someone needs to teach these guys how to lie better

White House Downplays Missing Iraq Explosives

The White House acknowledged Monday that nearly 380 tons of powerful explosives were missing from a weapons facility that American forces failed to guard after the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, raising fears that the munitions could be given to militants or used for attacks against troops in Iraq.

ok, they acknowledged it. that's a good sign...

The timing of the theft was in dispute Monday. One Pentagon official said that when U.S. forces advancing toward Baghdad reached the Al Qaqaa military facility in early April 2003, the weapons cache was already gone. He suggested that the Americans had no chance to safeguard the material, which had been labeled and was being monitored by United Nations weapons inspectors.

"It had already been looted by the time U.S. forces went through there," the senior Defense official said. "When the troops went in, they never saw anything that was tagged."

oh, ok phew! it's not our fault.

Some cast doubt on the Pentagon's claim. Given the size of the missing cache, it would have been difficult to relocate undetected before the invasion, when U.S. spy satellites were monitoring activity at sites suspected of concealing nuclear and biological weapons.

"You don't just move this stuff in the middle of the night," said a former U.S. intelligence official who worked in Baghdad.

uh oh, that doesn't sound good. the stuff was still there? and the materials would have been more secure BEFORE the invasion? hmm...

Iraqi officials told the International Atomic Energy Agency — the U.N. monitoring group — earlier this month that the explosives were looted after April 9, 2003, when U.S. forces entered Baghdad. IAEA officials verified that the explosives were still at the site and under seal in January 2003, the last time the inspectors were there.

The IAEA had been monitoring the material — known as HMX and RDX — as part of the U.N. inspection program after the 1991 Persian Gulf War.

who to believe... who to believe...

David Kay, the CIA's former chief weapons hunter in Iraq, believes that the material was looted in the immediate aftermath of the war.

He said he saw the facility in May 2003, "and it was heavily looted at that time. Sometime between April and May, most of the stuff was carried off. The site was in total disarray, just like a lot of the Iraqi sites."

should we believe this guy?

The U.S. failure to guard hundreds of ammunition depots after the invasion has been well documented. Top military officials in Iraq believe that weapons taken from these sites have armed an insurgency that is taking American lives almost daily. More than 1,100 U.S. troops have been killed since the invasion began.

ouch, ok, back to not looking good. at all.

Officials at the White House, the State Department and the Pentagon insisted that the 380 tons of stolen explosives were not a nuclear threat and noted that roughly 400,000 tons of collected munitions in Iraq had either been destroyed or were in U.S. custody.

"There is not a nuclear proliferation risk," White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan told reporters aboard Air Force One. "We're talking about conventional explosives."

ok, that's a relief. thank god we have scotty there to protect us! because after all, nuclear weapons are really all we have to fear from the terrorists.

i'm sorry, i meant "nucular."