No October Surprise

[Balanc3]

There's no surprise for this October

By Wesley Pruden

To no one's surprise, the dominant media machine finally unleashed the eagerly anticipated October surprise. The New York Times and CBS News are no doubt surprised that their surprise didn't bust anybody's bunker.
October surprises, a regular feature of the presidential campaign, like yard signs and bumper stickers, are considerably smaller caliber than they used to be. Twelve years ago, when Caspar Weinberger was indicted for nicking bedpans from a pantry at Health and Human Services, or whatever it was he was falsely accused of to tarnish George H.W. Bush on the eve of the '92 election, October surprises were fairly exciting. Even four years ago, the not so surprising revelation that George W. Bush had imbibed a beer too many one night when he was young and foolish was a mere blast of birdshot in the dark.
But this time the October surprise is turning out to be something shot out of a popgun. CBS News was ready to report on election eve that 380 tons of weapons explosives had gone missing after the U.S. Army moved into Baghdad, leaving an explosive dump unguarded. The GIs were unconcerned and naturally it was George W.'s fault, or at least the fault of Laura and the girls. When the New York Times learned about the CBS story the editors wanted to get in on the fun, and published a version of the story first. This ruined the CBS scoop, but what's a little competitive juice measured against bringing down a president they all hate?
The only problem with the story is that it's probably too good to be true. This one is not even, as the New York Times famously described Dan Rather's scoop about George W.'s Air National Guard service, "fake but accurate." An NBC reporter embedded with the troops said the dump appeared to be empty when the Americans got there, and John Shaw, an official at the Pentagon, said the Russians probably carted off the explosives for safekeeping in Syria. Naturally the Russians deny it ? what? Russians perfidious? ? but after the story appeared in The Washington Times the intelligence agencies released satellite photographs showing convoys of Russian trucks in the area shortly before the Americans arrived. The trucks did not appear to be driven by FedEx men delivering wading boots from L.L. Bean.
John Kerry naturally laced into the president but as usual didn't get the story straight. "Our troops," he said, "are doing a heroic job, the president, the commander in chief, is not doing his job." But if the troops were lollygagging while terrorists were looting the explosives dump, what's heroic about that? Monsieur Kerry, who described American soldiers in an earlier war as rapists and war criminals, is taking no chances this time. If the GIs in Iraq were lollygagging, they were heroically lollygagging.
Mr. Bush unaccountably let two days go by before he answered the Kerry charges, and said yesterday that the Pentagon is conducting an investigation. The president accused the senator of stump-speech hysteria, making "wild charges about missing explosives." He took note of a remark by Richard C. Holbrooke, a Kerry adviser, who said in a Fox television interview that all the facts were not known. "One of his top foreign policy advisers admits he doesn't know the facts. He said, 'I don't know the truth.' End quote. Well, think about that. The senator is denigrating the actions of our troops and commanders in the field without knowing the facts."
The satellite photographs uncovered yesterday indicate that Saddam Hussein was moving arms and equipment from weapons sites. The photographs, taken by the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, are said to document "the movement of long convoys of trucks from various areas around Baghdad to the Syrian border."
Another surprise, this one by al Qaeda, was unreeled last night by ABC News. On videotape, a terrorist raghead, his weapon at the ready, warns that American streets will soon run "red with blood" to punish the Great Satan for electing, and threatening to re-elect, George W. and Dick Cheney. In earlier days such a threat from such a mortal enemy would have assured the re-election of the president. But election-eve terror worked in Spain, and who knows who the Americans are now. We'll get a clue next Tuesday.

[LobsterClan]

Re: No October Surprise

The only problem with the story is that it's probably too good to be true. This one is not even, as the New York Times famously described Dan Rather's scoop about George W.'s Air National Guard service, "fake but accurate." An NBC reporter embedded with the troops said the dump appeared to be empty when the Americans got there, and John Shaw, an official at the Pentagon, said the Russians probably carted off the explosives for safekeeping in Syria.

Um-- bullshit. And I have video to prove it. Please read this article: http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmp...losives_abc_dc

[FM]

hey there might be a November surprise instead! Try something new!

[Yao]

Yeah, my birthday...

[Balanc3]

hey lobster your little link was already disprovin. Didn't you watch the press conferance today. God your

[Balanc3]

Here's your article Lobster.... check the dates buddy. You obviously didn't read any posts from early this morning before leaving your bullshit pinko comments.

Friday, October 29, 2004
WASHINGTON ? A U.S. Army officer came forward Friday to say a team from the 3rd Infantry Division took about 250 tons of munitions and other material from the Al-Qaqaa (search) arms-storage facility soon after Saddam Hussein's regime fell in April 2003.

Maj. Austin Pearson said at a Pentagon news conference that he was tasked in the days after the fall of the Iraqi regime with a mission to secure and destroy ammunition and explosives. He led a 25-man team called Task Force Bullet. His comments were the latest twist into the mystery of what happened to 377 tons of explosives that the International Atomic Energy Agency (search) reported missing from Al-Qaqaa. The IAEA reported the matter to the United Nations on Monday and said it feared that looters MIGHT have stolen the explosives.

Pearson's team arrived at Al-Qaqaa on April 13, 2003, 10 days after U.S. forces first reached the site and four days after Saddam went into hiding. This was the same time that the 101st Airborne Division had secured Al-Qaqaa and the surrounding area. According to Pearson, the team removed 250 tons of material including TNT, plastic explosives, detonation cords and munitions. He arrived at that estimate because he said the team used nine truck-trailer combinations that each could carry 33 tons of material. While Pearson could not characterize the tonnage of plastic explosives his team removed and he could not remember seeing any IAEA tags on the bunkers, he said plastic explosives taken from the site were used to detonate thousands of tons of other munitions collected further north in Baghdad. Pearson also described the area around Al-Qaqaa, which the Army called ?Objective Elms.?

"At the time when I was in Objective Elms, that area was very pacified where there wasn't a lot of civilians in the area at that time. If they were, they were very respectful to U.S. forces. They were very respectful to us. I didn't see any hostilities at that location at that time,? he told reporters. Pentagon officials conceded that Pearson?s description did not answer all the questions about the missing explosives. "I can't say RDX that was on the list of IAEA is what the major pulled out,? said Pentagon spokesman Larry Di Rita. ?We believe that some of the things they were pulling out of there were RDX."

He also said that the IAEA has not come forward with documentation that explains how it arrived at the figure of 377 tons of missing explosives. The IAEA so far only has verified in its paperwork that 219 tons of explosive materials were at Al-Qaqaa and surrounding facilities. Di Rita said that the major's disclosure was a potentially significant development in unraveling the mystery. "We've described what we know, and as we know more we'll describe that," said Di Rita.

New Videotape Seems to Show Explosives

Pearson's story came the morning after new videotape surfaced supporting the contention that the explosives were still at the base following Saddam's fall. Videotape shot by a Minnesota television crew traveling with U.S. troops in Iraq on April 18, 2003 shows what appeared to be high explosives still in barrels bearing IAEA seals. The video was taken by a reporter and cameraman employed by KSTP, an ABC affiliate in St. Paul. It was broadcast nationally Thursday on the ABC national network. "The photographs are consistent with what I know of Al-Qaqaa," David A. Kay, the former American official who directed the hunt in Iraq for unconventional weapons and visited the site, told The New York Times. "The damning thing is the seals. The Iraqis didn't use seals on anything. So I'm absolutely sure that's an IAEA seal."

The Pentagon late Thursday released a satellite photograph of Al-Qaqaa taken on March 17, 2003, just before the war. It showed showing several bunkers, one with two tractor-trailers next to it. Senior Defense officials said their photo shows that the Al-Qaqaa facility "was not hermetically sealed" after international weapons inspectors had paid their last visits to the facility earlier in the month. Officials were analyzing the image and others for clues into when the nearly 380 tons of explosives were taken. The munitions included HMX and RDX, key components in plastic explosives, which insurgents in Iraq have used in bomb attacks.

The Pentagon insisted that the image shows the Iraqis were moving something at the site before the first U.S.-launched bombs fell. Meanwhile, an IAEA report obtained by FOX News said the inspectors noted that despite the fact that the Al-Qaqaa bunkers were locked, ventilation shafts remained open and provided easy access to the explosives. The IAEA can definitively say only that the documented ammunition was at the facility in January; in March, an agency spokesman conceded, inspectors only checked the locked bunker doors.

The question of what happened to the explosives has become a major issue in the closing days of the 2004 presidential campaign. Democratic presidential hopeful John Kerry says the missing explosives ? powerful enough to demolish a building, bring down a jetliner or even trigger a nuclear weapon ? are another example of the Bush administration's poor planning and incompetence in handling the war in Iraq. President Bush says the explosives were possibly removed by Saddam's forces before the invasion. Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld entered the debate Thursday, suggesting the 377 tons of explosives were taken away before U.S. forces arrived, saying any large effort to loot the material afterward would have been detected.

"We would have seen anything like that," he said in one of two radio interviews he gave at the Pentagon. "The idea it was suddenly looted and moved out, all of these tons of equipment, I think is at least debatable." The bunker with the trucks parked next to it in the Pentagon's image is not one known to have contained any of the missing explosives, and Defense spokesman Di Rita said Thursday the image only shows that there was some Iraqi activity at the base on March 17. Di Rita acknowledged that the image says nothing about what happened to the explosives.

Rumsfeld, in one radio interview, also cast doubt on the suggestion by one of his subordinates that Russian soldiers assisted Iraqis in removing the munitions. The Washington Times on Thursday quoted John A. Shaw, the deputy undersecretary of defense for international technology security, who said he believed Russian special-forces personnel, working with Iraqi intelligence, "almost certainly" removed the high-explosive material from Al-Qaqaa. Shaw said he believed the munitions were moved to Syria in the weeks before the March 2003 invasion. Senior Defense officials urged caution over the Washington Times article because they could not verify its allegations as true. "I have no information on that at all, and cannot validate that even slightly," Rumsfeld said. The article prompted an angry denial from Moscow.

At the core of the issue is whether the explosives were moved before or after U.S. forces reached that part of the country in early April. No one has been able to provide conclusive evidence either way, although Iraqi officials blamed the munitions' disappearance on poor U.S. security after Baghdad fell. The Pentagon has said it is looking into the matter, and officials note that 400,000 tons of recovered Iraqi munitions have either been destroyed or are slated to be destroyed.

[LobsterClan]

Here's your article [color=#ff00f5]

At the core of the issue is whether the explosives were moved before or after U.S. forces reached that part of the country in early April. No one has been able to provide conclusive evidence either way, although Iraqi officials blamed the munitions' disappearance on poor U.S. security after Baghdad fell. The Pentagon has said it is looking into the matter, and officials note that 400,000 tons of recovered Iraqi munitions have either been destroyed or are slated to be destroyed.

Wow, sometimes I really wonder if you people even read the things you post. Your own article claims that no one knows whether the explosives were moved before or after US forces came in, despite the fact that the article admits there is video that shows otherwise. Who is the one confused here?

[LobsterClan]

Re: No October Surprise

Since some people are talking about dates as if they are sacred, check the date on this article: http://www.iht.com/bin/print_ipub.ph...s/explode.html

"A French journalist who visited the Qaqaa munitions depot south of Baghdad in November last year said she witnessed Islamic insurgents looting vast supplies of explosives more than six months after the demise of Saddam Hussein's regime.

The account of Sara Daniel, which will be published Wednesday in the French weekly Le Nouvel Observateur, lends further weight to allegations that American occupying forces in Iraq failed to protect hundreds of tons of munitions from extremists plotting attacks against their own troops."

[LobsterClan]

Re: No October Surprise

Meanwhile, Balanc3, my question to you is: did YOU watch this press conference? A quick recap of what happened, by my good friend Josh Marshall:

"At a few minutes after noon, I'm watching Mr. Di Rita giving yet another round of spin about al Qaqaa. Uncharacteristically, he looked like he was on the verge of a panic attack through most of his introductory remarks. And with what followed, it's not hard to see why. The line Di Rita led off with (and I just jotted this down from hearing it once over the air, so perhaps I've got a word or two wrong) was this: "It has not been our desire to tell a particular story, only to tell the facts."

Please.

I believe this man protests too much.

The only thing accurate about this claim is that it's true that Di Rita has not been intent on telling a particular story. He's been willing to tell any story -- and has -- so long as it's a story that exonerates the White House. Even if it's a different story every day.

It's a touchy point. But it's time for someone to start making the point that the Pentagon Public Affairs office isn't supposed to be used as a formal arm of the Bush-Cheney reelection campaign. And for that matter if Di Rita's going to use it that way, he should at least be doing a better job of it.

Today Di Rita brought out an Army major who says his unit removed and destroyed roughly 250 tons of equipment, ammunition and explosives from somewhere in the al Qaqaa facility in early April 2003 -- that would be after the first US troops arrived but prior to the arrival of the news crew that apparently filmed much of the explosives on April 18th.

Was it the stuff in question? Di Rita kept trying to answer the questions on the major's behalf. But the major made clear that he had no idea. Did he see any IAEA seals? No, he said, he didn't.

The Fox reporter at the news conference tried to coax the major into saying more than he was saying. But to no avail. He would only say what he knew. And there was very little that he knew that pertained to the relevant question.

The other reporters on hand, apparently weary of being lied to all week, preferred to put their questions to the major directly, rather than to Di Rita. And he, the major, was straightforward enough to say that all he knew was that he had taken stuff from somewhere at al Qaqaa and destroyed it.

What does that mean? Almost nothing.

This was an unfortunate stunt, put on by Di Rita and the politicals at DOD Public Affairs. And given how it turned out, I suspect it's one they quickly regretted."