Interesting.
CBS Evening News just did a follow-up on the missing explosives story and it adds a few new facts to the mix.
First of all, remember how yesterday Scott McClellan said that,”the Pentagon, upon learning of [the disappearance of the explosives], directed the multinational forces and the Iraqi Survey Group to look into this matter, and that’s what they are currently doing.”
CBS talked to the Chief of the Iraq Survey Group, Charlie Duelfer, in Baghdad and he says he hasn’t gotten any order like that.
Duelfer does say something that may provide some grist for the White House’s defenders. At this point, he says, he doesn’t think the stuff is even worth looking for.
Here’s the text from the CBS press release …
“It’s hard for me to get that worked up about it,” Duelfer said in a phone interview from Baghdad, adding that Iraq is awash in hundreds of thousands of tons of explosives.
And how about the first troops who arrived on the scene and didn’t find any weapons? Maybe not.
The commander of the first unit into the area told CBS he did not search it for explosives or secure it from looters. “We were still in a fight,” he said. “our focus was killing bad guys.” He added he would have needed four times more troops to search and secure all the ammo dumps he came across.
Too few troops?
