... and now we know the UN likes John Kerry:
Several hundred tons of conventional explosives were looted from a former Iraqi military facility that once played a key role in Saddam Hussein’s efforts to build a nuclear bomb, the U.N. nuclear agency told the Security Council on Monday.
A “lack of security” resulted in the loss of 377 tons of high explosives from the sprawling Al-Qaqaa military installation about 30 miles south of Baghdad, said Mohamed ElBaradei, head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, or IAEA.
The IAEA fears “that these explosives could have fallen into the wrong hands,” said Melissa Fleming, a spokeswoman for the agency.
ElBaradei told the council the IAEA had been trying to give the U.S.-led multinational force and Iraq’s interim government “an opportunity to attempt to recover the explosives before this matter was put into the public domain.”
And of course, John Kerry picks it up and, like, in a total coincidence, runs with it:
The disappearance of the explosives quickly became an issue in the presidential race, with the Democratic candidate, Sen. John Kerry, accusing President Bush of committing “one of the greatest blunders” of his administration in failing to secure the materials.
“George W. Bush, who talks tough ... and brags about making America safer, has once again failed to deliver,” Kerry told supporters in Dover, N.H. “After being warned about the danger of major stockpiles of explosives in Iraq, this president failed to guard those stockpiles.”
“This is one of the great blunders of Iraq, one of the greatest blunders of this administration, and the incredible incompetence of this president and this administration has put our troops at risk and this country at greater risk.”
But there's a fly in the ointment:
The 380 tons of powerful conventional explosives were already missing back in April 10, 2003 -- when U.S. troops arrived at the installation south of Baghdad!
An NBCNEWS crew embedded with troops moved in to secure the Al-Qaqaa weapons facility on April 10, 2003, one day after the liberation of Iraq.
According to NBCNEWS, the HMX and RDX explosives were already missing when the American troops arrived.
Oh, but you'll love this next bit:
It is not clear why the NYTIMES failed to report the cache had been missing for 18 months -- and was reportedly missing before troops even arrived.
Ha, ha, ha. We all know Big Media is trying to get John Kerry elected, but now even the UN is trying to get John Kerry elected. This is totally unacceptable. Folks, they are trying to steal our government from us right before our very eyes. But, fortunately for us, the UN is no better at this than they are at anything else. The US out of the UN now!
I was wrong yesterday when I said that John Kerry would cut and run because he has Vietnam seared -- seared -- into his memory. Oh, I was right about John Kerry having Vietnam seared -- seared -- into his memory, but my greater fear now is that, like LBJ, he will want to micromanage the War on Terrorism. Does John Kerry really think it is the President's job to decide which facilities to attack or protect in order? We know he'll listen to the generals if they ask for more men, but will he listen to them about anything else? (Well, technically, we don't know. I mean, he said that he would listen to the generals if they asked for more men, but then he has said a lot of things we can't believe, hasn't he?) Doesn't John Kerry realize that his criticisms of Bush on everything that happens in Iraq are fundamentally criticism of the Armed Forces carrying out the policy set by the President? Or is it that he doesn't care?