I could blog at length about how my disgust factor seems to be asymptotically approaching infinity the closer we get to election day, and the incident with the 380 tons of explosives gone missing in Iraq is the poster child for how pathetic things have become.

It starts with this New York Times exclusive report which includes the following tidbits...

The Iraqi interim government has warned the United States and international nuclear inspectors that nearly 380 tons of powerful conventional explosives - used to demolish buildings, make missile warheads and detonate nuclear weapons - are missing from one of Iraq's most sensitive former military installations.

The White House said President Bush's national security adviser, Condoleezza Rice, was informed within the past month that the explosives were missing.

The International Atomic Energy Agency publicly warned about the danger of these explosives before the war, and after the invasion it specifically told United States officials about the need to keep the explosives secured, European diplomats said in interviews last week. Administration officials say they cannot explain why the explosives were not safeguarded, beyond the fact that the occupation force was overwhelmed by the amount of munitions they found throughout the country.

After the invasion, when widespread looting began in Iraq, the international weapons experts grew concerned that the Qaqaa stockpile could fall into unfriendly hands. In May, an internal I.A.E.A. memorandum warned that terrorists might be helping "themselves to the greatest explosives bonanza in history."

The main contention is that the Bush administration was utterly incompetent in safeguarding the explosives. The Kerry Campaign, smelling blood in the water, jumped on the opportunity without questioning its veracity.

"He has stood in front of the American people day after day, telling us how much progress we are making in Iraq and how much safer we are under his leadership," Kerry said. "And what did the president have to say about the missing explosives? Not a word."

Later in Las Vegas, he went a step further, telling a rally: "Those ammo dumps have been looted and raided and kids and our young American forces are being shot at from weapons stolen from the ammo dumps that this president didn't think were important enough to guard."

Not questioning seems to be the prevailing attitude amongst liberal democrats.

Consulting a co-worker of mine as to why he was so eager to believe the worst, he replied simply, "that's cause I think bush is incompetent and I will believe anything that is negative for him"

This is what we are up against.

Senator Kerry's team even produced a commercial on the topic before NBC revealed that it had reporters embedded in the 101st airborne, the unit responsible for securing the bunker during the war. They had found the bunker to be empty upon arrival.

This accounts for it being left unguarded.

Archived at the National Review Online

NBC News: Miklaszewski: "April 10, 2003, only three weeks into the war, NBC News was embedded with troops from the Army's 101st Airborne as they temporarily take over the Al Qakaa weapons installation south of Baghdad. But these troops never found the nearly 380 tons of some of the most powerful conventional explosives, called HMX and RDX, which is now missing."

(NBC's "Nightly News," 10/25/04)

After NBC exposed the story to be an attempt to purposefully discredit the President, Matt Drudge reported that CBS had already been sitting on the story and had planned to break it on the evening of October 31st, just before the election.

Jeff Fager, executive producer of the Sunday edition of 60 MINUTES, said in a statement that "our plan was to run the story on October 31, but it became clear that it wouldn't hold..."

CBSNEWS' plan to unleash the story just 24 hours before election day had one senior Bush official outraged.

"Darn, I wanted to see the forged documents to show how this was somehow covered up," the Bush source, who asked not to be named, mocked, recalling last months CBS airing of fraudulent Bush national guard letters.

Wretchard at the Belomont Club described the cost of diplomacy very well in this post:

Although one may retrospectively find some fault with OIF order of battle, most of the damage had already been inflicted by the dilatory tactics of America's allies which allowed Saddam the time and space -- nearly half a year and undisturbed access to Syria -- necessary to prepare his resistance, transfer money abroad and disperse explosives (as confirmed first hand by reporters). Although it is both desirable and necessary to criticize the mistakes attendant to OIF, much of the really "criminal" neglect may be laid on the diplomatic failure which gave the wily enemy this invaluable opportunity. The price of passing the "Global Test" was very high; and having been gypped once, there are some who are still eager to be taken to the cleaners again.

I'll conclude this post with an excerpt from an interview with Donald Rumsfeld, our Secretary of Defense. He was asked about the missing explosives by radio personality Bill Cunningham in Ohio this morning

Secretary Rumsfeld Interview with Bill Cunningham
700 WLW-AM Cincinnati, Ohio

CUNNINGHAM: Right. Yesterday, Donald, your good friends at The New York Times reported that 380 tons of high-degree munitions have been stolen or otherwise ripped off from Al Qaqaa weapons facility and it was big news. John Kerry screaming and hollering about you and Georgie Bush and Dick Cheney being a bunch of bumbling incompetents. And then NBC News came out last night with Miklaszewski and said they embedded with the 82nd Airborne and the explosives were already missing when the American troops arrived on or about April 10, 2003. Which is it: Are you a bumbling incompetent or...

RUMSFELD: [Laughs]

CUNNINGHAM: ...is Jim Miklaszewski telling the truth?

RUMSFELD: Well, here's the situation. By our count, we have destroyed over 240,000 tons of weapons. And we have captured another 160,000 for a total of over 400,000... (the 160,000) are in line to be destroyed. There are hundreds of weapons sites that exist in that country that we've either emptied or guarded. And what's going on now is a detailed investigation of precisely this situation. Although clearly, the Iraqi Survey Group investigated hundreds of sites in Iraq looking for weapons and clearly there were people there who believe that in many instances Saddam Hussein took weapons out of weapons sites and put them in - we found them in hospitals, we found them in schools, we found them all across that country, buried in some instances. Their goal - if you think about it, go back to the museum. Do you remember when the museum - everyone said the museum was looted?

CUNNINGHAM: Fifty thousand pieces are missing.

RUMSFELD: Yeah.

CUNNINGHAM: From the valley of Umm (sp).

RUMSFELD: It turns out that I talked to a person who'd been to the museum two weeks before the war started and he said it was almost empty at that moment. Clearly, the curators had gone in and taken much of that and put it into a safe place. There was talk about $1 billion being stolen from the...

CUNNINGHAM: From the bank.

RUMSFELD: ... Central Bank. In fact, we found I think it was $600 million of it in various locations. And the idea that it was looted was just wrong. It was moved by Saddam Hussein's people.

CUNNINGHAM: Well, do you think The New York Times and the U.N. 's going to keep dropping a dime on you guys until next Tuesday, whether it's Sanchez's memo last week and now it's the 380 tons which, by the way, mathematically is less than 1/10th of 1 percent of what you're talking about 400,000 is as to 380 is less than 1/10th of 1 percent. Is The New York Times and the U.N. going to keep dropping the dime on you guys until Election Day?

RUMSFELD: Well, the president has asked Colin Powell and Don Rumsfeld to not get into politics, but every once in awhile, I drive by the National Archives and on the front of it it says, 'The past is prologue.'

Tip of the Hat to Michelle Malkin, Matt Drudge, Instapundit, the Belmont Club