Just heard on H&C that NBC reporters with 101st say there were no explosives when they arrived at the site.  Anybody heard any confirmation of this?

I thought I heard him say is was ABC news.

Oh, please let this be true...

[sKerry]
Oh yeah, well...well, um, they should
have gotten there sooner. Yeah,
that's the ticket.
[/sKerry]

Quoted: I thought I heard him say is was ABC news.

You could be right....let me TEVO this.

I bet the UN sold all of it to another nation

Quoted: Quoted: I thought I heard him say is was ABC news. You could be right....let me TEVO this.

He was being talked over but I believe it was NBC.  Don't see anything on the NBC or ABC sites though.

Mr. October, meet Mr. Surprise...

From Free Republic;
www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1256810/posts
NBC BLOW A HOLE IN NY TIMES' EXPLOSIVES STORY (KERRY SPOT)
The Kerry Spot, NRO ^ | 10/25/04 | Jim miclacevski


Posted on 10/25/2004 6:26:01 PM PDT by Timeout


KERRY SPOT

Jim Miklaszewski of NBC News pretty much dismantled the New York Times attack on behalf of Kerry today.


NBC News: Miklaszewski: “April 10, 2003, only three weeks into the war, NBC News was embedded with troops from the Army's 101st Airborne as they temporarily take over the Al Qakaa weapons installation south of Baghdad. But these troops never found the nearly 380 tons of some of the most powerful conventional explosives, called HMX and RDX, which is now missing. The U.S. troops did find large stockpiles of more conventional weapons, but no HMX or RDX, so powerful less than a pound brought down Pan Am 103 in 1988, and can be used to trigger a nuclear weapon. In a letter this month, the Iraqi interim government told the International Atomic Energy Agency the high explosives were lost to theft and looting due to lack of security. Critics claim there were simply not enough U.S. troops to guard hundreds of weapons stockpiles, weapons now being used by insurgents and terrorists to wage a guerrilla war in Iraq.” (NBC’s “Nightly News,” 10/25/04)
If Jill Abramson, managing editor of the New York Times, had a shred of concern over her paper's reputation for getting the facts right never mind objectivity or fairness, she would be running the correction - or at least this blatantly contradictory information - in the giant headline font and above-the-fold location that today's story got. But I guess the interest in echoing the sentiments of Maureen Dowd is more important than getting it right at the Old Gray Lady.

<John Kerry>President Bush is an arrogant failure!  He has failed to secure these explosives that are now going to be used to bring down planes and kill our troops!<John Kerry>

So, what does Mr. Munster do to spin this if this story turns out to be false?

www.drudgereport.com

NBCNEWS: HUGE CACHE OF EXPLOSIVES VANISHED FROM SITE IN IRAQ -- AT LEAST 18 MONTHS AGO -- BEFORE TROOPS ARRIVED

Tag.

Quoted: www.drudgereport.com NBCNEWS: HUGE CACHE OF EXPLOSIVES VANISHED FROM SITE IN IRAQ -- AT LEAST 18 MONTHS AGO -- BEFORE TROOPS ARRIVED

XXXXX DRUDGE REPORT XXXXX MON OCT 25 2004 22:45:05 ET XXXXX

NBCNEWS: HUGE CACHE OF EXPLOSIVES VANISHED FROM SITE IN IRAQ -- AT LEAST 18 MONTHS AGO -- BEFORE TROOPS ARRIVED

The NYTIMES urgently reported on Monday how the Iraqi interim government has warned the United States and international nuclear inspectors that nearly 380 tons of powerful conventional explosives are now missing from one of Iraq's most sensitive former military installations.

Jumping on the TIMES exclusive, Dem presidential candidate John Kerry blasted the Bush administration for its failure to "guard those stockpiles."

In an election week rush:

**ABCNEWS Mentioned The Iraq Explosives Depot At Least 4 Times
**CBSNEWS Mentioned The Iraq Explosives Depot At Least 7 Times
**MSNBC Mentioned The Iraq Explosives Depot At Least 37 Times
**CNN Mentioned The Iraq Explosives Depot At Least 50 Times

But tonight, NBCNEWS reported, once: The 380 tons of powerful conventional explosives were already missing back in April 10, 2003 -- when U.S. troops arrived at the installation south of Baghdad!

An NBCNEWS crew embedded with troops moved in to secure the Al-Qaqaa weapons facility on April 10, 2003, one day after the liberation of Iraq.

According to NBCNEWS, the HMX and RDX explosives were already missing when the American troops arrived.

The International Atomic Energy Agency inspectors last saw the explosives in January 2003 when they took an inventory and placed fresh seals on the bunkers.

It is not clear why the NYTIMES failed to report the cache had been missing for 18 months -- and was reportedly missing before troops even arrived.

"The U.S. Army was at the sight one day after the liberation and the weapons were already gone," a top Republican blasted from Washington late Monday.

Developing...

So are the Bush critics saying there weren't WMDs or what?  

Obviously there were some major amounts of HDX and RDX that hadn't been accounted for by the Inspector Clousseaus of the UN (Hi, Scott Ritter, forget to mention this stuff), stuff good for detonating atomic weapons and in small amounts bringing down airplanes.

I love it, according to dems there weren't WMDs but they're blaming Bush for the ones he couldn't find..in fact no one can find them....

tag

tag

Mount Rushmore, 2025: Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln, Roosevelt (the NON-communist), Rove.

The U.S. troops did find large stockpiles of more conventional weapons, but no HMX or RDX, so powerful less than a pound brought down Pan Am 103 in 1988, and can be used to trigger a nuclear weapon.

I don't think the lack of high explosives is preventing the Islamic fundamentalist terrorists from blowing up a city in the U.S.  It probably has to do with the fact that you actually need enriched uranium, or plutonium, to make a nuclear device.

Who on this site said that October Surpises could back fire and bite you in the ass??  Do you think the rest of the MSM will pick up on this tomorrow??  

Kudos to NBC for reporting this.

I think you guys are overlooking the fact that this is a huge black eye for not only the NYTIME but for Kerry and his loverboy Edwards.

Jumping on the TIMES exclusive, Dem presidential candidate John Kerry blasted the Bush administration for its failure to "guard those stockpiles." "This is one of the great blunders of Iraq, one of the great blunders of this administration," Kerry said.

john Edwards blasted Bush for not securing the explosives:"It is reckless and irresponsible to fail to protect and safeguard one of the largest weapons sites in the country. And by either ignoring these mistakes or being clueless about them, George Bush has failed. He has failed as our commander in chief; he has failed as president."

Basically what this points out is that the NYTimes probably leaked this "breaking" story to the Kedwards camp sometime Saturday or Sunday so they could work on the battle plans for the week.   THis was going to be the October suprise from the Left however it is now backfiring... more or less because Kedwards are using this baseless article to bash Bush...

A top Bush official e-mailed DRUDGE late Monday: "Let me get this straight, are Mr. Kerry and Mr. Edwards now saying we did not go into Iraq soon enough? We should have invaded and liberated Iraq sooner?"

The GOP's october "suprise" in the Wash Times about Kerry not meeting with the UN officials was somewhat of a lame duck.. this explosives thing was set to out flank that WashTimes article.. however it appears it will backfire.  At least we can hope it does.

And Kerry just ripped Bush a new asshole (Or though he was) about it!  What's he going to say now?

Unfortunately, he doesn't need to say anything.

It doesn't matter if he stepped in poo on this one or anything else.  Kerry could kick a puppy on live TV and he'd still have the same crew of cheerleaders.  Anyone care to bet how much attention the accusation gets, compared to any clarifications?

I get confused, is the "media" the Fourth Estate or Fifth Column?  Gotta go google those real quick...

So where is an article, other then Drudge?  You can't use Drudge to prove things to democrats.

Drudge update:

Top Kerry adviser Joe Lockhart fired back: "In a shameless attempt to cover up its failure to secure 380 tons of highly explosive material in Iraq, the White House is desperately flailing in an effort to escape blame. Instead of distorting John Kerry’s words, the Bush campaign is now falsely and deliberately twisting the reports of journalists. It is the latest pathetic excuse from an administration that never admits a mistake, no matter how disastrous."

FOOLS HAHAHA THEY ARE FIXIN TO TUCK TAIL AND RUN LIKE BI!@#S

Outstanding...

How trustworthy is Drudge?  I don't know much about it.  Its cheap format makes it seem like a tabloid.

Quoted: Drudge update: Top Kerry adviser Joe Lockhart fired back: "In a shameless attempt to cover up its failure to secure 380 tons of highly explosive material in Iraq, the White House is desperately flailing in an effort to escape blame. Instead of distorting John Kerry’s words, the Bush campaign is now falsely and deliberately twisting the reports of journalists. It is the latest pathetic excuse from an administration that never admits a mistake, no matter how disastrous." FOOLS HAHAHA THEY ARE FIXIN TO TUCK TAIL AND RUN LIKE BI!@#S

Damn...what part of "The explosives were already gone before we got there" do they not understand???

Quoted: How trustworthy is Drudge?  I don't know much about it.  Its cheap format makes it seem like a tabloid.

Drudge is pretty much in the Bush camp but he seems to make an art out of breaking ANY story.. no matter who it hurts.

He also has a syndicated radio program on sunday nights... he is pretty trustworthy


however i am having trouble finding a second opinion to back this up.

He wouldn't go to press with this unless he was sure.  This is gold, guys.

This shit will backfire on the Demonrats big time!

The BBC is still reporting the old stuff.....

Quoted: The BBC is still reporting the old stuff.....

everyone seems to be.. NBC ABC C(BS) MSNBC ... nothing new on Google News.

All of the blogs on my newsreader are pretty much dead.. a few have picked up the news flash but do not have links to other articles other than drudge.  It may take a bit for people to start picking this up.. however when they do.. it damn well better go BIG!

Funny thing is, the sheeple will not hear the truth.  If they do hear it, they won't understand.  

All they ever hear is "Bush is incompetent"  "Bush is arrogent"  "Bush is stupid"  constant lies and propaganda.

I'm just feeling cynical.  If I never hear that bastard Kerry again it will be too soon.

btt

wait! you mean to tell me the NY Times would run a dishonest ad just to hurt President Bush!! i can't believe it!!!!!!

Quoted: How trustworthy is Drudge?  I don't know much about it.  Its cheap format makes it seem like a tabloid.

he's one of the most popular news sites on the net, and 99% of the time he is the first to report breaking stories

I don't know which story is correct, but this is the story as being reported on msnbc.com right now:

The letter (from Mohammed J. Abbas, a senior official at Iraq’s Ministry of Science and Technology) informed the IAEA that since Sept. 4, 2003, looting at the Al-Qaqaa installation south of Baghdad had resulted in the loss of 214.67 tons of HMX, 155.68 tons of RDX and 6.39 tons of PETN explosives. <snip> 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 that the explosives, which had been under IAEA seal since 1991, were intact. The site was not secured by U.S. forces, the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

MSNBC disagrees with NBC (as reported by Drudge)?  It looks like this story is still up in the air right now.  Hopefully there will be more to come tomorrow.

NY Times will follow up tomorrow with the same hit piece...Lamestream media is scurrying cya. They will put a rebuttal on fridays edition page 72.

Right now Kerry can say anything and the media will print, say and report it as truth.

Dan Rather has actually enabled them to lie like hell with no recourse.

(CNN) -- The mystery surrounding the disappearance of 380 tons of powerful explosives from a storage depot in Iraq has taken a new twist, after a network embedded with the U.S. military during the invasion of Iraq reported that the material had already vanished by the time American troops arrived. NBC News reported that on April 10, 2003, its crew was embedded with the U.S. Army's 101st Airborne Division when troops arrived at the Al Qaqaa storage facility south of Baghdad. While the troops found large stockpiles of conventional explosives, they did not find HMX or RDX, the types of powerful explosives that reportedly went missing, according to NBC.

Why is the U.N. nuclear agency suddenly warning now that insurgents in Iraq may have obtained nearly 400 tons of missing explosives -- in early 2003? NBCNEWS Jim Miklaszewski quoted one official: "Recent disagreements between the administration and the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency makes this announcement appear highly political."

NBC News: Miklaszewski: “April 10, 2003, only three weeks into the war, NBC News was embedded with troops from the Army's 101st Airborne as they temporarily take over the Al Qakaa weapons installation south of Baghdad. But these troops never found the nearly 380 tons of some of the most powerful conventional explosives, called HMX and RDX, which is now missing. The U.S. troops did find large stockpiles of more conventional weapons, but no HMX or RDX, so powerful less than a pound brought down Pan Am 103 in 1988, and can be used to trigger a nuclear weapon. In a letter this month, the Iraqi interim government told the International Atomic Energy Agency the high explosives were lost to theft and looting due to lack of security. Critics claim there were simply not enough U.S. troops to guard hundreds of weapons stockpiles, weapons now being used by insurgents and terrorists to wage a guerrilla war in Iraq.” (NBC’s “Nightly News,” 10/25/04)

This is going to be nasty.  However, the sheeple wont know what to make of it.  This fight is gettin bloody.. and we havent even seen the legal war yet.

Oh yeah, btw, Drudge is now reporting that the source behind the NYT story first went to CBSNEWS' 60 MINUTES last Wednesday, but the beleaguered network wasn't able to get the piece on the air as fast as the newspaper could print. Executive producer Jeff Fager hoped to break the story during a high-impact election eve broadcast of 60 MINS on October 31.

Also, the story seems to have all but dissapeared from the MSNBC site.

Down with NYT

CNN:  "Report: Explosives already gone when U.S. arrived"

Oh, that HAD to hurt!

CNN: "Report: Explosives already gone when U.S. arrived"

The MSM this year seems to have placed a target on thier balls.  You would think that being kicked in the nuts once would be enough.   This just goes to show ya that the press nor the dems have any balls.

Quoted: Funny thing is, the sheeple will not hear the truth.  If they do hear it, they won't understand.   All they ever hear is "Bush is incompetent"  "Bush is arrogent"  "Bush is stupid"  constant lies and propaganda. I'm just feeling cynical.  If I never hear that bastard Kerry again it will be too soon.

+1

NOTE:  IT WAS THE 3RD ID that arrived 6 days before the 101st Airborne and inspected the Al QaQaa site.


The Belmont Club goes over the available information about explosives that went missing from Al Qa Qaa:

The RDX Problem Resolves Itself

A little more data for the RDX pot. Whatever the MSNBC embeds saw with the 101st, the 3ID which preceded them saw more. It searched Al Qa Qaa and found suspicious material Instapundit finds this reference in CBS via the Captain's Quarters.

April 4, 2003. CBS News National Security Correspondent David Martin reports that the hunt for weapons of mass destruction continues at sites where the U.S. thought chemicals weapons might be hidden. "And although there are no reports of actual weapons being found, there are constant finds of suspicious material," Martin said. "It obviously will take laboratory testing to find out exactly what that powder is." U.S. troops found thousands of boxes of white powder, nerve agent antidote and Arabic documents on how to engage in chemical warfare at an industrial site south of Baghdad. But a senior U.S. official familiar with initial testing said the materials were believed to be explosives. Col. John Peabody, engineer brigade commander of the 3rd Infantry Division, said the materials were found Friday at the Latifiyah industrial complex just south of Baghdad.

... The facility had been identified by the International Atomic Energy Agency as a suspected chemical, biological and nuclear weapons site. U.N. inspectors visited the plant at least nine times, including as recently as Feb. 18. The facility is part of a larger complex known as the Latifiyah Explosives and Ammunition Plant al Qa Qaa. The senior U.S. official, based in Washington and speaking on condition of anonymity, said the material was under further study. The site is enormous and U.S. troops are still investigating it for potential weapons of mass destruction, the official said. "Initial reports are that the material is probably just explosives, but we're still going through the place," the official said. Peabody said troops found thousands of boxes, each of which contained three vials of white powder, together with documents written in Arabic that dealt with how to engage in chemical warfare.

The contemporaneous CBS report, written before anyone knew al Qa Qaa would be a big deal, establishes two important things. The first is that 3ID knew it was looking through an IAEA inspection site. The second was that the site had shown unmistakable signs of tampering before the arrival of US troops. "Peabody said troops found thousands of boxes, each of which contained three vials of white powder, together with documents written in Arabic that dealt with how to engage in chemical warfare." Now presumably those thousands of boxes were not all packaged and labeled with chemical warfare instructions under IAEA supervision, so the inescapable conclusion is that a fairly large and organized type of activity had been under way in Al Qa Qaa for some time. It is important to reiterate that these are contemporaneous CBS reports which were filed no with foreknowledge of the political controversy to come.

Michael Totten wonders why "there is no mention of 380 tons of HDX and RDX". Perhaps the reason the RDX isn't mentioned can be found via a link through Josh Marshall, quoting NBC's Jim Miklaszewski. (Hat tip reader Trebbers in Comments)

Following up on that story from last night, military officials tell NBC News that on April 10, 2003, when the Second Brigade of the 101st Airborne entered the Al QaQaa weapons facility, south of Baghdad, that those troops were actually on their way to Baghdad, that they were not actively involved in the search for any weapons, including the high explosives, HMX and RDX. The troops did observe stock piles of conventional weapons but no HMX or RDX. And because the Al Qaqaa facility is so huge, it's not clear that those troops from the 101st were actually anywhere near the bunkers that reportedly contained the HMX and RDX. Three months earlier, during an inspection of the Al Qaqaa compound, the International Atomic Energy Agency secured and sealed 350 metric tons of HMX and RDX. Then in March, shortly before the war began, the I.A.E.A. conducted another inspection and found that the HMX stockpile was still intact and still under seal. But inspectors were unable to inspect the RDX stockpile and could not verify that the RDX was still at the compound.

Here we discover the rather important fact that the UN inspectors hadn't actually seen the RDX in their final inspections. They just assumed it was there because the seals were intact. So let's put it all together. The UN inspectors conduct their final inspection before OIF without actually having seen the RDX. The 3ID reach the site on April 4, 2003, know they are looking at an IAEA site and find thousands of white boxes which they suspect may be chemical weapons. The boxes are labeled with chemical warfare instructions. On April 10, the Second Brigade of 101st Airborne arrives with press embeds. They look around but press on with their main combat mission. From this the NYT comes to the conclusion that the RDX was lost after the US assumed custody of the site. It is worthwhile to reiterate the NYT's key assertions. In their article of October 25, the Times said:

The huge facility, called Al Qaqaa, was supposed to be under American military control but is now a no man's land, still picked over by looters as recently as Sunday. United Nations weapons inspectors had monitored the explosives for many years, but White House and Pentagon officials acknowledge that the explosives vanished sometime after the American-led invasion last year.

It turned out that White House and Pentagon officials had acknowledged no such thing. The next day, the NYT reported:


White House officials reasserted yesterday that 380 tons of powerful explosives may have disappeared from a vast Iraqi military complex while Saddam Hussein controlled Iraq, saying a brigade of American soldiers did not find the explosives when they visited the complex on April 10, 2003, the day after Baghdad fell. But the unit's commander said in an interview yesterday that his troops had not searched the facility and had merely stopped there for the night on their way to Baghdad. The commander, Col. Joseph Anderson, of the Second Brigade of the Army's 101st Airborne Division, said he did not learn until this week that the site, known as Al Qaqaa, was considered highly sensitive, or that international inspectors had visited there shortly before the war began in 2003 to inspect explosives that they had tagged during a decade of monitoring.

In the light of the unearthed contemporaneous CBS report, the NYT's use of an interview with the Col. Anderson is totally worthless. They interviewed the wrong unit commander. It was a 3ID outfit that searched the place with the intent of discovering dangerous materials nearly six days before. The 101st had no such mission. Moreover, the NYT's innuendo that "the huge facility, called Al Qaqaa, was supposed to be under American military control but is now a no man's land, still picked over by looters as recently as Sunday. United Nations weapons inspectors had monitored the explosives for many years ..." suggests a well-manicured facility that had been run to seed by knuckle-dragging American incompetence after faithful care by the IAEA. It totally ignores the disorderly condition in which 3ID found it, where, if the NYT correspondents had been present, they might have taken home their own boxes "with three vials of white powder, together with documents in Arabic that dealt with how to engage in chemical warfare" -- surely a sign it was untampered with, unless the NYT wishes to assert the contrary and thereby destroy their own case.
belmontclub.blogspot.com/2004/10/rdx-problem-resolves-itself-little.html

^^^

tag to follow after work