The lede in tomorrow’s Times story about al <$NoAd$>Qaqaa …
White House officials reasserted yesterday that 380 tons of powerful explosives may have disappeared from a vast Iraqi military complex while Saddam Hussein controlled Iraq, saying a brigade of American soldiers did not find the explosives when they visited the complex on April 10, 2003, the day after Baghdad fell.
But the unit’s commander said in an interview yesterday that his troops had not searched the facility and had merely stopped there for the night on their way to Baghdad.
And then there’s this …
President Bush’s aides told reporters that because the soldiers had found no trace of the missing explosives on April 10, the explosives could have been removed before the American invasion. They based their assertions on a report broadcast by NBC News on Monday night that showed video footage of the 101st arriving at Al Qaqaa.
By yesterday afternoon, as Mr. Bush made his way through Wisconsin and Iowa, his aides had moderated their view, saying it was a “mystery” when the explosives disappeared. They said that it could have happened before or after the invasion and that Mr. Bush did not want to comment on the matter until the facts were known.
Reduced to hanging their hat on the say-so of the NBC News crew. Splendid.
Much more on this, this evening. But for now, those grafs above pretty much say it all, don’t they?
