Kerry: Bush passing buck on missing explosives
JFK's daughter asks president to stop using father's name
Thursday, October 28, 2004 Posted: 2:46 PM EDT (1846 GMT)


Bruce Springsteen is campaigning with John Kerry on Thursday, at stops in Madison, Wisconsin, and Columbus, Ohio.
(CNN) -- Democratic presidential candidate Sen. John Kerry blasted the Bush administration for a fourth day over the 380 tons of missing explosives in Iraq, saying that the president is avoiding taking responsibility for another mistake he's made.

The candidate's comments came in yet another campaign stop in Ohio, a showdown state with 20 electoral votes both candidates are fervently courting. (Showdown state Ohio)

"The president's shifting explanations and excuses and attacks on me demonstrate once again that this president believes the buck stops everywhere but with the president of the United States," Kerry told the crowd in Toledo. (Mystery of missing explosives continues)

"I am going to apply the Bush standard to this: yesterday ... George Bush said, and I quote him, 'A political candidate who jumps to conclusions without knowing the facts is not a person you want as your commander in chief when it comes to security,'" Kerry said. "Well, Mr. President, I agree with you."

The senator charged that Bush jumped to conclusions about the September 11, 2001, terrorists having a link with Saddam Hussein, about weapons of mass destruction being in Iraq and about how the Iraqi people would receive U.S. troops.

"Mr. President, here are the facts that every American can understand, it seems, except for you. The bottom line about these weapons that have disappeared (is) they are not where they were supposed to be. You were warned to guard them. You didn't guard them," he said.

In a campaign speech earlier in Saginaw, Michigan, Bush responded to Kerry's previous attacks on the subject, saying that "Senator Kerry is again attacking the actions of our military in Iraq with complete disregard for the facts." (Showdown state Michigan) (Bush: Kerry has record of weakness)

Kerry also faulted Bush for his comments that he would do everything the same regarding the war on Iraq, if he had to do it over again.

"Lately, George Bush has been invoking the name of John Kennedy. But can you imagine President Kennedy, in the wake of the Bay of Pigs, standing up and telling the American people that he couldn't think of a single mistake that he'd made? That he would do everything he had done before exactly the same way?" the senator asked, receiving a collective shout of "No!" from the audience.

The president's use of Kennedy's name this week prompted Caroline Kennedy Schlossberg on Wednesday to release a statement asking Bush to refrain from making references to her father.

"It's hard for me to listen to President Bush invoking my father's memory to attack John Kerry. Senator Kerry has demonstrated his courage and commitment to a stronger America throughout his entire career. President Kennedy inspired and united the country and so will John Kerry. President Bush is doing just the opposite. All of us who revere the strength and resolve of President Kennedy will be supporting John Kerry on Election Day," her statement said.

Kerry said Bush, when given the choice, has not chosen the side of the people, but instead has chosen the side of big business.

"We don't have a broken budget in Washington, we have a broken value system and we have to change it in five days," the told the crowd.

He asked voters to cast their ballot for him when they went to the polls.

"Help me become president, help me make you proud so that on November 3rd and everyday after I can look at you and say, 'I've got your back,'" Kerry said.

The candidate, who has a home in Boston, entered the gymnasium in Toledo wearing a Boston Red Sox cap and pumping his fists in the air for the Sox sweep in the World Series Wednesday night.

He recounted that a year ago a caller to a radio talk show taunted him, saying that Kerry wouldn't be president until the Red Sox won the series.

"We'll we're on our way!" Kerry shouted, adding that he was a bit hoarse after having cheered so much the night before.

Kerry tapped into some star-power Thursday afternoon at a rally in Madison, Wisconsin, featuring singer Bruce Springsteen.

Springsteen performed his songs "Promised Land" and "No Surrender," which has been one of the anthems of the Kerry campaign, before introducing Kerry

Springsteen is also scheduled to join Kerry in Ohio. (Showdown state Wisconsin

doesn't he realize that harping on a story that is unraveling in his hands is a bad, bad campaign strategy, especially in the final weeks?

He needs to shut up about missing explosives, wipe the massive amount of egg off his face, and pretend it never happened.

The more he shouts, Howard Dean-style about it, the more many Americans are reminded: A) of why we went to Iraq in the first place, and B) that this story of missing weapons has been pretty much debunked. If nothing else, it's pure speculation.

and the story looks worse and worse for him, almost by the minute.

whens omething good goes right all the credit is suppose to go to this current administration. when something goes wrong...

You've said something similar to this in other threads.
A)We were told we went to Iraq to find Weapons of Mass Destruction. Later, we find they didn't have any. Now, we learn that not only did Iraq have no WMDs, but our troops, under order of this administration and its croneys, didn't have the ability to secure Weapons of Typical Destruction. Looks bad for Bush, if you ask me; particularly when mouthpiece Giuliani so eloquently blamed it on the troops themselves.

B) How has this story been debunked? I haven't seen anything.

It was debunked almost as soon as it came out.

i havent heard about anyhting being debunked. explosives are missing, noone knows when, how or why.

Link PJDoll on it's debunking...Here are some odd exchanges regarding this story and the Administration:

The White House has been unable to explain how 380 tons of powerful explosives disappeared under its watch in Iraq, and has instead tried to deflect blame with a series of excuses. None of them hold up. Read this new document from American Progress for the full story.

EXCUSE #1 – THEY WERE GONE WHEN WE GOT THERE: Administration spokesman Dan Senor said on CNN that "there's a very high probability that those weapons weren't even there before the war." All the evidence, however, suggests the opposite. In an Oct. 25 AP story, a Pentagon official said, "US-led coalition troops had searched Al Qaqaa in the immediate aftermath of the March 2003 invasion and confirmed that the explosives, which had been under IAEA seal since 1991, were intact." According to Today's New York Times, after U.S. troops came through, Iraqis on the scene in Al Qaqaa "described an orgy of theft" as the sensitive military site was picked clean by looters. Iraq's top science official, Mohammed al-Sharaa, confirmed these reports, saying, "It is impossible that these materials could have been taken from this site before the regime's fall. The officials that were inside this facility (Al Qaqaa) beforehand confirm that not even a shred of paper left it before the fall."

EXCUSE #2 – WE DIDN'T KNOW ABOUT IT: One White House strategy has been to simply plead ignorance. White House spokesman Scott McClellan said, "We were informed on October 15th. Condi Rice was informed days after that. This is all in the last, what, 10 days now." What they're not talking about: The New York Times reported that Iraqi officials say they warned Paul Bremer, the American head of the occupation authority, that Al Qaqaa had probably been looted in May 2004, six months ago.

EXCUSE #3 – WE'VE SECURED LOTS OF OTHER MUNITIONS: White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan tried to minimize the importance of the 380 tons of explosives that went missing, saying, "400,000 tons of munitions have been seized or destroyed by coalition forces." But McClellan is comparing apples to oranges. The 400,000 tons the White House cites refers to munitions – including guns and ammunition. Pound for pound, the 380 tons of explosives are much, much more powerful. For example, "the bomb that brought down Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, in 1988 used less than a pound of the same type of material." By that math, the size of the explosives cache looted would be enough to bring down 760,000 planes.

EXCUSE #4 – THE NBC STORY: The Bush campaign spun an NBC News story in an attempt to bolster its excuse, charging, "NBC Nightly News later reported that on April 10, 2003, one day after Iraq was liberated, US troops entered Al Qaqaa and did not find the explosives." NBC News, however, resisted that characterization. What the network actually said: "Military officials tell NBC News that on April 10, 2003, when the Second Brigade of the 101st Airborne entered the Al Qaqaa weapons facility, south of Baghdad, that those troops were actually on their way to Baghdad, that they were not actively involved in the search for any weapons, including the high explosives, HMX and RDX...And because the Al Qaqaa facility is so huge, it's not clear that those troops from the

http://www.americanprogressaction.org/s ... b=100480#1

Thanks.
Could you tell me where I can find that story, because I haven't heard anything.

see the holy shit thread, a few threads down.

Seems that only 2 people know of this debunking.

That's the thing - The story is that the explosives were missing before the US entered the area, so really, it has nothing to do with the US losing anything. These were never our weapons, so we didn't lose them.

That's the story.

SEE THE "HOLY SHIT" THREAD

Ah, now, see, that story's been debunked as well. See IEB!'s post above.

I think it will take much more investigation to either totally prove or totally disprove the story.

Whether or not the weapons were there before or after the invasion is still up in the air.

OK. Interesting that the debunking story is on CNN, MSNBC, ABC, etc, but EIB posted a theory from an extremely left wing website, so that's the right story.

did you see the thread about Russia moving the weapons?

It has been proven that, at the very least, it is highly unlikely that these supposed weapons were there when the U.S. arrived at Al Ca-Ca.

Troops from the 3rd ID AND the 101st airborne say there weren't 380 tons of explosive there when they arrived. I suppose you can believe that some of the most highly-trained military men in the world would just -- oops! -- miss 380 tons of anything. I don't.

So, how can the Bush administration POSSIBLY be expected to protect something that was moved before they even crossed the Iraqi border? I guess they are expected to work magic. Maybe we should elect Harry Potter.

I do understand, however, that people tend to believe what they want to believe. So, I can understand how a Kerry supporter might want to believe that a band of insurgents "looted" this stuff out from under the U.S. military's nose using 38 tractor trailers and the only road out of town -- which was, in one U.S. soldiers' words, "bumper-to-bumper" with U.S. Convoys at the time.

I, on the other hand, will believe what seems more logical. That Saddam did what he's traditionally done when threatened with invasion or bombing ... move his weapons out of a location that is likely to be bombed.

So, in other words, we invaded, and now known explosives cannot be found. Had we not invaded.....

But believe what you want.

Had we not invaded, Saddam would still be sitting on a stockpile of weapons. Would you be happier then?

honeslty, in the years from 1992-2003 were you sitting around scared and worried that saddam was gonna attack us with his "wmd's" ? honestly.