Running with a debunked story
It wasn't terribly surprising to see that big New York Times story on the front page of the Chronicle yesterday. You know, the one about the 300+ tons of missing weapons material. It WAS surprising to see the Chronicle cover the same story today and put it on the front page, again, despite the problems with the story:
The discovery that 380 tons of Iraqi explosives have disappeared gave Kerry an opportunity to strike at Bush on the president's strongest issue. Polls have shown voters believe Bush would be the strongest leader in the war on terrorism.
"George W. Bush, who talks tough — talks tough — and brags about making America safer, has once again failed to deliver," Kerry said. "This is ... one of the greatest blunders of this administration. And the incredible incompetence of this president and this administration has put our troops at risk and this country at greater risk."
The New York Times and CBS first reported about the missing weapons. On Monday, the United Nations confirmed the reports. The explosives may have vanished shortly after the collapse of Saddam Hussein's army in April 2003, when, despite the U.S.-led coalition's presence, looting was rampant.
Well, the first problem is immediately evident: using CBS and the New York Times as content sources. There is some risk there.
Last night, NBC effectively took away all the oomph of the story with this:
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. The U.S. troops did find large stockpiles of more conventional weapons, but no HMX or RDX, so powerful less than a pound brought down Pan Am 103 in 1988, and can be used to trigger a nuclear weapon. In a letter this month, the Iraqi interim government told the International Atomic Energy Agency the high explosives were lost to theft and looting due to lack of security. Critics claim there were simply not enough U.S. troops to guard hundreds of weapons stockpiles, weapons now being used by insurgents and terrorists to wage a guerrilla war in Iraq.” (NBC’s “Nightly News,” 10/25/04)
There's a very good question in that New York Times story. Unfortunately, it's not the one the old media is asking. Here's Ed Morrissey to ask it:
If this material was so damned dangerous, why doesn't
[sic] the Times' editors ask why UNSCOM and the IAEA allowed it to remain in Saddam's hands?
Yep, that's the question. UNSCOM and the IAEA knew about this weapons material, had labeled this weapons material (material so powerful that just one pound of it brought down Pan Am 103, but it's not considered a WMD), and then let Saddam keep it? Good grief! And these are the two groups we were supposed to let continue doing...what? Helpfully take inventory for Saddam? Here's the Belmont Club to put this in the proper perspective:
Although one may retrospectively find some fault with OIF order of battle, most of the damage had already been inflicted by the dilatory tactics of America's allies which allowed Saddam the time and space -- nearly half a year and undisturbed access to Syria -- necessary to prepare his resistance, transfer money abroad and disperse explosives (as confirmed first hand by reporters). Although it is both desirable and necessary to criticize the mistakes attendant to OIF, much of the really "criminal" neglect may be laid on the diplomatic failure which gave the wily enemy this invaluable opportunity. The price of passing the "Global Test" was very high;
There's some stunning incompetence here, but it's not on the part of the U.S. Our military has been working tirelessly to identify, secure and destroy the hundreds of thousands of tons of weapons scattered throughout Iraq:
Although the world's attention has focused on the failure to find weapons of mass destruction, scant attention has been paid to the mountains of weapons of conventional destruction unearthed in Iraq.
The bombs, rockets, grenades, cannon shells and bullets amount to the world's fourth-largest stockpile of weapons, Army Corps of Engineers officials say. An estimated 600,000 tons of munitions with markings from all over the world, including the United States, and some so old that the weapons that fired them are no longer made, were stashed in Saddam's innumerable caches.
To date, 110,000 tons have been destroyed. An additional 138,000 tons are stored behind protective barriers. Saddam seemed to hoard this cornucopia of death aimlessly. "There are no aisles to walk down. It's just heaped," he said. "It just blows your mind to see this stuff."
That's from a June Seattle Post-Intelligencer story, and it says that, as of June, 248,000 tons of weapons had been secured and were in the process of being destroyed. How much more has been secured and destroyed now?
And finally, Orrin Judd points out the irony of this New York Times headline, in today's paper -- "Iraq Explosives Become Issue in Campaign":
Gotta love the Times, which first invents the story and then dispassionately reports on it becoming part of the campaign.
The Chronicle needs to stop turning to the New York Times for stories. This is utterly disgraceful, days before a presidential election.
Posted by Anne Linehan @ 10/26/04 01:06 PM | Houston Chronicle | Print | Comments (5)
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