Why is the story of the looted explosives at Qaqaa is even a story? What's new here? The U.S. military and the Bush administration have a long history of incompetence in protecting things that blow up.
** The U.S. didn't bother to guard Tuwaitha, Iraq's main nuclear facility. (This is kind of odd considering we were about to be engulfed in an Iraqi mushroom cloud.) CNN reported on May 8, 2003 that residents were emptying drums of yellowcake on the ground and using them to hold water. The IAEA said the looted material could be used by terrorists to create a "dirty bomb."
** More than a year ago, on October 14, 2003, the New York Times reported, "The two most recent suicide bombings here and virtually every other attack on American soldiers and Iraqis were carried out with explosives and materiel taken from Saddam Hussein's former weapons dumps, which are much larger than previously estimated and remain, for the most part, unguarded by American troops..."
** As recently as two weeks ago, a CNN headline read "Nuclear materials 'vanish' in Iraq", and inside says, "Equipment and materials that could be used to make nuclear weapons have disappeared from Iraq, the chief of the U.N.'s atomic watchdog agency has warned."
So what's the big deal about an extra 380 tons of explosives that blow up our troops?
posted by dack