Casey D

Although I am technologically challenged to provide a link to MSNBC, here is a quote from its website for those who are interested: "At the Pentagon, an official who monitors developments in Iraq said U.S. led coalition troops had searched Al Qaqaa in the immediate aftermath of the March 2003 invasion and confirmed the explosives were intact. Thereafter the site was not secured by U.S. forces, the official said, speaking on the condition of anonymity."

Although the veracity of the WH is not in question, there are problems with the WH timeline on the missing weapons. The WH relies on an NBC report of April 10 2004 that the weapons were already gone by that time. That is what CNN is reporting. Other sources show, however, that US troops reached Al Qaqaa in March, and the weapons were there. That is why NBC itself is not reporting the story that CNN is reporting. At that point(March 2004), the site was not secured. When troops returned in April, the weapons were gone. But as the WH has also said, this is no big deal anyway, there are lots of weapons in Iraq, so I guess this is OK.

Reading more about this, the administration was not even informed until 10/15/04 that the explosives were missing, based on news accounts. So if this old news, it only indicates you are more in the loop on this than the WH, which I hope is not the case.

Oh OK---it was the branching out part that confused me. But I must say, bloated bureaucracies or not, securing 380 tons of some of the world's most powerful conventional explosives seems like a pretty obvious thing to do. That is especially true since the whole war was predicated on securing WMD. I mean, if we had found Sarin gas or nuclear devices, would we have left them unsecured. I guess this seems to me--and I'm no expert-- a major error. And one that has left the world in much greater danger, given that just one pound of this stuff brought down Pan Am 103. Multiply that amount by 760,000 times, and knowing it is strong enough to detonate a nuclear device---gosh, you would thing we were more competent than that to just leave it lying around.

Just fyi, I think you mean "roles" not "rolls" Are you suggesting that the Army--which would seem to be a core govenrmental function, if I follow you-- has taken "a hit in quality" because there is a Department of Education, Homeland Security, and EPA, to name a few newer governmental agencies?

I'm not sure I follow--they warned us about it before the invasion, but we did nothing to secure it? I mean, it isn't new news that terrorists now have their hands on 380 tons of virulent explosives? Are you saying we have known about this for a while, because I guess I missed it. Looks like alot of other folks missed it too, given that it is the news story of the day. If it's old stuff, I apologize.

I'm not sure I understand how some people's desire to have "the government play to roll[sic] of parent" has anything to do with securing a major munitions dump in Iraq that was monitored by the UN pre-invasion, but if you think this is no big deal, then I'll accept that I guess.

No, this is new. It's all over the news, not just the liberal Times. I'm sure, however, we'll get a good explanation from the Administration later today.

Do you think no one at the White House thought about(or knew about) this major munitions dump for 2 years? Gee, that concerns me too, since the point of invasion was to secure weapons of mass destruction--I guess I would have thought smething like this might have been on their radar screen. But I suppose you are right, this is no big deal, and the worst thing we could do is blame the Administration or anyone else for providing terrorists with 380 tons of high grade explosives.

Perhaps you are right. How would feel, however, if the story proves accurate?

How can that be? We failed to secure these explosives when we went into Iraq, and the terrorists have been looting the site for over a year. Indeed, reports indicate that we still do not have control over the munitions site, and looting was still going on yesterday. Is this how we are fighting the war in Iraq, the war on terror? This is scary stuff, I hope there is some explanation that this is no big deal.

That seems right.. and passion is probably better than apathy, even if misguided. But it is still not profitable use of time to try and persuade the unpersuadable. Besides, if you can't do it, I know I can't in light of your moniker at the bottom of your page...lol...CD

Fair enough about zealotry--it does go both ways. It is just generally in America today,however, that the media zealotry comes mostly from the right. O'Reilly, Limbaugh, Hannity, Fox News, Michael Savage, Laura Ingraham, Wall Street Journal editorial page, Washington Times, Regnery etc etc, --the market place over the last 10 years has shown that right wing demagogery is profitable. There is little equivalence on the left, with some newer exceptions such as Franken and Moore, who lefties feel are just evening up the score a bit. They are not the big business that the right wing media is. So conservative, nasty demagogery has been in vogue since the mid-1990s, and is very closely reflected here on the board..with the accompanying rudeness and lack of real debate--that is why people like Limbaugh screen their calls, they don't want real debate with real facts, they deliver propaganda and people eat it up and advertisers pay millions... it seems to me the board largely reflects these larger trends...CD

I stopped posting here a while ago because the right wing bias on the board is so strong. And for these true believers, their political views are almost a matter of religion--facts should never get in the way of their viewpoint. And the only reason I post now is how astonishing it is that given their unwavering faith in their political views, they think that somehow the "intellectual superiority" of their views has been proven because they have driven moderates like me away. They fail to understand that no one is so blind as he who will not see--and it is a waste of my time to try and make them understand based on reason, logic and facts. The social conservatism evidenced here has literally no principled underpinnings--it is simply a view that I should get the government to impose my views on other people because I want to impose my beliefs on others. That, to me, is not social, and certainly not conservative in a a classic libertarian sense. So it is time for me to go again, while the SCs "attaboy" each other here...regards, CD