Campaigns head to Wisconsin - President fires back on explosives lie

CNN.com ^ | October 26, 2004

[Cincinatus' Wife]

(CNN)..........The report that tons of high explosives were missing from a depot in Iraq provided campaign ammunition Monday, with Kerry launching a blistering attack on Bush. The Democrat called it "one of the great blunders of Iraq and one of the great blunders of this administration."

Late Monday, the mystery took another twist -- NBC News, which had a crew embedded with the U.S. military during the invasion, reported that the material had already vanished by the time American troops arrived there on April 10, 2003, the day after Baghdad fell. (Report: Explosives already gone when U.S. troops arrived) http://www.cnn.com/2004/WORLD/meast/10/26/iraq.explosives/index.html

The Bush camp wasted little time in firing back, firing off a statement saying that Kerry's criticism of the president over the missing material has "been proven false before the day is over."

"John Kerry's attacks today were baseless," Bush campaign spokesman Steve Schmidt said. "He said American troops did not secure the explosives, when the explosives were already missing."

Schmidt also said that Kerry "neglects to mention the 400,000 tons of weapons and explosives that are either destroyed or in the process of being destroyed" in Iraq.

But Kerry senior adviser Joe Lockhart fired back with a statement of his own, accusing the Bush campaign of "distorting" the NBC News report.

"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," Lockhart said. "It is the latest pathetic excuse from an administration that never admits a mistake, no matter how disastrous."...

Lockhart did not elaborate on how the Bush campaign was distorting the NBC report.....

[beckysueb]

I think they have orders from the Clinton headquarters to push this. I still think they don't really want Kerry to win. Why would they go to the trouble to take Screamin Dean out just to let a dork like JK get elected.

[TurtleStink]

FoxNews help the Prez? Don't think so - two words my friend. Peter Chernin. Big Liberal for Kerry 24/7 and the Big Boss of ALL at FoxNews. We're lucky we still have Britt Hume on the air for an hour. That will not last long. If Kerry loses, Chernin will fire everyone over the next year except Bill O and ED Hill woman, Geraldo, Greta and Chris Wallace.

[beckysueb]

Wouldn't that be a hoot!

[beckysueb]

I'm afraid you're right. FoxNews just seemed to shift to the left all of a sudden. Oh, yeah, don't forget Colmes. He'll probably get a promotion. We need a conservative news channel that doesn't care to call a spade a spade. I bet we could wipe up the competition. Let Rush run it.

[reagandemo]

"And Fox. They soft balled the Kerry spokesman. Let him get by with lies and diverted the subject to OBL." Not only that the new spin from the Kerry campaign is that Bush should have known prior to the war the sites of WMD (get that WMD sites) and had troops there to guard them. They did not have enough troops on the ground so anything that happened before the war is still Bush's fault. The spin is unbelievable!

[Stentor]

Then Kilmeade and E.D. rehashed the whole thing with Kondracke.

I thought I heard Mort say that the bush lead on RCP was 1%. They had the RCP guy on and he said it was 2.8%. Mort seems to be getting a little dotty.

[mware]

Anyone know who the embedded reporter was? I don't know what his politics is but he can be called a true journalist.

[MeekOneGOP]

bump!

[Cincinatus' Wife]

Kerry never misses an opportunity to make a backhanded slap of our military....just like VN...he hates the military...he always jumps on any bad report re the military....true or not.

And THAT should be President Bush's reponse to this "story."