Explosive Lies

[BengalsCat]

IT SEEMS THAT Monday's groundbreaking New York Times story on missing explosives in Iraq was certainly not groundbreaking and may not even be true. The allegations that nearly 400 tons of "high explosives" were missing from the al Qaqaa arms dump are based on charges leveled by Mohamed al Baradei, chairman of the International Atomic Energy Association. The claims are old and increasingly suspect. But that hasn't kept John Kerry's presidential campaign from using the story in a new television ad and in virtually every stump speech and media appearance over the past two days.

Now, however, the Kerry campaign admits that the information that is the basis of Senator Kerry's statements and his campaign advertisement may not even be true. Pressed on Tuesday afternoon about the accuracy of the allegations on Fox's Big Story with John Gibson, Richard Holbrooke, a senior adviser to the Kerry campaign, said: "You don't know the truth and I don't know the truth." He later underscored this point: "I don't know the truth."

That minor issue hasn't kept the Kerry campaign from creating a television ad based on what may well be untruthful claims.

The ad, called "Obligation" shows John Kerry speaking solemnly about the responsibilities of a president.

The obligation of a Commander in Chief is to keep our country safe. In Iraq, George Bush has overextended our troops and now failed to secure 380 tons of deadly explosives. The kind used for attacks in Iraq, and for terrorist bombings. His Iraq misjudgments put our soldiers at

risk, and make our country less secure. And all he offers is more of the same. As President, I'll bring a fresh start to protect our troops and our nation. I'm John Kerry and I approved this message.

The claim is, well, explosive. John Kerry says the Bush administration's incompetence is killing U.S. soldiers. Reporting from a variety of news sources suggests that the explosives may have been gone before the U.S. troops arrived. In any case, Kerry's top advisers have conceded that their claims may prove false.

Yet, Kerry has leveled an extraordinarily harsh wartime charge against President Bush.

Shouldn't he at least make sure that such a charge is true?

It also now turns out that CBS 60 Minutes was planning to echo the New York Times story two days before Election Day. So what we have is an attempt by the New York Times, CBS, and a U.N. agency to work together to promote a very likely false story to damage President Bush's reelection prospects. Perhaps no one should be surprised that the liberal media and the United Nations are willing to go to quite extraordinary lengths to promote Kerry's prospects against Bush, but their behavior is not the issue. The issue is Kerry's willingness to advance allegations that his own campaign acknowledges may not be true.

William Kristol is editor of The Weekly Standard.

[Guest BengalLady]

Does not surprise me at all. I read somewhere that the media is so biased in this election. Usually they are biased to the democratic party about 40% of negative press and 60% to the other candidate.

I heard this morning, that this year it is 80% against Bush and 20% against Kerry.

I have stopped watching the news because of the Bullshit.

And Mr. Bush was eating poop today and slinged it on all the angelic Kerry people, meanwhile Mr. Kerry is pleasing everyone with his charm and giving out candy to all the helpless poor children. Go Kerry.

Reporting for the nightly news. Have a good night.

Celebs are bragging that they are getting the word out that voting is sexy and cool, well I think what they are really saying is Everyone get out and vote because we don't have a prayer of getting Kerry in there if you don't listen to us and vote Kerry. They might as well just put it across there damn heads.

[BengalsCat]

Its funny that all the democrats chose to ignore this post but will answer just about everything else??

[|Bunghole|]

I thought I read on CNN.com about this that the US claimed that we had safeguarded this stuff until the task of keeping it secure was handed over to the Iraqis in July. So it was their fault. If any of this story is even true (or even a new story-have been reports that it is just now surfacing but that the theft occured during the invasion in '03-who knows?).

[Guest oldschooler]

The U.S. is destroying over 400,000 TONS of weapons in Iraq. (FACT)

380 tons "disappear" over a year ago...and "some" people (Kerry

and Democrats in general) contend that Saddam WASN`T a threat ?

Plus they removed almost 2 TONS of nuclear material in July !

Still ....he WASN`T a threat ?

This OLD story resurfaces a week before the elections and Kerry

has pounced all over it....when in FACT ....he doesn`t know the FACTS.

Just goes to show you if 38 truck loads (380 TONS)

of "highly explosive" weapons can just "disappear" ...then couldn`t

some WMD`s be around there somewhere ?

Oh heaven forbid that would be the case !

[Guest bengalrick]

I thought I read on CNN.com about this that the US claimed that we had safeguarded this stuff until the task of keeping it secure was handed over to the Iraqis in July. So it was their fault.  If any of this story is even true (or even a new story-have been reports that it is just now surfacing but that the theft occured during the invasion in '03-who knows?).

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

heres the report from globalsecority.org from april 5, 2003... which is a few days before we got into baghdad... this report is mysteriously difficult to find by the way, if you don't know the date, b/c it was hardly reported at all at the time...

anyways, heres a quote about the weapons:

UN weapons inspectors went repeatedly to the vast al Qa Qaa complex, most recently on March 8. But they found nothing during spot visits to some of the 1,100 buildings at the site 40 kilometres south of Baghdad. Col. John Peabody, engineer brigade commander of the 3rd Infantry Division, said troops found thousands of five-centimetre by 12-centimetre boxes, each containing three vials of white powder, together with documents written in Arabic that dealt with how to engage in chemical warfare.

A senior U.S. official familiar with initial testing said the powder was believed to be explosives. The finding would be consistent with the plant's stated production capabilities in the field of basic raw materials for explosives and propellants.

According to UN weapons inspectors, who spoke on condition of anonymity, the Iraqis filled warheads and artillery shells with explosives at the site and manufactured bomb casings there. The activities, for conventional weaponry, were allowed under UN resolutions. But the resolutions, passed after the 1991 Gulf War, ban Iraq from possessing chemical, biological and nuclear weapons and the long-range missiles to deliver them.

The presence of atropine, and the discovery of gas masks and chemical suits earlier in the war, could indicate Iraq was preparing to use chemical weapons.

For years, the al Qa Qaa site has raised the suspicions of weapons inspectors who believed the facilities could be converted for the production of missiles and chemical and nuclear weapons. It was visited repeatedly during the 1990s and during the last cycle of inspections between Nov. 27 and March 17, when UN experts went to the complex more than 10 times.

According to a British dossier on Iraq published in September 2002, parts of al Qa Qaa's chemical complex, destroyed in 1991, were repaired and are now operational, including a production plant for the chemical weapon phosgene.

Nuclear inspectors believe an area of the complex was involved in designing an atomic bomb before Iraq's nuclear program was destroyed by UN teams after the 1991 Gulf War. The facility also made lenses and other components that can be used to trigger nuclear explosions.

In March 1990, customs officers at Heathrow Airport in London seized a case of capacitors -- components for triggers in nuclear weapons -- bound for al Qa Qaa that were especially designed for detonating nuclear warheads.

Inspectors had installed cameras and sensors all around the complex after the Gulf War but the Iraqis dismantled the equipment when inspectors left in 1998. The new inspections regime, which returned in November, had planned to install new monitoring equipment but ran out of time.

[Guest bengalrick]

heres a video to watch, if you'd like... very interesting, huh...

nbc video

on april 10, 2003 the weapons weren't there... this is a strong word, but Kerry is a LIAR!!!!!

[Guest oldschooler]

GO Rick GO !!!!!!!!!

[STRAYCAT]

Kerry is a political tool! He has had his look at getting to be president since he was

college student at havvard! His is a jackass,his wife is an east german mud wrestler champ. I can't stand either one of them. All he say's he has a plan and I would have done this I would have done that bullshit.

[BengalsCat]

Still no democrat has had the balls to coment on this??? haha Guess kerry is nothing but a liar after all... Trying to redruge this shit 2 weeks before the election.. Trying to win people on his side by saying something that happend over a year ago accured resently and was the pres fault.. typical liberal bullshit...

[Guest oldschooler]

Russia tied to Iraq's missing arms

Russian special forces troops moved many of Saddam Hussein's weapons and related goods out of Iraq and into Syria in the weeks before the March 2003 U.S. military operation, The Washington Times has learned.

http://www.washingtontimes.com/

Wow ....no wonder Russia, France and Germany voted against

the war....they were making money and had strong ties.

And Kerry thinks we should have passed the Global Test ?

[Guest bengalrick]

i'm still wondering why the hell france and russia are not w/ us in the war on terror... what could possibly the reason???

[Guest BlackJesus]

Always look below the surface

[Guest bengalrick]

i know that no democrats/liberals are touching this thread, but i am still going to mount the evidence on here, b/c that lying sack of shit, Kerry is still spreading these rumors (along w/ the draft, and full privitization of social security)...

this is a great article, from the NY post that posts this all in very good perspective...

heres the list on reasons kerry is a liar:

One: The IAEA claims its inspectors visited the ammo dump at Al-Qaqaa on March 9, 2003, and found the agency's seals intact on bunkers containing sensitive munitions. Unverifiable, but let's assume that much is true.

Two: Faced with an impending invasion, Saddam's forces did what any military would do. They began dispersing ammunition stocks from every storage site that might be a Coalition bombing target. If the Iraqis valued it, they tried to move it. Before the war.

Three: Members of our 3rd Infantry Division  the heroes who led the march to Baghdad  reached the site in question in early April. Despite the pressures of combat, they combed the dump. Nothing was found. Al-Qaqaa was a vast junkyard.

Four: Our 101st Airborne Division assumed responsibility for the sector as the 3ID closed on Baghdad. None of the Screaming Eagles found any IAEA markers  even one would have been a red flag to be reported immediately.

Five: At the end of May, military teams searching for key Iraqi weapons scoured Al-Qaqaa. They found plenty of odds and ends  the detritus of war  but no IAEA seals. And no major stockpiles.

Six: Now, just before Election Day, the IAEA, a discredited organization embarrassed by the Bush administration's decision to call it on the carpet, suddenly realizes that 400 tons of phantom explosives went missing from the dump.

Seven: Even if repeated inspections by U.S. troops had somehow missed this deadly elephant on the front porch, and even if the otherwise-incompetent Iraqis had been so skilled and organized they were able to sneak into Al-Qaqaa and load up 400 tons of Saddam's love-powder, it would have taken a Teamsters' convention to get the job done.

Eight: If the Iraqis had used military transport vehicles of five-ton capacity, it would have required 80 trucks for one big lift, or, say, 20 trucks each making four trips. They would have needed special trolleys, forklifts, handling experts and skilled drivers (explosives aren't groceries). This operation could not have happened either during or after the war, while the Al-Qaqaa area was flooded with U.S. troops.

Nine: We owned the skies. And when you own the skies, you own the roads. We were watching for any sign of organized movement. A gaggle of non-Coalition vehicles driving in and out of an ammo dump would have attracted the attention of our surveillance systems immediately.

Ten: And you don't just drive high explosives cross-country, unless you want to hear a very loud bang. Besides, the Iraqis would have needed to hide those 400 tons of explosives somewhere else. Unless the uploaded trucks are still driving around Iraq.

Eleven: Even if the IAEA told the truth and the Iraqis were stealth-logistics geniuses who emptied the site's ammo bunkers under our noses, the entire issue misses a greater point: 400 tons of explosives amounted to a miniscule fraction of the stocks Saddam had built up. Coalition demolition experts spent months destroying more than 400,000 tons of Iraqi war-making materiel.

Our soldiers eliminated more than a thousand tons of packaged death for every ton the United Nations claims they missed. Does that sound like incompetence? Why hasn't our success been mentioned? Can't our troops get credit for anything?

Twelve: The bottom line is that, if the explosives were ever there, the Iraqis moved them before our troops arrived. There is no other plausible scenario.

tough to answer these questions...

[BengalsCat]

haha and still no liberal will touch this thread its kind of funny honestly.. If kerry assulted bush on this lie what other lies has he ben concocting and hand feeding the democratic party... i am sorry but what a fucky