The New York Times’ missing explosives roorback has three unsavory aspects.
First, a newspaper that pretends to be more than a party house organ has a responsibility to conduct a careful examination of charges that pop up in the last days of a political campaign. A U.N. official said that 380 tons of HMX and RDX high explosives disappeared from al-QaQaa, a major Iraqi military compound, because American forces didn’t mount a proper guard. Did the Times make any serious attempt to determine whether the explosives were present when our troops arrived? Did it consider the plausibility vel non of the picture of looters carting off such a huge quantity of material? Did it put the story into perspective by noting that the Ba’athist regime possessed hundreds of thousands of tons of explosives or that Coalition troops have seized c. 400,000 tons since the fall of Baghdad? Did it inquire whether HMX or RDX-based bombs had actually been used by terrorists or would be notably more powerful than any other kind? No. No. No. No. The tale was stripped to a core of prejudicial factoids, then shouted to the world.
Second, the charges emanate from a foreign official with both ideological and personal motives (none animadverted to by the Times) for attacking the President Bush. The source is Mohammed El Baradei, head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, whose lackadaisical approach to Iran’s nuclear program has put him repeatedly at odds with the U.S. What’s more, M. El Baradei’s term of office is coming to an end, and the Bush Administration announced last month that it opposes his reelection. How highly coincidental that, immediately thereafter, he started writing letters about a disappearance that occurred at least 18 months ago. How interesting that his unsubstantiated speculations about when and how it happened were accepted by the Times as too good to check.
Third, the whole story is much like the Southern politician’s accusation, “My opponent matriculated at college, and his sister is a thespian!” American troops first entered al-QaQaa on April 4th, before fighting ended in Baghdad. The facility had been identified as a potential WMD site, and securing it was given high priority. A search conducted immediately after the fall of Baghdad found no HMX or RDX. If our troops searched inadequately – and there is no evidence to back that accusation – the fault doesn’t lie with the high command, which gave the correct orders, much less with President Bush.
The overwhelmingly most likely hypothesis is that the materiel was moved out of al-QaQaa before the invasion began. As the Times itself observed a few days ago, it is now evident that Saddam laid the groundwork for post-war terrorism before the invasion. His preparations included the dispersal of munitions throughout the country. While the transportation of 380 tons of explosive raw materials would be a huge task for furtive looters, it was a trivial effort for the pre-war Iraqi military.
All in all, we see a “perfect storm” of media bias, foreign meddling and incomprehension of military reality. What was, at the unlikely worst, a blunder of trivial significance is elevated into a major reason to oust the Commander-in-Chief. That the Kerry campaign has taken up this ridiculous theme in stump speeches and a new commercial illustrates both its frivolity and how little of substance it has to convey.
Update (10/27/04): The New York Sun reports today that the United States urged M. El Baradei’s agency to destroy the Iraqi stocks of HMX and RDX in 1995. He refused. Now he professes alarm at fact that they may have fallen into the wrong hands.
CNN’s coverage of the story presents both sides. It is pretty clear that only one makes any sense.
Update (10/28/04): According to IAEA documents leaked to ABC News, the RDX disappeared from al-QaQaa before January 2003. The HMX may have still been there, but maybe not. The IAEA admits that it was possible to remove the material without breaking the seals that inspectors had placed on the cache.
This proof of Bush’s “incompetence” looks more and more like a sign of Kerry’s (and the elite media’s) desperation.
Further Reading: Andrew C. McCarthy, “Incredible Incompetence”
From a Reader: A reminder that M. El Baradei may have institutional as well as personal motives:
It’s interesting that I haven’t heard much about the oil-for-food scandal since the Al Qaqaa story broke the other day. I expected developments in that scandal to continue to be reported right up to the election. And, it’s equally interesting that a UN agency sent a memo on this just days before our election, when the administration has known about it for over a year. What’re the chances that the UN is playing hardball with the administration that is sponsoring the oil-for-food investigation against the UN?
Update (10/28/04) ABC News has shown a videotape, taken on April 18, 2003, that it interprets as showing evidence that HMX was present at al-QaQaa on that date. I have no way to evaluate that interpretation, but, at most, we now have contradictory evidence about when the explosives were removed from the base – and nothing at all to suggest incompetence at higher command levels.
If HMX was present, it is obvious that the soldiers on the spot didn’t recognize it for what it was. Let’s remember that the U.S. was specifically interested in the substance because of its potential role in Iraq’s nuclear weapons program. Finding signs of WMD programs was a high priority in the days after the fall of Baghdad. Troops would not have simply looked at a huge HMX stockpile and gone on their way.
Now, it may be that someone blundered by failing to identify the contents of the al-QaQaa cache. If so, it was the kind of mistake that frequently occurs in wartime, not a stupid command decision.
We must also bear in mind the counter-evidence:
The site had been examined with some care by the Third Infantry Division on April 4th. It found no HMX.
Moving many tons of materiel out of al-QaQaa after Coalition forces took control of the surrounding area would have been a remarkable feat. The IAEA reported the presence of 194 metric tons of HMX at the site. That’s a lot more than casual looters can take away in their knapsacks.
As noted above, also by ABC, the IAEA’s assertion that HMX was at al-QaQaa as late as March 2003 is unreliable. The seals on the bunkers holding it would not have prevented its removal, and the inspectors did not verify that it was still there.
There is no sign that HMX has been used by the terrorists, a fact that suggests that it is now in the custody of Syria or another foreign power, not sitting in Zarqawi’s headquarters.
Whatever the full facts here, the Kerry campaign’s notion that the President made a culpable misjudgement is an astonishing focus on the trivial (a foreshadowing of a Kerry Administration’s sense of priorities, perhaps?). Would President Kerry have personally inspected every bunker in Iraq? Or is his point that we should have delayed ousting the Ba’athists until we could send a vastly larger army? In that case, the missing HMX would certainly be under Saddam Hussein’s control at this moment. Would that make us safer?
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