The reason the story of missing munitions at al Qa Qaa is an important one is not that, in and of itself, it’s a huge deal. As Bill Kristol points out in one of the weakest defenses of the administration yet, the NYT story “didn’t put it into context how important 380 tons are when there are tens of thousands of explosives in the country.” Yes, that’s right. Compared to all the other munitions sites that were looted during and after the invasion, al Qa Qaa is not that devastating. But what about all the other sites? What about the fact that a war begun as a means to restrain Saddam’s weaponry actually helped disperse it? That’s the real issue. And as the facts emerge, I’ve become convinced of one astounding thing: the Bush administration didn’t care very much about the dangers from Saddam’s alleged WMDs, or conventional munitions. Safeguarding those sites, keeping those weapons out of the hands of terrorists, was not a major priority. Here’s a section from the AP story on al Qa Qaa:
As the rest of Perkins’ brigade moved on, the 3rd Battalion spent two days in the area, sweeping for other Iraqi forces, Perkins said. The troops didn’t specifically search for any high explosives, although they were aware that Al-Qaqaa was an important site for what was believed to be Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction programs.
(My emphasis.) The more you think about it, the more extraordinary that is.
THE WIDER PROBLEM: Check out this piece by Peter Galbraith, a supporter of the war who was appalled by what he saw in the invasion’s aftermath. He reported back to Paul Wolfowitz:
I also described two particularly disturbing incidents — one I had witnessed and the other I had heard about. On April 16, 2003, a mob attacked and looted the Iraqi equivalent of the Centers for Disease Control, taking live HIV and black fever virus among other potentially lethal materials. US troops were stationed across the street but did not intervene because they didn’t know the building was important.
When he found out, the young American lieutenant was devastated. He shook his head and said, “I hope I am not responsible for Armageddon.” About the same time, looters entered the warehouses at Iraq’s sprawling nuclear facilities at Tuwaitha on Baghdad’s outskirts. They took barrels of yellowcake (raw uranium), apparently dumping the uranium and using the barrels to hold water. US troops were at Tuwaitha but did not interfere… It appears that troops did not receive relevant intelligence about Iraq’s WMD facilities, nor was there any plan to secure them. Even after my briefing, the Pentagon leaders did nothing to safeguard Iraq’s nuclear sites.
Yes, as Hitchens has put it, this is near-impeachable negligence. We are less safe as a result. How can anyone say that Bush is our best bet in the war on terrorism when his own conduct has put this country at grave danger from the very weapons he was supposed to defend us from? And when his campaign then comes out and says that this kind of criticism is smearing the troops, they have told us all we need to know. They have no real answers. So they smear their critics.
The Dish 