New York Times Defends Missing Explosives Story

CSN NEWS.com ^ | October 26, 2004 | Robert B. Bluey, Staff Writer

[focusandclarity]

(CNSNews.com) - The New York Times on Tuesday defended its report on a missing cache of explosives in Iraq after Republicans accused the newspaper of ignoring the facts in a rush to attack President Bush.

The Times reported Monday that 380 tons of explosives had gone missing from the Al Qaqaa military facility in Iraq, which triggered a swift and harsh attack on Bush from Sen. John Kerry, who quickly produced an ad citing the article.

The Republican National Committee released a compilation of recent news reports on the missing explosives Tuesday, which it said proved that the Times and Kerry campaign were ignoring the facts to attack Bush.

The NBC Nightly News revealed Monday evening that it had an embedded reporter at Al Qaqaa on April 10, 2003, one day after the fall of Baghdad, and that none of the 380 tons of explosives were present.

"NBC News was embedded with troops from the Army's 101st Airborne as they temporarily take over the Al-Qaqaa weapons installation south of Baghdad," Pentagon correspondent Jim Miklaszewski reported Monday. "But these troops never found the nearly 380 tons of some of the most powerful conventional explosives, called HMX and RDX, which is now missing."

The Times' spokeswoman, Catherine Mathis, issued a statement to CNSNews.com on Tuesday afternoon defending the newspaper's report:

"Our front page story of October 25 reported accurately that a senior official at Iraq's Ministry of Science & Technology informed the International Atomic Energy Agency in a letter on October 10 that the materials were lost from the Al-qaqaa site after April 9, 2003, through the theft and looting of the governmental installations due to lack of security.'

"The IAEA took an inventory of the materials in January, 2003. In early March, right before the beginning of the war, the IAEA went to the site and found that the seals on the bunkers were still intact.

"Pentagon and White House officials told the Times, as the story says, that the materials vanished sometime after the U.S.-led invasion.

"The Times story also reported that U.S. forces visited the vast site on their way to Baghdad and saw no materials bearing the IAEA seal.

"We are continuing our reporting on the disappearance."

[45Auto]

The MSM has had a monopoly on "political thought" in this country since the late 1960's - or so they think. Couple that with the "dumbing down" of the public school system and the politicizing of nearly all major university staffs in the US, and you have, in less than two generations, created a population that is ripe to be fitted with the chains of socialist slavery. When I went to school, they taught us something that may have been lost over the last decades - critical thinking.

Moving 400 tons of anything is a daunting task, be it bags of rice, or crates of C4. And doing it under the noses of surveillance planes during wartime and getting away with it, is nearly impossible. No, if there ever was anything in those storage areas, it was removed prior to the US entry into Iraq.

[JoeGar]

New York Times: "All the news that fits, we print."

[45Auto]

Still, in order to move that much material, a fair size convoy would be needed; it sure as heck wasn't done after initial hostilities ceased since there was too much surveillance going on in those first weeks, a lot of it by aircraft, and (I wouldn't doubt) a lot by satellite.

[bayourod]

You were had Ted N.Y. Times.

[focusandclarity]

I agree, and I've been sold on the notion that it went via truck caravan to Syria while the UN security Council dithered about votes. [In fact I was just reminded that an article I found about the facility before the war had Uday (who I suspect might have been the family member who might have been in charged of the joint) quoted that September 11th would look mild compared to what they had in store for our troops. Didn't Uday and his brother travel to Syria (incognito) and then returned to meet their untimely and unsuspected fate? Going to try to find that article.]

[Getready]

Thanks for the post.

We need to stop buying newspapers that are corrupt like
NYT, L.A. Times.
I stopped buying L.A. Times, long ago.
We need to point out these newspapers every error, and tell
your friends. Show your friends where the paper is wrong.

This is best done when the newspaper has a write up about
something you know much about. Point out their inconsistencies
point out their illogical extrapolation of information,
point out the weaknesses in the research methodology.

And don't buy the paper. You can get all the news you
want from the internet, and other sources.
Newspapers, can now be considered irrelevant as sources
of news. Unless you don't use a computer. Time to put the
untruthful newspapers out to pasture.

[Auntie Dem]

The NBC Nightly News revealed Monday evening that it had an embedded reporter at Al Qaqaa on April 10, 2003, one day after the fall of Baghdad, and that none of the 380 tons of explosives were present.

"NBC News was embedded with troops from the Army's 101st Airborne as they temporarily take over the Al-Qaqaa weapons installation south of Baghdad," Pentagon correspondent Jim Miklaszewski reported Monday. "But these troops never found the nearly 380 tons of some of the most powerful conventional explosives, called HMX and RDX, which is now missing."

What part of NBC's report don't those syphilitic editors of the NYT understand? The explosives were not there to be guarded when our troops got there. When the NYT says the weapons disappeared "sometime" before April 9, does that leave open the possibility "sometime" means days, weeks, hours, or minutes?

[fightu4it]

NYT = Nasty Yellow Turd

[SauronOfMordor]

"The IAEA took an inventory of the materials in January, 2003. In early March, right before the beginning of the war, the IAEA went to the site and found that the seals on the bunkers were still intact.

So let me get this straight. The only FACTS they KNOW are:

1. The stuff was inventoried in January
2. In EARLY March, the seals appeared intact
3. The Americans did not arrive on scene until around April 9

From this they ASSUME that the explosives were taken after our troops arrived, rather than in the intervening MONTH between the March inspection and our April arrival, when Sadaam's regime was intensely preparing caches of arms and explosives for a post-invasion guerilla war

Or, indeed, possibly before March, thru a hidden tunnel that would have bypassed the sealed door

And, obviously, it's all Bush's fault

[SauronOfMordor]

45Auto, your reasoning is impecable except you assume using 1/2 ton trucks. If you use 60 foot vans

60 foot vans require paved roads. What kind of roads were there by the bunkers? Unless they were alongside a paved highway, forget it.

[gooleyman]

George Bush needs to personally address this issue NOW. I hate to say it, but the Clinton team was 1000% better than the Bush team at responding to politically damaging information.

-----
Bush didn't have to respond to the CBS forgeries. CBS was forced to admit their "error" by the alternate media...US. Just like this story was outed the same way. NYT forgot about the embedded Journalists who were filing reports daily, but when you have an army of tens of thousands,and I daresay, millions of alternate media people out there, someone is going to remember an obscure article about a munitions storage site that was inspected, found empty and disregarded. They simply can't get away with this anymore. The MSM needs to realize this or I shudder to think of their fate.

[facedown]

"Pentagon and White House officials told the Times, as the story says, that the materials vanished sometime after the U.S.-led invasion.

Manure.

[manic4organic]

NYT is the buffoon of newspapers. Shilling and lying are no way to operate a media outlet. WRITE them!

[Reactionary]

"Pentagon and White House officials told the Times, as the story says, that the materials vanished sometime after the U.S.-led invasion."

The Pentagon says it isn't true; the White House says it isn't true. They've already been proven to fabricate at least this aspect of the story.

The "unnamed sources" bit from these idiot journalists is, to put it mildly, becoming ridiculous.

[GailA]

Since this was a well bombed site, much of it may have been blown up. Being a powder the wind could have gotten some of what was left. Didn't some from the 101 get sick there and they thought it was WMD bio or chem poisoning?

[Henchman]

See BS also gave them the "play book" for discredited stories.

[M Kehoe]

Is the NYT morphing into the Guardian, or is the Guardian morphing into the NYT? Too philosophical for me...

5.56mm

[Sparky760]

They probably figure with only a week left they can beat this one into the ground because after election day it is a non story. The only gain that can come from this is after this election the majority of people will finally see how blantantly biased the MSM is.

[SeaBiscuit]

yup, that's exactly what the NYT, MSM will do, twist this right up until election day to sway the feeble minded. Sad thing is there are tooooo many feeble minded voting.

[dannyboy72]

I'm not a logistics man, but I think his point dealt with both weight and volume. I'ts not like they would be hauling 380 tons of steel. A clarification from someone who knows would be good for all us to know the logistics of this...

I'm not buying that it just dissappeared into the desert. With that kind of weight they would sink. Had to be on the road and we had tanks on those roads.