FT: Russians ‘may have taken Iraq explosives’

[Marcus Bryant]

http://news.ft.com/cms/s/a4bc50c6-28...00e2511c8.html

Russians ‘may have taken Iraq explosives’

By Demetri Sevastopulo and Guy Dinmore in Washington and James Harding in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania
The Financial Times
Published: October 28 2004 00:45 | Last updated: October 28 2004 00:45

The controversy over Iraq’s missing explosives intensified on Wednesday as the Bush administration rejected charges of incompetence and a senior Pentagon official claimed the munitions may have been removed by Russians before the US-led invasion.

Breaking his silence over an issue that has dominated headlines since Monday, President George W. Bush accused John Kerry, his Democratic challenger, of making “wild charges” over the 350 tonnes of explosives and weapons.

The Pentagon is still investigating their disappearance. But Scott McClellan, White House press secretary, said there was a “very real possibility” the munitions were taken by the Saddam Hussein regime before US troops arrived at the munitions facility at al-Qaqaa, south of Baghdad.

At a rally in Iowa on Wednesday, however, Mr Kerry claimed that Mr Bush had allowed the explosives to fall into the hands of Iraqi rebels. Later, his campaign conceded that the Hussein regime might have removed the munitions before the invasion.

But in a further development, John Shaw, a deputy under-secretary of defence, suggested that “Russian units” had transported the explosives out of the country.

In an interview with the Financial Times, Mr Shaw said: “For nearly nine months my office has been aware of an elaborate scheme set up by Saddam Hussein to finance and disguise his weapons purchases through his international suppliers, principally the Russians and French. That network included. . . employing various Russian units on the eve of hostilities to orchestrate the collection of munitions and assure their transport out of Iraq via Syria.”

The Russian embassy in Washington rejected the claims as “nonsense”, saying there were no Russian military in the country at the time.

Mr Shaw, who heads the Pentagon’s international armament and technology trade directorate, has not provided evidence for his claims and the Pentagon distanced itself from his remarks.

“I am unaware of any particular information on that point,” said Larry Di Rita, Pentagon spokesman. The issue has dominated the presidential campaign since the International Atomic Energy Agency raised it at the UN Security Council on Monday. The Iraqi government says the explosives disappeared during looting after US forces seized Baghdad. But Colonel Dave Perkins, who commanded the first troops into al-Qaqaa, yesterday said it was “highly improbable” someone could have removed the munitions after US forces had taken control of the area.

The US has in the past raised concerns about Russian activities in Iraq before the invasion. During the war, Mr Bush called Vladimir Putin, Russian president, to voice concerns that Russian companies at least one state-owned had provided Iraq with anti-tank guided missiles, satellite jamming devices and night-vision goggles. Russia denied the charges and promised an investigation.

[Marcus Bryant]

John Kerry just ed up. Bigtime.

http://www.drudgereport.com/

Russia tied to Iraq´s missing arms; Pentagon: Weaponry relocated before war

GERTZ // THURSDAY // WASH TIMES: Russian special forces troops moved many of Saddam Hussein's weapons and related goods out of Iraq and into Syria in the weeks before the March 2003 U.S. military operation, The Washington Times has learned. John A. Shaw, the deputy undersecretary of defense for international technology security, said in an interview that he believes the Russian troops, working with Iraqi intelligence, “almost certainly” removed the high-explosive material that went missing from the Al-Qaqaa facility, south of Baghdad.

So much for The New York Times. If you have a home subscription at least your pet(s) can on it.

-MB

[exstatic]

Drudge report? And you crack on Dan for his sources. If I had a virtual dog, I'd let him on Drudge's web page.

[Marcus Bryant]

So The Financial Times is a "questionable" source? I knew you professed ignorance but I didn't realize how deep that river ran.

[Marcus Bryant]

Also, Drudge primarily links to stories from a wide variety of reputable sources. Going by your criticism it is apparent you don't realize that. But you're "ignorant" so I won't hold it against you.

[NeoConIV]

John Kerry (and for all practical purposes, Dan) walked right into a big steaming pile...

Way to go numbnuts.

[Aggie Hoopsfan]

ex,

Where were you when Drudge was breaking the whole "60 Minutes do ents show Bush skipped out early" fiasco?

[Marcus Bryant]

From ABC News by way of the "questionable" Drudge Report...

http://www.abcnews.go.com/WNT/story?id=204304&page=1

Discrepancy Found in Explosives Amounts
Do ents Show Iraqis May Be Overstating Amount of Missing Material

ABC News

Oct. 27, 2004 — Iraqi officials may be overstating the amount of explosives reported to have disappeared from a weapons depot, do ents obtained by ABC News show.

The Iraqi interim government has told the United States and international weapons inspectors that 377 tons of conventional explosives are missing from the Al-Qaqaa installation, which was supposed to be under U.S. military control.

But International Atomic Energy Agency do ents obtained by ABC News and first reported on "World News Tonight with Peter Jennings" indicate the amount of missing explosives may be substantially less than the Iraqis reported.

The information on which the Iraqi Science Ministry based an Oct. 10 memo in which it reported that 377 tons of RDX explosives were missing — presumably stolen due to a lack of security — was based on "declaration" from July 15, 2002. At that time, the Iraqis said there were 141 tons of RDX explosives at the facility.

But the confidential IAEA do ents obtained by ABC News show that on Jan. 14, 2003, the agency's inspectors recorded that just over 3 tons of RDX was stored at the facility — a considerable discrepancy from what the Iraqis reported.

The IAEA do ents could mean that 138 tons of explosives were removed from the facility long before the start of the United States launched "Operation Iraqi Freedom" in March 2003.

The missing explosives have become an issue in the presidential campaign. Sen. John Kerry has pointed to the disappearance as evidence of the Bush administration's poor handling of the war. The Bush camp has responded that more than a thousand times that amount of explosives or munitions have been recovered or destroyed in Iraq.


Another Concern

The IAEA do ents from January 2003 found no discrepancy in the amount of the more dangerous HMX explosives thought to be stored at Al-Qaqaa, but they do raise another disturbing possibility.

The do ents show IAEA inspectors looked at nine bunkers containing more than 194 tons of HMX at the facility. Although these bunkers were still under IAEA seal, the inspectors said the seals may be potentially ineffective because they had ventilation slats on the sides. These slats could be easily removed to remove the materials inside the bunkers without breaking the seals, the inspectors noted.


ABC News' Martha Raddatz filed this report for "World News Tonight." Luis Martinez contributed to this report.

[Aggie Hoopsfan]

So how bad does this story screw Kerry if it bears out?

1. Kerry and the media get caught with their collaborative pants down, again.

2. Kerry's global test, with France being 2 billion richer and Russia working hand in hand with Saddam on arms shipments, gets an F.

3. The easy connection could be made, regarding WMD, that other things besides tons of explosives could have been trucked out of Iraq (say, barrels of anthrax, nuclear fuel, chem/bio weapons, etc.).

I'd still like to see some more proof, but have a feeling it will be forthcoming in the next few days... Rove's October surprise, perhaps?

[Nbadan]

Mr Shaw, who heads the Pentagon’s international armament and technology trade directorate, has not provided evidence for his claims and the Pentagon distanced itself from his remarks.

I guess Marcus just skimmed over this little detail. The administration can claim Peter Pan came and transported the stuff to never-never land, but without any proof it don't mean diddly.

[Marcus Bryant]

Well it was bad enough that Kerry was basically arguing for the past couple of months that Bush screwed up for invading Iraq because Hussein had no weaponry on hand that cons uted a real threat to the United States, yet on Monday he switched to blaming the Bush administration for 'losing' the weaponry Hussein had on hand which cons uted a real threat to the United States.

If Russia's pre-war dealings with Hussein were this extensive then Bush most certainly made the right call. Otherwise we would've likely been stuck with an Iraq in a couple of years that had every WMD you could ever have wanted as well as ever more free to assist terrorists.

[Marcus Bryant]

Considering his position I'd say he's a bit more trustworthy than any of the crap you have spammed this forum with.

[Nbadan]

Well it was bad enough that Kerry was basically arguing for the past couple of months that Bush screwed up for invading Iraq because Hussein had no weaponry on hand that cons uted a real threat to the United States, yet on Monday he switched to blaming the Bush administration for 'losing' the weaponry Hussein had on hand which cons uted a real threat to the United States.

Did I say anything about your news sources?

This stuff was closely monitored and regulated by the I.A.E.A., so while it is highly lethal, its not anything that Saddam was not supposed to have according to United Nations Security Council guildlines.

[Marcus Bryant]

This stuff was closely monitored and regulated by the I.A.E.A., so while it is highly lethal, its not anything that Saddam was not supposed to have according to United Nations Security Council guildlines.

Incorrect. He wasn't supposed to have the but he convinced some UN bureaucrats that the nation needed it for 'mining and construction'.

What exactly was the IAEA going to do to prevent him from doing as he pleased with the ? Send him a nasty letter?

[Yonivore]

Incorrect. He wasn't supposed to have the but he convinced some UN bureaucrats that the nation needed it for 'mining and construction'.

What exactly was the IAEA going to do to prevent him from doing as he pleased with the ? Send him a nasty letter?

It was the bureaucrat that took over from Hans Blix at the IAEA. A Bureaucrat the U.S. was trying to get fired for incompetence. The same bureaucrat that failed to notice the Iranian nuclear program, the Korean nuclear program, the Libyan nuclear program, and yes, the Iraqi nuclear program.

Oh yeah, I almost forget, it's the same bureaucrat that failed to notice when Pakistan and India almost when nuclear over Kashmir...

By the way, it's the same bureaucrat that tipped off the NYTimes and CBS about the bogus missing explosives story...hmmm, I wonder why?

Every day that goes by is another day that shows us how corrupt the U.N. was and still is.

[Marcus Bryant]

If DoD has the photos then that's it. It might be why Mr. Shaw is rather confident in his opinion.

http://wizbangblog.com/archives/004095.php

Brett Baier of Fox News is on a roll.

First, he is reporting that the Department of Defense has satellite imagery from BEFORE the war showing large trucks removing things from Al Qaa Qa. Some have suggested they may release the images.

Second he has gotten his hands on the Jan 2004 "Action Report" from the IAEA. It contradicts what Mohamad Albardi told the UN Security Council.

On Oct 10, 2004, Mohamad Albardi told the UN Security council that 350 tons of explosives were missing based on a search of the compound done in January including 141.2 metric tons of RDX and 194.7 metric tons of HMX.

However, the actual "Action Report" from January that Albardi was supposedly relaying to the UN says that only 3 tons of RDX were missing. No explanation for the discrepancy has been given yet but apparently there are about 130 US tons less explosives missing than we thought.

But the kicker is that according to the IAEA's Action Report, the bunker were only partially sealed. The front door was tagged but the there were ventilations shafts on the SIDE of the buildings that could not be sealed. Quoting from the report: "The shafts were not sealed and could provide removal routes for the HMX and RDX while leaving the front door locked."

This dovetails with reports that earlier the IAEA found explosives missing but the seals were in tact.

I think it is time to put this one out of its misery.

[Aggie Hoopsfan]

Here's more from the Washington Times. Pretty damning for Kerry's new "ad". Even more damning for those who have been bugging Bush about where the WMD went.

The only big thing, IMO, out there on this, is will Bush throw Putin under the bus on this one? The Russians are pretty damn guilty in this whole mess, but lots of folks have said as much in the past (just quickly had their stories buried).

Could Bush tell Putin to speak up or have the rug pulled out from underneath him on Chechnya? That's got to be one of a bargaining chip.

, talk about an October surprise. Russia coming out and admitting to this, admitting to WMD in Iraq that they helped moved out? Game. Set. Election.

Mr. Shaw, who was in charge of cataloging the tons of conventional arms provided to Iraq by foreign suppliers, said he recently obtained reliable information on the arms-dispersal program from two European intelligence services that have detailed knowledge of the Russian-Iraqi weapons collaboration.
Most of Saddam's most powerful arms were systematically separated from other arms like mortars, bombs and rockets, and sent to Syria and Lebanon, and possibly to Iran, he said.

A second defense official said do ents on the Russian support to Iraq reveal that Saddam's government paid the Kremlin for the special forces to provide security for Iraq's Russian arms and to conduct counterintelligence activities designed to prevent U.S. and Western intelligence services from learning about the arms pipeline through Syria.
The Russian arms-removal program was initiated after Yevgeny Primakov, the former Russian intelligence chief, could not persuade Saddam to give in to U.S. and Western demands, this official said.

However, the most important and useful arms and explosives appear to have been separated and moved out as part of carefully designed program. "The organized effort was done in advance of the conflict," Mr. Shaw said.
The Russian forces were tasked with moving special arms out of the country.

The Russian weapons were then sent out of the country to Syria, and possibly Lebanon in Russian trucks, Mr. Shaw said.
Mr. Shaw said he believes that the withdrawal of Russian-made weapons and explosives from Iraq was part of plan by Saddam to set up a "redoubt" in Syria that could be used as a base for launching pro-Saddam insurgency operations in Iraq.
The Russian units were dispatched beginning in January 2003 and by March had destroyed hundreds of pages of do ents on Russian arms supplies to Iraq while dispersing arms to Syria, the second official said.
Besides their own weapons, the Russians were supplying Saddam with arms made in Ukraine, Belarus, Bulgaria and other Eastern European nations, he said.
"Whatever was not buried was put on lorries and sent to the Syrian border," the defense official said.
Do ents reviewed by the official included itineraries of military units involved in the truck shipments to Syria. The materials outlined in the do ents included missile components, MiG jet parts, tank parts and chemicals used to make chemical weapons, the official said.
The director of the Iraqi government front company known as the Al Bashair Trading Co. fled to Syria, where he is in charge of monitoring arms holdings and funding Iraqi insurgent activities, the official said.
Also, an Arabic-language report obtained by U.S. intelligence disclosed the extent of Russian armaments. The 26-page report was written by Abdul Tawab Mullah al Huwaysh, Saddam's minister of military industrialization, who was captured by U.S. forces May 2, 2003.
The Russian "spetsnaz" or special-operations forces were under the GRU military intelligence service and organized large commercial truck convoys for the weapons removal, the official said.
Regarding the explosives, the new Iraqi government reported that 194.7 metric tons of HMX, or high-melting-point explosive, and 141.2 metric tons of RDX, or rapid-detonation explosive, and 5.8 metric tons of PETN, or pentaerythritol tetranitrate, were missing.
The material is used in nuclear weapons and also in making military "plastic" high explosive.
Defense officials said the Russians can provide information on what happened to the Iraqi weapons and explosives that were transported out of the country. Officials believe the Russians also can explain what happened to Iraq's weapons of mass destruction programs.

[Nbadan]

For one the Washington Times is a right-wing rag, and for two Shaw has nothing if he has no proof. Meanwhile, the NY Times is reporting that they have eye-witnesses that they saw looters carrying off heavy equipment in trucks immediately after the Americans left Al Qa-Qaa...

MISSING EXPLOSIVES

4 Iraqis Tell of Looting at Munitions Site in '03

By JAMES GLANZ and JIM DWYER

Published: October 28, 2004

AGHDAD, Iraq, Oct. 27 - Looters stormed the weapons site at Al Qaqaa in the days after American troops swept through the area in early April 2003 on their way to Baghdad, gutting office buildings, carrying off munitions and even dismantling heavy machinery, three Iraqi witnesses and a regional security chief said Wednesday.

The Iraqis described an orgy of theft so extensive that enterprising residents rented their trucks to looters. But some looting was clearly indiscriminate, with people grabbing anything they could find and later heaving unwanted items off the trucks.

Two witnesses were employees of Al Qaqaa - one a chemical engineer and the other a mechanic - and the third was a former employee, a chemist, who had come back to retrieve his records, determined to keep them out of American hands. The mechanic, Ahmed Saleh Mezher, said employees asked the Americans to protect the site but were told this was not the soldiers' responsibility.

The accounts do not directly address the question of when 380 tons of powerful conventional explosives vanished from the site sometime after early March, the last time international inspectors checked the seals on the bunkers where the material was stored.

NY Times

This report also confirms that the last IAEI inspection of the facility was in March and not January as many Right-wingers would have you believe.

[Aggie Hoopsfan]

lol, so what if it was March or January, the explosives were already gone.

You crack me up Dan. The NYTimes finds some "Iraqi looters", and they trump

1. The IAEA
2. Two European intelligence agencies
3. DoD satellite surveillance photos


Such is the fickle, convoluted mind of a liberal who just had his candidate's bubble very loudly and very violently burst.



BUT, BUT, BUT, Jamaal, Muhammad, and Abu said the explosives were there[/liberal after paying the Iraqis $100 American dollars]

a chemist, who had come back to retrieve his records, determined to keep them out of American hands.

1. What was he trying to hide?
2. Yeah, no *agenda* there.

[Nbadan]

Careful Right-wingers, I wouldn't put all my stones in Shaw's basket just yet..

WASHINGTON — A senior Defense Department official conducted unauthorized investigations of Iraq reconstruction efforts and used their results to push for lucrative contracts for friends and their business clients, according to current and former Pentagon officials and do ents.

John A. "Jack" Shaw, deputy undersecretary for international technology security, represented himself as an agent of the Pentagon's inspector general in conducting the investigations, sources said.

In one case, Shaw disguised himself as an employee of Halliburton Co. and gained access to a port in southern Iraq after he was denied entry by the U.S. military, the sources said.

In that investigation, Shaw found problems with operations at the port of Umm al Qasr, Pentagon sources said. In another, he criticized a compe ion sponsored by the U.S.-led Coalition Provisional Authority to award cellphone licenses in Iraq.

In both cases, Shaw urged government officials to fix the alleged problems by directing multimillion-dollar contracts to companies linked to his friends, without compe ive bidding, according to the Pentagon sources and do ents. In the case of the port, the clients of a lobbyist friend won a no-bid contract for dredging.

Shaw's actions are the latest to raise concerns that senior Republican officials working in Washington and Iraq have used the rebuilding effort in Iraq to reward associates and political allies. One of Shaw's close friends, the former top U.S. transportation official in Iraq, is under investigation for his role in promoting an Iraqi national airline with a company linked to the Saddam Hussein regime.

The inspector general's office — which investigates waste, fraud and abuse at the Pentagon — has turned over its inquiry into Shaw's actions to the FBI to avoid the appearance of a conflict of interest, the sources said.

The FBI also is looking into allegations, first reported by the Los Angeles Times, that Shaw tried to steer a contract to create an emergency phone network for Iraq's security forces to a company whose board of directors included a friend and one of Shaw's employees.

Shaw, who held top positions in the Reagan and George H.W. Bush administrations, declined to comment for this article. In previous interviews, he has denied any financial links to the companies involved or receiving any promises of future employment or other benefit.

Shaw justified his investigations under a special agreement with the Pentagon inspector general, Joseph E. Schmitz. The August agreement created a temporary office headed by Shaw called the International Armament and Technology Trade Directorate. Its mission was to cooperate with the inspector general on issues related to the transfer of sensitive U.S. technologies or arms to foreign countries.

Shaw frequently cited the agreement in his dealings with reporters and the military, telling them it allowed him to "wear an IG hat" to conduct investigations. In a recent letter to the inspector general, he said the agreement gave him "broad investigatory authority."

That contention is the subject of dispute, however. The agreement states that Shaw "may recommend" that the inspector general initiate audits, evaluations, investigations and inquiries, but it does not appear to give him investigative powers.

"Jack Shaw was never authorized to do any kind of investigation or auditing on his own," said one source close to Schmitz. "The agreement was not for that. He's trying to cram more authority into that agreement than it gives him."

Schmitz canceled the agreement two weeks after Shaw was first accused of tampering with the emergency phone network contract. Schmitz declined to comment, but in his letter canceling the arrangement, he praised Shaw for "outstanding leadership."

Shaw used the agreement to win permission to visit Iraq last fall. In an Oct. 28 letter to Army Gen. John P. Abizaid, head of the U.S. Central Command, Shaw said he wanted to "investigate those who threatened the national security of the United States through the transfer of advanced technologies to Iraq."

Specifically, Shaw said he planned to identify countries that had smuggled contraband weapons into Iraq and catalog existing conventional weapons stockpiles.

Although he did not mention it in the letter, Shaw also was interested in investigating operations at the port of Umm al Qasr.

Last summer, Shaw was visited by Richard E. Powers, a longtime friend and lobbyist. Powers was representing SSA Marine, a Seattle-based port operations company that had won a controversial limited-bid contract in the early days of the war to manage the troubled port.

Common Dreams

[Aggie Hoopsfan]

Commondreams > Washington Times.

Figures.

[Aggie Hoopsfan]

BTW, the DoD cleared Shaw already on this one, looks like you're 0 for 2 tonight.

IMMEDIATE RELEASE August 10, 2004
DoD Statement on Jack Shaw and the Iraq Telecommunications Contract

For several months there have been allegations in the press that activities of John A. Shaw, Deputy Under Secretary of Defense for International Technology Security, were under investigation by the Inspector General of the Department of Defense (DoD IG). The allegations were examined by DoD IG criminal investigators in Baghdad and a criminal investigation was never opened.



Furthermore, attempts to discredit Shaw and his report on Iraqi telecommunications contracting matters were brought to the attention of the DoD IG and were accordingly referred to the FBI.



Shaw carried out his duties in the investigation of Iraqi telecommunications matters pursuant to the authorities spelled out in the Memorandum of Understanding between the DoD IG and the Acting Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition, Technology and Logistics. Shaw provided a copy of his report to the DOD IG and, at the request of the Coalition Provisional Authority, to the Iraqi National Communications and Media Commission.



Shaw is not now, nor has he ever been, under investigation by the DoD IG. Any questions concerning FBI activities should be addressed to the FBI.

http://www.dod.mil/releases/2004/nr20040810-1103.html

Aren't weblogs, who can pretty much debunk political hackjobs within minutes, a beautiful thing?

[Nbadan]

Try again face. From the CommonDreams article...

The FBI also is looking into allegations, first reported by the Los Angeles Times, that Shaw tried to steer a contract to create an emergency phone network for Iraq's security forces to a company whose board of directors included a friend and one of Shaw's employees.

and from your article..

Shaw is not now, nor has he ever been, under investigation by the DoD IG. Any questions concerning FBI activities should be addressed to the FBI.

The FBI is not the DOD IG. Got it. Good.

[Aggie Hoopsfan]

So you think that if they didn't find anything wrong the information they passed on to the FBI will prove there was something wrong?

I got it, you're still a dumbass.

[Nbadan]

Speaking of Talking Points memo, Joshua Marshall who has been on top of this from the start offers a nice encompassing editorial about this whole Al-Qa Qaa weapons fiasco...

Okay, now we seem to have the White House's third rendition of what happened at al Qaqaa. And we can find it in a nicely digestible form in this new piece from Fox News.

The headline reads: "Search Showed No Explosives at Iraqi Base Before War's End."

Down into the piece we find this: "U.S. forces searched several times last year the Iraqi military base from which 380 tons of explosives vanished — including one check a week before Saddam Hussein was driven out of power. But the military saw no signs of a huge quan y of munitions."

Now that the White House's defenders have given up on the April 10th NBC visit, they've fixed on April 3rd (stretching into the 4th) arrival of units from the 3rd ID, which we first noted late Monday evening.

Fox and Larry Di Rita (Don Rumsfeld's communications guy) are now arguing that since those units that were there on the 3rd and 4th of April didn't find a "huge quan y of munitions" that the stuff had already been taken away.

Now, once again, let's review a few points.

Remember, this is a huge facility. The fact that this particular stuff wasn't found during a brief inspection is hardly conclusive about the whereabouts of these explosives, especially since that's not what they were looking for.

More to the point though, look at what they did find. This from a piece by Barton Gellman two days later...

In the first of yesterday's discoveries, the 3rd Infantry Division entered the vast Qa Qaa chemical and explosives production plant and came across thousands of vials of white powder, packed three to a box. The engineers also found stocks of atropine and pralidoxime, also known as 2-PAM chloride, which can be used to treat exposure to nerve agents but is also used to treat poisoning by organic phosphorus pesticides. Alongside those materials were do ents written in Arabic that, as interpreted at the scene, appeared to include discussions of chemical warfare.

This morning, however, investigators said initial tests indicated the white powder was not a component of a chemical weapon. "On first analysis it does not appear to be a chemical that could be used in a chemical weapons attack," Col. John Peabody, commander of the division's engineering brigade, told a Reuters reporter with his unit.

And what was the white powder? Here's what the Associated Press was told the same day...

A senior U.S. official familiar with initial testing said the powder was believed to be explosives. The finding would be consistent with the plant's stated production capabilities in the field of basic raw materials for explosives and propellants.

RDX and HMX are white powders.

So after a quick search what they found mainly were thousands of vials of white powder that turned out to be an explosive, and quite probably RDX and/or HMX.

Now, does this prove that the explosives were all there on the 3rd of April and that they were then left for looters to pick over? Of course, not. Like the visit on the 10th, this was a quick inspection of a facility with hundreds of buildings. At worst it was inconclusive as far as the explosives are concerned. But there is also this contemporaneous evidence that strongly suggests that they did find some of the explosives on site.

Needless to say neither the Fox Report nor the Di Rita marching orders, which they were working from, mentioned this.

One can get mixed up in the murkiness that the White House spin-doctors are trying to create here. But that's the point. They're just trying to kick up a lot of dust.

I have to tell you, though I figure that it will ruffle feathers all around, that this desperate hopping from one explanation to another reminds me very much of those desperate days when Dan Rather and Mary Mapes were hunting around trying to find some backing -- after the fact -- for a story that turned out to have very little behind it.

The same thing is going on here. The folks at the White House were caught completely flat-footed by this whole story. It's not something that they or the civilian mis-planners of the war ever gave much thought to.

But now they realize that the way they can get out of this is to find some way to show that the stuff wasn't there when they arrived. So first they try with the NBC story. And when that falls apart they move on to this story. But it doesn't really hold up either.

Later Di Rita brought out the then-commander of the 2nd Brigade of the 3rd Infantry Division (the first troops on the scene) who said that in the weeks after April 3rd when his troops came through the area on the way to Baghdad it would have been "very highly improbable" that anyone could have put together a convoy to haul the stuff away because the two roads through the area were choked with US military convoys bringing men and materiel into the country.

Perhaps small-scale looting, he said, but not a major operation.

On the face of it, that sounds persuasive.

But then former weapons inspector David Kay was on CNN just a short time later saying that he can't believe it could have happened in the short time window before or during the war either -- which is just what Di Rita is trying to suggest. And it has to be one of the other.

Here's Kay ...

I must say, I find it hard to believe that a convoy of 40 to 60 trucks left that facility prior to or during the war, and we didn't spot it on satellite or UAV. That is, because it is the main road to Baghdad from the south, was a road that was constantly under surveillance. I also don't find it hard to believe that looters could carry it off in the dead of night or during the day and not use the road network.

So Kay not only says he doesn't think it happened in the only other possible time -- the last three weeks of March -- he also seems to think that it could have been done later without using those major roads.

Again, Di Rita and his associates in the Bush campaign certainly don't know what happened. Nor are they trying to find out what happened. What they're trying to do --a la Rather and Mapes in those ugly days -- is try to come up with something, anything, that will provide an alternative, exonerating explanation of what happened. And as each new piece of evidence or explanation gets knocked down, they look around for something else.

As of late Wednesday evening, Drudge is reporting that the Russians carted it off just before the war. I kid you not.

Here we go again.

Late Update: Drudge's 'the Russians did it' story is up now at the Washington Times, all based it seems on the say-so of John A. Shaw, the deputy undersecretary of defense for international technology security, whose theory about Russian involvement even Di Rita seems to be distancing himself from.

Shaw does at least provide the adminsitration's 9th or 10th theory of what happened. It had to have been taken out before the war because the US watched the place so closely no other explanation is possible. "That was such a pivotal location, Number 1, that the mere fact of [special explosives] disappearing was impossible," Shaw told the Times. "And Number 2, if the stuff disappeared, it had to have gone before we got there."

You can't make this stuff up.

Or, I guess, actually you can.

Meanwhile, back on planet Earth, the New York Times talks to some of the folks who looted the place during the early weeks of the occupation.