Where Does the Buck Stop?

October 29, 2004

The White House, in its campaign efforts, has defended itself against attacks from Senator Kerry concerning the ongoing debacle concerning 377 tons of missing explosives from the Al-Qaqaa base in Iraq. One of those attacks leveled by Vice President Cheney stated that Senator Kerry had rushed out and made public statements prior to knowing all the facts [4].

George W. Bush described John Kerry’s campaign as a “campaign of contradictions.” [5]

Given the changing nature of reality as described by the White House, however, the most ironic comment from the White House concerning Senator Kerry’s attacks over the missing explosives had to have been when President Bush said, “This investigation is important and it's ongoing, and a political candidate who jumps to conclusions without knowing the facts is not a person you want as your commander-in-chief [23].”

Perhaps they should have listened to Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld’s statement, when he said, “"First reports are almost always wrong, and people who use hair-triggered judgment to come to conclusions about things that are fast moving frequently make mistakes that are awkward and embarrassing [10].”

The White House has attempted to spin the story at every turn. The problem for the White House is that in this case, information is coming out of Iraq faster than they can spin the story.

The story actually began in February of 2003, when IAEA chief Mohamed El Baradei informed the United that he was concerned about HMX explosives stored at Al-Qaqaa [6]. He warned the U.N. again in April of that year [6], after another cache was looted [7]. The fact that another cache was looted in April of 2003 should have set off warning lights in the Pentagon and the White House – apparently, it did not.

Perhaps the IAEA was not strong enough in its warnings to the White House. This would, however, be extremely surprising, considering how significant they themselves considered the threat to be. For example, in May, an internal I.A.E.A. memorandum warned that terrorists might be helping "themselves to the greatest explosives bonanza in history [20]."

On October 10, 2004, the IAEA informed the Bush administration that the explosives that had been at al-Qaqaa were missing [11]. However, the issue did not become common knowledge for two weeks [11], until the New York Times broke the story on October 24, 2004 [20].

The initial White House defense concerning the debacle was to downplay the incident [20], and to note that the amount of explosives was trivial – 400 tons compared to the total amount of munitions in total that had been captured, with White House spokesman Scott McClellan saying, “We have destroyed more than 243,000 munitions," he said. "We've secured another nearly 163,000 that will be destroyed [12]."

On October 26th, Vice President Cheney said that the United States was not even sure that the explosives ever were at the base, saying “"It is not at all clear that those explosives (that were lost) were even at the weapons facility when our troops arrived in the area of Baghdad [1]."

The White House also attacked the New York Times for publishing the story [20], saying that the story was purely partisan [14].

On October 27, the White House defended itself by citing a report by NBC Lai Ling Jew journalist that she had been through Al-Qaqaa on April 10, 2003 [11]. However, that report was recanted, with the journalist saying that the visit to the base was “more like a pit stop [11]” and that “there wasn’t a search [21] [30].”

Also, in an apparent response to a request by Russia that U.N inspectors be allowed back in to assist in the securing and destruction of Iraqi arms [13], Pentagon official John Shaw accused Russian soldiers of spiriting the explosives to Syria in the weeks before the invasion [16]. The Russians have responded angrily, protesting the accusation at the diplomatic level [16] [17]. Today, Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld was forced to retract his subordinate’s comments, saying, "I have no information on that at all, and cannot validate that even slightly [18]."

Rumsfeld does maintain, however, that the U.S. troops, their commander and the strategy were not at fault. Rather, Rumsfeld maintains that the explosives were probably removed prior to the U.S. invasion [19], claiming that "The idea that it was suddenly looted and moved out all of these tons of equipment is I think at least debatable and it's very likely that, just as the United States would do, that Saddam Hussein moved munitions when he knew that the war was coming." He went on to say, "Picture all of the tractor trailers and fork lifts and caterpillars it would take to move 377 tons and we had total control of the air. We would have seen anything like that [15]."

And today, the Pentagon stated that 250 tons of explosives were removed from the base by its U.S. troops – but that these 250 tons were not under IAEA seal [8] [9]. This removal, the Pentagon claims, took place, on April 13, 2003 [22]. Furthermore, U.S. Army Major Austin Pearson, a 3rd Infantry Division officer, said that when he had been in charge of removing explosives on April 13th, he “did not see any IAEA seals [23].” He also, however, said that he “had not been looking for that (seals) [23].”

However, Pentagon Spokesman Larry Di Rita stated that when the U.S. forces arrived on April 13th (four days after the fall of Baghdad), that there was Iraqi resistance from “armed people, Fedayeen, special Republican guard [23].” He also stated that he was almost certain there was more'' ordnance at the al-Qaqaa facility when Pearson's unit left.

To complicate matters, an Iraqi insurgent group calling itself Al-Islam's Army Brigades claimed on October 28th to have the explosives [24].

The final piece to the puzzle of when the explosives disappeared, however, may be a video recorded by KSTP of St. Paul on April 18, 2003 [25] [27]. It is critical to note that this is nine days after the fall of Baghdad, on April 9th [28] and at a point when the United States was no longer facing large scale organized armed resistance [29].

The KSTP news crew was taken from bunker to bunker, which were opened by members of the 101st Airborne Division, usually with bolt cutters [27]. Inside were the stocks of boxes labeled “explosives,” which were opened by soldiers, and in many cases, positively identified as explosives [27]. At one point, a soldier told the crew, “We can stick it in those and make some good bombs [27]."

The crew also indicated that the soldiers made no effort t re-seal the bunkers, or to secure the site [27].

Whether these are the missing explosives are the ones shown in the video tape is still being determined [27]. However, the fact that the KSTP crew observed the U.S. soldiers breaking the seals and identifying the boxes as containing explosives seems to be significant.

David Kay, a former American official who directed the hunt for weapons in Iraq, told the New York Times, "The photographs are consistent with what I know of Al-Qaqaa. The damning thing is the seals. The Iraqis didn't use seals on anything. So I'm absolutely sure that's an IAEA seal. [25]".

And in an interview with CNN, David Kay said, “Well, at least with regard to this one bunker and the film shows one seal, one bunker, one group of soldiers going through and there were others there that were sealed, with this one, I think it is game, set and match [26].” He went on to say, “if you open an arms bunker, you own it. You have to provide security.”

What may be more telling about this entire incident, however, is the Bush administration response to it. The initial response was to keep quiet about the issue for two weeks [11], until the New York Times broke the story [20]. Then it was to attack the New York Times [14], before launching into a dizzying array of stories to shift blame from the manner in which the explosives were accounted for.

When the issue become political, which it rapidly did [2] [3] [31], the Bush Administration seemed far more interested in slamming Senator Kerry over his critisizms of the White House concerning its handling of the situation than fixing the problem. In many ways, the Bush attacks against Kerry seem to almost imply that it was somehow Senator Kerry’s fault that the explosives disappeared [2] [3].

In fact, Bush supporters have been quick to put forth any explanation, no matter how unfair or ungrounded, that it was not Bush who was ultimately responsible. For instance, Rudy Giuliani said on NBC's "Today" show, "No matter how you try and blame it on the president, the actual responsibility for it really would be for the troops who were there. Did they search carefully enough?" blaming the troops, as opposed to allowing blame to fall on their commander in chief [30].

Three is a certain irony in the fact that Bush partisans are laying the blame at the feet of the troops [30] while the White House is changing its description of reality on a daily basis to avoid any blame being splashed on the President while that same President is attacking John Kerry on his ability to lead the military – saying that Senator Kerry “demoralizes” the U.S. troops [32].

President Bush is obviously unwilling to let the buck on this issue stop anywhere near the White House [33].

Perhaps as a result, the buck will stop with John Kerry.

October/November 2004 Column Listing