Following this original bombshell, the Bush administration has said:
- It's not a big deal. (Di Rita, 10/24)
- It's the Iraqi's fault. (McClellan, 10/25)
- There was a lot going on, so we might have missed it. (McClellan, 10/25)
- We've found lots of other less dangerous explosives. (McClellan, 10/25)
- The Pentagon only learned about this a few days ago. (McClellan, 10/25)
- U.S. forces completely searched the facility several times after the invasion. (Di Rita, 10/25)
- The explosives were taken before the U.S. got there. (Di Rita, 10/26)
- This NBC story proves that the explosives were indeed missing when U.S. forces first arrived. (Pentagon official, 10/26)
- Oops, NBC pulled their story; their reporter's group wasn't the first on the scene. (AP, 10/26)
- Oops again, the troops didn't search the facility--they were in combat. (MSNBC, 10/26)
- We never found any explosives. (Pentagon official, 10/27)
- We have satellite pictures of trucks at the bunkers, maybe taking the explosives. (Di Rita, 10/27)
- Oops, wrong bunkers. (Global Security, 10/28)
- The Russians took the explosives. (Shaw, 10/28)
- The troops didn't search hard enough. (Giuliani, 10/28)
- Kerry hates the troops. (Bush, 10/28)
And after all that equivocation and grasping at straws, the administration managed to avoid telling the truth even once: that the weapons were there, that the Bush administration knew, that the troops were not given the intelligence, training, or manpower necessary to secure the weapons, that the bunkers were opened and then abandoned--and subsequently looted. And now the 760,000 pounds of explosives are being used on American soldiers, Iraqi police, and innocent civilians.
According to former Iraq weapons inspector David Kay there are 80 such sites in Iraq--and that the evidence is damning.
Mendacity instead of policy. That's Bush in a nutshell.
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