If I were a fighting an "invasion" the first thing I would try to get my hands on our the weapons.

So we're supposed to trust Drudge? LOL. Where's Baghdad Bob when you need him?

Working for Abu Dhabi TV.

Shouldn't this stuff be in the campaign forum?

Probably should be in the Campaign section.  CNN is now reporting the NBC version.  Interesting stuff.  Has the Times screwed the pooch on this like CBS did with the TANG stuff?

So in summary, the explosives were stolen (we can be sure of that since it is anonymous source) and not missing (since that comes from actual news reporters who were there).  

Also since what is "missing" amounts to less than 0.1% of the total amount found in Iraq, the military therefore must be incompetent (only 99.9% efficient - even Ivory soap isn't that pure).  

If only the Yankees fielding percentage was that "incompetent", they might have beaten Boston.

Here is what MSNBC is now saying:

"An NBC News crew that accompanied U.S. soldiers who seized the Al-Qaqaa base three weeks into the war in Iraq reported that troops discovered significant stockpiles of bombs, but no sign of the missing HMX and RDX explosives.

"It remains unclear, however, how extensively the U.S. forces searched the site in the immediate aftermath of the invasion to topple Saddam Hussein.

"Signs of looting seen at war's end
The State Department spokesman Adam Ereli said that coalition forces searched 32 bunkers and 87 other buildings at Al Qaqaa facility after the war, looking for weapons of mass destruction. He said the troops found none, but did see signs of looting."

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6323933/

It would have taken a massive effort to remove that much weight.

MSNBC has been running the cited story on it's broadcast.

What's the status of this Times screwup now?  Are The Guardian and the Times owned by the same Democrapweasels?

And how is it that Bush is the guy to keep us safe? Because he said smoke em out of the caves?

This "Keep us safe" issue is really all Bush has got to keep him from losing in a Jimmy Carter style defeat. Except he doesn't really have it. It is all a myth. The War on Terror is spiraling downward. We have fewer nations helping us than three years ago and Al Queda has many, many more recruits. Now, very possibly tons of explosives.

How can half the country defend this guy???

"Every soldier serving today, understands that John Kerry’s comments on this issue are additional insults to those that are serving. Those of us in uniform are thankful that George W. Bush did learn the lesson of Vietnam and is not micro-managing like Robert McNamara."

What fluff nonsense.  All people serving in Iraq are not unanimous.  I'll bet one could find more than a few who are not thrilled to be over there.

As far as learning the lessons of Vietnam, I doubt GW Bush has learned anything.  Whether or not there is micromanagement of not, it's almost impossible to win a guerrilla war unless you're willing to kill an entire population.  We haven't learned that lesson of Vietnam.
 
 
 
 
 
 

They support Bush by a 3 to 1 margin.

There is no NBC story.
NBC retracted.
Time for Drudge to retract.

So I guess that means I'm correct.

Yes, it means that only 75% of our soldiers disagree with you.

I would hope so.  I'm surprised at 25% as I thought it would be lower.  Although maybe it is higher than 25% as the doubters may be hesitant to express their misgiving.  20 years from now, more will agree with me.

You guys do realize that NBC said that Drudge is wrong and the NY Times is right on this?

Not as of yet.  Here is what the story really said:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6323933/

"The war in Iraq began March 20. Army officials told NBC News on condition of anonymity that troops from the Army’s 3rd Infantry did not arrive at Al-Qaqaa until April 4, finding “looters everywhere” carrying what they could out on their backs.

"The troops searched bunkers and found conventional weapons but no high explosives, the officials said. Six days later, the 101st Airborne Division arrived. Neither group was specifically searching for HMX or RDX, and the complex is so large — with more than 1,000 buildings — that it is not clear that the troops even saw the bunkers that might have held the explosives"

MSNBC is still saying the same thing as I'm typing this.  I guess jfool can't read.

Was this 380 tons of explosives more of a danger to the USA before or after Bush invaded Iraq?

About equal, considering who the owner was.  His minions might still have it and picked it up before the US Army arrived.  It's also possible that it was captured and destroyed at another location.

You missed it, again.  Here it is:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6323933/

"The war in Iraq began March 20. Army officials told NBC News on condition of anonymity that troops from the Army’s 3rd Infantry did not arrive at Al-Qaqaa until April 4, finding “looters everywhere” carrying what they could out on their backs."

You have them guard something that wasn't there?   When the Army arrived, it was gone.  No recanting, as you previously claimed, either.

God damn you're annoying. Anyways, when the army arrived, they did not do a search then. Searching for the explosives was not a priority. Go read for yourself here.

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2004/10/26/13489/620

NOTHING WAS DONE TO SECURE THE AREA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!


QUIT MISSING THE GOD DAMN POINT!!!!!

You are offensive fern.  Stop the useless cussing.  Stop citing the useless www.dailykos.com as a credible source.

Get a life.

The POINT is, they were there, with an NBC embed, and there wasn't anything to see.  360 metric tons of explosives cannot be hidded in a broom closet.  It will take up space, a lot of space.  They will see something.  Don't be dense and offensive.

It was a huge facility, and checking it was not a priority.

Do you have any idea how much space 40 truckloads of material takes up.  We are actually talking about the same weight as the Empire State Building.  Try to picture trying to "hide" the Empire State Building on even a "huge facility."  As explosives tend to less dense than granite and steel, it would take up more space.

You are not comprehending the amount of material involved.

The Empire State building weighs 365,000 tons. Off by a factor of 1000. In addition, explosives are probably more dense than the Empire State building, which is mainly filled with air. So the volume would differ by even more than a factor of 1000.

http://www.esbnyc.com/kids/kids_faq.cfm?CFID=8546723&CFTOKEN=18707286

It has a density of about 1.91. I assume they mean kilograms per liter.
http://www.brainyencyclopedia.com/encyclopedia/h/hm/hmx.html

That would mean that 380 metric tons would be 200,000 lliters, or 200 cubic meters. That works out to 10 meters on each side, and 2 meters high. 

You are correct on the Empire State Building, that was my error.  You are still talking something with the volume of a small house.  That isn't easy to hide.  Because of the weight, it's even harder to steal. 

According to the article, the troops, while no securing it, did look around.  Nobody saw the sealed buildings.  From the size of the unit (brigade, there would have been 3,000-6,000 people there, and while they were there, they had to secure the area.  There has been no suggestion that it was hidden when the inspectors were last there.  There was nothing there to loot.

If you read the accounts, they were not given orders to inventory or secure the area. Sure, some people looked around, but the facility was large enough that they weren't able to accomplish much.

Several thousand people, securing an area, even briefly, didn't run accross something the size of a small house!  This was a combat opperation; they we're not checking into a Ramada Inn!  To secure the area, even briefly, they'd have to move through the area, to make sure there weren't a few dozen Iraqis with grenade launchers hiding there.

I'm not claim that, in the middle of a war, they stopped to inventory anything.  I am saying that somebody would have seen something, especially since they were checking for WMD's.

New NY Times article says WH lying, and that site was not searched.


http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/27/politics/27bomb.html?oref=login&oref=login

It was a compound of several dozen warehouses. The contents of a small house could have been overlooked quite easily.  Especailly since they weren't looking for it. This was a short stop before they went to Bagdad.  The whole, Soldiers were there, is just a kneejerk reflex defense to muddle the issue.  You would think that they would have been ordered at least to check if it were gone.  They didn't I think this is bad, really bad, but it might be to late to be an issue.

And remember we had all our satelites trained on Iraq before the war trying to find weapons of mass distruction or movement of weapons.  I think that we would have noticed it before  the war had it happened.

WOW!!!! Fern says that the NY Times is calling GWB a liar.  What a friggin newsflash fern.  Oh but they have been doing that for the past three years.

They are no better than The National Inquirer.

And after as well, with regard to satellites.  The thing is, they did check the base for something, WMD's.  They didn't see these sealed bunkers?  The ones sealed by a UN agency.  That would attract attention.  It's like looking for a piano in a warehouse where there is a car, a limo.  They'll see the limo, even if they don't do anything about it.

Let me get this straight, MSNBC is a less reliable source for a story about an NBC reporter than KOS is? 

Do Bush supporters want to discuss the truth or just try to spin this?

The truth is that is it not easy to remove 380 metric tons (tonnes) of explosives.  The truth is that the area was occupied, for several days and nobody saw the "seals" on the bunkers that contained the explosives.  The truth is that the inspectors only saw that the seals were intact prior to the start of the war.

That is being addressed.

Looks like th DofD is reviewing sat photos and intell that showed heavy truck traffic out of Al Qaqaa prior to the war.  Not sure if it will be released.  Member of 101st on Fox tonight was there and saw deep truck ruts from the bunkers.  That was when they first arrived.  Hoping to watch his story.

The NYT reported that in April  that a search of the facility was thurough enough to find a suspicious white powder, but not 380 tons of high explosives.

This was before the war ended.

NBC reported that satellite images of a large number of trucks around the site in the days before the war.

It also reported that the access road in was a major US convoy route, so it's unikely that anything large got moved after the Army reached the site.

maybe the big kerry balloon is bursting on this bad boy

We don't know what was in those trucks, but if the imaging is released, Kerry's intellectual dishonesty reigns supreme.

The other shoe has dropped.

Bret Baier (FNC Pentagon correspondent) reports that DoD officials are "reviewing satellite imagery which reveals considerable truck activity near Al Qaqaa in the days leading up to the Iraq war."  Released photos may be forthcoming, pending de-classification.

It's the New York Times' move now.

I expect that bastion of honesty, fairness, and integrity to place this information on A1, above the fold, in tomorrow morning's paper.

Mux, please don't hold your breath for that to be printed as that wormy fishwrap of a paper does not have the journalistic integrity to ever admit it is wrong.

I can dispatch the paramedics NOW if you are so disposed to NOT BREATHE.

On a more serious note...

I'd like to add that I love this story because I get to say "Al Qaqaa" with a straight face.

same consistency as the s**tstorm that could be coming down on the KERRYNEWYORKTIMESCBS organizations.

So who do you trust? FauxNews? The liar in chief? Give me a break.

I trust NBC, where the story was run.  It wasn't on their website yet.  When it appears, I'll post the link.

fern, go back to your garden.  I don't trust ANY news organization.  Especially those like cBS who MAKE the news.  Or The NY Timebomb.

This possibily was also raised on CNN.

The New York Times has been caught again making things up!

The liberal media is truly desperate and will float the most absurd stories in hopes of defeating Bush.

In fact, they are commiting suicide.

As promised, here is the link to the story and some highlights:

"The infantry commander whose troops first captured the Iraqi weapons depot where 377 tons of explosives disappeared said Wednesday it is “very highly improbable” that someone could have trucked out so much material once U.S. forces arrived in the area."

***********************************************

"The colonel [the commander of the brigade] himself did not directly offer that conclusion.

"But the Pentagon said a statement Wednesday, '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.’s arrival at the facility.'”

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6323933/

It's looking less and less like they were there.

Kerry isn't criticising the guys on the ground just the Commander-in-Chief.

Dave

Haha. Like the president deals with specific things like this.

That's not true.  He's calling them lazy for not securing the explosives.  Which it now looks like they had been moved before the war.   It's another thing that has blown up in his face.

Get real!

If you think that the New York Times story is accurate, you probably also believe in the CBS National Guard papers story.

And, yes, the guys on the ground in Iraq are very angry with Kerry, as they rightly consider it a criticism of them.

As if I give two hoots about the CBS National Guard papers story. The media makes very little, if any, impression of my opinion.

Dave

Surely, the buck stops somewhere!

Dave

NBC retracted after they realized that they and Drudge were wrong.

Link up the retraction, bitte.

I don't know if they specifically said they retracted, but if you can't find the article, there's a reason for that.

These may not be the ones, but:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6192239/
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6337906/
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6350564/

When asked about Russia, Rusmfeld was unable to back that story up. Whoops.

But not there was nothing there to guard.

Where are the explosives?

Probably already captured and destroyed.  This stuff doesn't have serial numbers on it.

Proof?

The IAEA says they're missing.

Proof?

The IAEA says they're missing.

Who said that IAEA said anything about the explosives on the tape.  They can not identify that it was same explosive.