Utter chaos

The disintegration of the infamous Bush "control of the message" regime was visible today as various spokespeople tried to answer reporters' questions about the missing explosives. The press is scurrying to report all sorts of mutually contradictory statements, many of which are absurd on their face.

Scott McClellan, the White House Press Secretary, told the press this morning that the first the US had heard about this problem was on October 15, when the IAEA told the US mission in Vienna.

Only, the Iraqis have already said they told Jerry Bremer in Iraq back in May, and have told the IAEA they were pressured by the US not to tell them. And, as yours truly humbly posted, Reuters had a story as early as Oct. 12, suggesting that the IAEA had evidence that some sites of concern had been looted.

But even more importantly, the US was responsible for security of that site for over a year before the hand-over to the Interim Government in June. So, what would it mean that we had to find out about this from the IAEA in October? McClellan would actually have us believe in a level of incompetence more profound than the one they've been accused of covering up.

The difficulty of trying to arrange the facts in a way that didn't imply that someone had goofed was really stretching poor Scottie. Later in the "gaggle" he seemed to trip over his own statements.

Q Scott, did we just have enough troops in Iraq to guard and protect these kind of caches?

MR. McCLELLAN: See, that's -- now you just hit on what I just said a second ago, that the sites now are really -- my understanding, they're the responsibility of the Iraqi forces. And I disagree with the way you stated your question, because one of the lessons we've learned of history is that it's important to listen to the commanders on the ground and our military leaders when it comes to troop levels. And that's what this President has always done. And they've said that we have the troop levels we need to complete the mission and succeed in Iraq.

Q But you're saying this is the responsibility of the Iraqi forces. But this was our responsibility until just recently, isn't that right? Weren't these -- there is some U.S. culpability, as far as --

MR. McCLELLAN: You're trying -- I think you're taking this out of context of what was going on. This was reported missing after -- when the interim government informed that these munitions went missing some time after April 9th of 2003, remember, that was when we were still involved in major military action at that point. And there were a number of important priorities at that point. There were munitions, munition caches spread throughout Iraq. There were -- there was a concern that there would be massive refugees fleeing the country. There is concern about the devastation that could occur to the oil fields. There was concern about starvation that could happen for the Iraqi people.

So -- and obviously there is an effort to go and secure these sites. The Department of Defense can talk to you about -- because they did go in and look at this site and look to see whether or not there were weapons of mass destruction there. So you need to talk to Department of Defense, because I think that would clarify that for you and set that record straight.

So, first he tried to make it seem like it was the Iraqis fault, but then it was pointed out that the Iraqis didn't have the responsibility until this summer. So then he tried to talk about how crazy busy our forces were right after the invasion, but he seems to be admitting that's when the explosives went missing. (Which would be quite different from finding out 10 days ago in Vienna.) Then he tries to sic the reporters off on the Pentagon, and in the process says that our forces did, in fact, visit the site and discover no WMDs. But if that's true, we should know if they did, or did not, see the explosives the IAEA had told us to look out for. And if they didn't, we'd have known they were missing then. And if they did, we know they went missing after we had control.

The poor press corps, overwhelmed by the mendacity, chose to focus instead on the apparent problem in the timeframe between Oct. 15, when the IAEA talked to us in Vienna, to when Condi Rice was told, and when she told the President. They were apparently fascinated by the light glinting off the spun sugar of his time-line for this process, the "tick-tock":

Q One last one on the tick-tock. These notices from Iraq to IAEA to U.S. to Condi to President happened over days as opposed to hours. Was there just no sense of urgency that what they had discovered here was really an important --

MR. McCLELLAN: No, just -- no, I think that this has all happened in a -- just the last few days. We're talking about the last 10 days.

Q As opposed to hours. Right. But does that mean folks believed that this was not an urgent, serious matter?

MR. McCLELLAN: No, because the Pentagon became informed -- you can check with the Pentagon when they were informed about it and the coalition forces. Absolutely not.

Q This was an urgent matter, as far as U.S. government was concerned?

MR. McCLELLAN: It's something that's being looked into now. So I don't know how you can characterize it as not. I mean, it's something that the Pentagon, upon being informed about it, immediately directed the multinational forces and Iraq Survey Group to look into this matter, and that's what they're doing.

So, here poor Scott is stuck again. If they thought this was urgent, then 10 days to have gotten a story figured out seems like a long time. Unless you're too busy campaigning to be running the government. Or you don't really think it's so urgent. Even if his October timeline were true, it certainly seems to suggest that there was a leisurely process about getting word to the President. So, if he goes for the "We just found out" excuse, he has to accept the "We didn't think it was a big deal" implication, since otherwise he'd have more of an answer about what was going on.

So, in order to avoid looking sluggish, he says the Pentagon was notified right away, and they're looking into it. See, we thought it was urgent, and asked the Pentagon to check it out! (But then what, Scott? You forgot about it until you saw it on the front page of the New York Times this morning?) And apparently, asking the Pentagon was enough, since Condi didn't leave the campaign trail to come back to her desk to work on the implications.

Meanwhile, reporters HAD started talking to the Pentagon. AFP has an article that quotes a named Pentagon spokesman saying they didn't know if the weapons were there when we invaded.

WASHINGTON, Oct 25 (AFP) - A Pentagon spokesman said Monday it was unclear whether 380 tons of high explosives reported missing from a weapons facility in Iraq disappeared before or after it fell under control of US forces.

He says it's "unclear" whether the explosives were there when US forces visited the site after the invasion.

AP has another spokesman saying:

"Coalition forces were present in the vicinity at various times during and after major combat operations," he said. "The forces searched 32 bunkers and 87 other buildings at the facility, but found no indicators of WMD (weapons of mass destruction)."

Which doesn't tell us anything about whether the conventional explosives were verified to be present. Though a different AP version of the story says:

At the Pentagon, an official who monitors developments in Iraq said U.S.-led coalition troops had searched Al-Qaqaa in the immediate aftermath of the March 2003 invasion and confirmed that the explosives, under IAEA seal since 1991, were intact. Thereafter, the site was not secured by U.S. forces, the official said, also speaking on condition of anonymity.

Meanwhile, both Bush and Cheney have made campaign speeches where they completely ignored the story. Kerry, not surprisingly, has jumped all over it, suggesting that it was an example of the "incredible incompetence of this president." A Bush spokesman said in response, "He's really grasping at headlines and that's not leadership."