Well, I’ve said my piece on her site, and it is obvious where she stands. Let’s see what the Administration has to say . . .
Pentagon spokesman Larry DiRita said, “We do not know when—if those weapons did exist at that facility—they were last seen, and under whose control they were last in.”
Bush Campaign spokesman Steve Schmitt says “the explosives were already missing.”
But White House spokesman Scott McClelland blames the disappearance on “some looting that went on in Iraq toward the end of Operation Iraqi Freedom, or during and toward the end of Operation Iraqi Freedom.”
Nicole Cavendish, another spokesperson for the Bush campaign, wants to shift the burden: “Since [Kerry] does not know whether it was gone before the war began, he can’t prove it was there to be secured.”
But Scott McClelland also says that the White House just learned of the disappearance two weeks ago, and is “getting to the bottom of it”.
How is it, if the explosives were “never there”, that the White House is just learning of their “disappearance”?
But this one is my favorite: “Should we have gone there? Definitely,” one senior administration official said. “But there are a lot of things we should have done, and didn’t.”
Does it frighten me that there are now 380 tons of explosive in the hands of either Iraqi insurgents or—worse—al Qaeda? Yes. Do I think it is, as Kerry is calling it, “the most grave and catastrophic mistake in a tragic series of blunders in Iraq.”? No. Certainly not if the weapons were never there in the first place.
What really bothers me, though, is how either the Pentagon and the Administration have no idea what actually happened to the explosives, or they are intentionally trying to muddy the waters. Either way, that is indicative of a systemic problem ultimately far more dangerous to the American people than 380 tons of explosives.
1. A YEAR AND A HALF LATER, OUR GOVERNMENT SHOULD KNOW WHETHER OR NOT THOSE EXPLOSIVES WERE THERE WHEN WE GOT TO AL QAQAA.
2. IF THE EXPLOSIVES WERE THERE WHEN WE GOT TO AL QAQAA, THE FAILURE TO SECURE THEM IS INEXCUSABLE.
3. IN ANY EVENT, WE SHOULD HAVE SENT ENOUGH TROOPS TO SECURE AL QAQAA IMMEDIATELY.
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THEY WERE NEVER THERE! (or were they?)
