Okay, One More

I have a couple hours before I have to get hit the road, so let me throw out one last summation on the missing explosives. The videotape provided by the Minneapolist TV station, taken on April 18th, has now been conclusively shown to contain footage of the very explosives that are now missing. David Kay, first head of the Iraq Survey Group, was on CNN last night and said the following:

Well, at least with regard to this one bunker, and the film shows one seal, one bunker, one group of soldiers going through, and there were others there that were sealed. With this one, I think it is game, set, and match. There was HMX, RDX in there. The seal was broken. And quite frankly, to me the most frightening thing is not only was the seal broken, lock broken, but the soldiers left after opening it up. I mean, to rephrase the so-called pottery barn rule. If you open an arms bunker, you own it. You have to provide security.

Kay has only seen the videotape of this one bunker, of course, but it has now come out that KTSP has even more video, including video of the IAEA seal being cut to get into the bunker. And the reporter who took this videotape, also on CNN, said that bunker was one of many:

All I can say with certainty is that, on that day, there were bunker after bunker after bunker of explosives, tons of them, that were unguarded.

And as Kay notes, were left unguarded even after being unsealed. In the meantime, Larry Di Rita, playing Pentagon Pete to Baghdad Bob, has released satellite photographs that show a single semi parked in front of a bunker at Al Qaqaa prior to the war starting, hoping that this will show that they were looted before our troops arrived. But Global Security, showing a map of the facility with the bunkers that held the explosives in question, has revealed that it isn't even the right bunker. But the release of those photos does show, if there was any doubt, that we had constant surveillance on this facility. So where are all the photos showing this huge convoy of trucks taking all this out? Where are the satellite photos of Russian military transportation units going into Iraq and moving hundreds of tons of munitions to Syria and Lebanon? Surely they must have them. But of course they don't. You know why? Because it didn't happen.

One last note. Tommy Franks appeared at a Bush rally yesterday to rebut Kerry's accusations concerning the missing explosives. Did he present evidence to mitigate the accusation? Nope. Did he point out logical flaws in the arguments being made? Nope. He tried the same tactic as the President did the other day, he said that Kerry was attacking the troops by daring to criticize the President on the missing explosives. Let's be blunt: Tommy Franks has pretty much killed whatever credibility he once had. He is no longer a general to be respected, he is a political hack telling lies and spinning the truth. The claim that criticism of policy equals attacking the troops is a claim that can only be made by one of two types of people - outright liars or the congenitally stupid. It's the ultimate "lowest common denominator" argument, intended to appeal to the most deluded of our citizens, and anyone who would make that claim takes themselves off the respect roll call forever. And this is doubly true because, in this instance, the ONLY ones who have bashed the troops are Bush supporters. Are you listening, Mr. Giuliani? By the way, your credibility is gone now too. You're no longer the brave Mayor who led New York in a time of crisis, you too are a political hack telling lies. You blamed the soldiers on the ground for the lack of soldiers on the ground. Bzzzt. Your 15 minutes are up and it's time to go.

Those damn facts obviously hate the President. Which means, of course, that they hate America and, as Tommy Franks says, they hate the troops. Or maybe it's just the President who hates the facts and is flailing around wildly trying to divert attention from them. But I don't want my readers to get the wrong idea. Don't let the facts make you biased too! Facts lead to bias which leads to France. Or something like that.