the IAEA. That’s right, we have a UN agency trying to affect the US election. As reported here, the story we’ve all heard about missing explosives in Iraq is over 18 months old. NBC is reporting that when US troops first arrived in Baghdad, the explosives were already gone. So the front page news on every newspaper is actually just a hit piece from the UN.
After the UN has made itself obsolete by its inaction in Iraq and the Sudan, has proven scandal-ridden with the food-for-oil debacle, and is now trying to influence US elections, I hope we’ll have the will to finally disband the corrupt institution.
And I hope the media outlets who jumped on this story will correct it before the election, but I’m not holding my breath.
I agree that it could be the October Surprise, but I find the spin you’re putting on it to be excessively partisan. This from the New York Times, which along with CBS, originally reported the story:
Are you sure you didn’t just hear NBC wrong? Was NBC quoting their own reporting, or a source trying to argue the White House bore no responsibility?
Also, I think William Rhenquist’s thyroid cancer might be a bit of an October Surprise, too. But both Rhenquist’s cancer and Al Qaqaa can only help Kerry. (Not to mention a small deluge of crappy economic news over the past month… watch that stock market keep on tumblin’ folks.)
emarkp: *As reported here, the story we’ve all heard about missing explosives in Iraq is over 18 months old. *
See the current “al-Qaqqa” thread for a lengthy discussion of this.
However, I have to say that even if it were true, if the Administration really was aware of these missing armaments a year and a half ago, they have only themselves to thank that the information is coming out now. If they’ve been trying to hide the facts to avoid bad PR, I can’t really feel sorry for them if somebody else drags the facts into the light of day at an awkward moment.
I think it’s the Iraqi interm gov’ts Oct. suprise. The original NYT story was released because the interm gov’t annonced that the weapons were missing. The IAEA had discussed the matter with the White House, but they didn’t break the story to the press. It was the interm gov’ts announcement that led to the press coverage.
Also note from the story that the site with the explosives was only a medium priority site. Some other, higher priority sites were also not secured. The mind boggles at else might have been looted. Perhaps before we disband the UN, we should have allowed its weapon inspectors to help us secure these sites after the invasion.
SBVFT? Dude, that’s so August 2004, and it’s already, like, late October. No one’s listening to what they have to say anymore. Notice that their last ad was up and running with nary a peep from the press, since it was all old news that no one cared about, and the group has been widely discredited.
As for a pro-Bush October Surprise, there’s still time for a terror alert.
The righties like to beat up on the UN but Bush goes running to it for help whenever his nation-building plans go south.
They go on and on about how irrelevant and obsolete the UN is but everytime someone questions the reasons Bush went to war in Iraq they start quoting UN resolutions chapter and verse.
They go on and on about how corrupt the UN is and there’s Colin Powell trying to spin some yarn about anthrax and drones that he and everyone else knows is utter bullshit.
Some example we’re setting. The UN is no more or less corrupt than we are.
I’m not sure if National news will pick that one up without thouroghly checking it out first. The SBVs have lost a bit of their credibility. I could see FOX reporting it as an unsubstantiated claim though, just to get it some air time.
Jerry Corsi was on the radio last week trying to get a ‘bombshell’ story out about a conspiracy between Kerry, his Iranian fundraiser, the Iranian “mad Mullahs” as Corsi continuously referred to them, and Kerry’s nuclear fuel proposal.
Both NBC and Drudge have taken down the story, as it became apparent that the army unit in question, with NBC embedded reporters, was merely in the area where the explosives were stored for a “pit stop” of a few hours. They didn’t see any explosives, but they weren’t looking for any explosives. Apparently CNN is still running with the story and quoting NBC as their source. Josh Marshall ofTalking Points Memo is doing a decent job of documenting the ebb and flow of this story.
NBC is now saying they didn’t inspect squat, so the idea that drudge is pushing: that the explosives were definately gone when they got there is bull. US Troops were there before that anyway, though they were apparently too shorthanded to secure the site and check it… which itself partly the whole point. Still not clear exactly when the explosives vanished, but it’s quite certain that
a) this was some pretty important stuff that should have been destroyed or protected
b) the invasion and making the IAEA leave opened it up to fall into the wrong hands.
Why blame the IAEA, when the ultimate source of the information is the sovereign government of Iraq, and Ayad Allawi?
First we had the missing explosives, and now Allawi is saying that coalition troops exhibited great negligence in the death of 50 Iraqi soldiers. It’s beginning to sound like our puppet in Iraq has his knives out for the president.
No one’s listening to what they have to say anymore. Notice that their last ad was up and running with nary a peep from the press, since it was all old news that no one cared about, and the group has been widely discredited.
