YET ANOTHER SERVICEMAN REFUTES THE TIMES ACCOUNT

You are correct in your bottom line conclusion. Here is a second follow up. I was serving as a [identifying information removed by the Kerry Spot] staff member during the time in question. The Commander on the site had complete real time intelligence on what to expect and possibly find at the Al-QaQaa depot. The ordinance in question was not found when teams were sent in to inspect and secure the area. When this information was relayed, Operational plans were adjusted and the unit moved forward. Had the ordinance in question been discovered, a security team would have been left in place.

I found the document below on the IAEA website:

http://www.iaea.org/OurWork/SV/Invo/reports/s_2003_95.pdf

Page12, paragraph 1 (emphasis added)

HMX

53. The relocation and consumption of HMX (a high explosive of potential use in nuclear weapons), as described in Iraq’s backlog of semi-annual declarations, has been investigated by IAEA. In those declarations, Iraq stated that, between 1998 and 2002, it had transferred 32 of the 228 tons of HMX which had been under IAEA seal as of December 1998 to other locations. In addition, Iraq stated that a very small quantity (46 kilograms) of HMX had been used at munitions factories for research and development. At the request of IAEA, Iraq has provided further clarification on the movement and use of the HMX, indicating that the 32 tons of HMX had been blended with sulphur to produce industrial explosives, which had been provided mainly to cement plants for quarrying, and that the research and development using the small quantity of HMX had been in the areas of personnel mines, explosives in civilian use, missile warhead filling and research on tanks.

54. The IAEA inspectors have been able to verify and re-seal the remaining balance of approximately 196 tons of HMX, most of which has remained at the original storage location. The movement of the blended HMX and the other small quantity of HMX has also been documented by Iraq. However, it has not been possible to verify the use of those materials, as all of it is said to have been consumed through explosions and there are no immediately available technical means for verifying such uses. The IAEA will continue to investigate means of verifying the Iraqi statements about the use of the HMX and blended HMX.

Same document, Page14, Paragraph 1

The disposition of the 32 tons of the previously monitored HMX that Iraq declared to have been used for civilian purposes, however, will be difficult to confirm.

Seems that, as of 2003, the quantity at the site was 196 tons, not the 388 reported.

George Bush today:

“After repeatedly calling Iraq the ‘wrong war,’ and a ‘diversion,’ Senator Kerry this week seemed shocked to learn that Iraq was a dangerous place, full of dangerous weapons. The Senator used to know that, even though he seems to have forgotten it over the course of the campaign, but after all that’s why we’re there. Iraq was a dangerous place run by a dangerous tyrant who had a lot of weapons. We have seized or destroyed more than 400,000 tons of munitions, including explosives, and more than — thousands of different sites, and we’re continuing to round up more weapons everyday.

“I want to remind the American people, if Senator Kerry had his way, we would still be taking our 'global test.' Saddam Hussein would still be in power. He would control all those weapons and explosives and could have shared them with our terrorist enemies.

“Now the Senator is making wild charges about missing explosives when his top foreign policy adviser admits, quote, 'we do not know the facts.' Think about that. The Senator's denigrating the action of our troops and commanders in the field without knowing the facts. Unfortunately, that's part of a pattern of saying almost anything to get elected — like when Senator Kerry charged that our military failed to get Osama bin Laden at Tora Bora, even though our top military commander, General Tommy Franks, said the Senator's understanding of events does not square with reality, and our intelligence reports placed bin Laden in any of several different countries at the time. Our military is now investigating a number of possible scenarios including that the explosives may have been moved before our troops even arrived at the site. 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."

How about a campaign add with just the video of these remarks from Bush?

What is at least as silly as IAEA documenting this, is the fact that they were, in essence, asking the terrorist enemy to police themselves - even as they note, elsewhere, that the terrorists broke seals and moved explosives out at will. All the UN could do was take the terrorists' word for the "fact" that X tons of explosives were pilfered from under the UN's Almighty Seal (wax with a signet ring, I presume?), take the terrorists' word for how much was taken (IAEA admitted they had no way to quantify), and take the terrorists' word for the "fact" that they had a really good reason for taking it - for "peaceful" purposes, of course (IAEA admitted they had no way to verify).

And the IAEA was not even embarrassed to report all this! (The only thing they would not admit was that Saddam's regime was a bunch of terrorists - so when you say it like that, of course it sounds like a "bad" thing.) WHAT A JOKE!

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