Blame it on the Rooskies

Also known as the "grasping at straws theory," Bush administration officials are now floating the idea that the missing explosives from Al Qaqaa are a dirty rotten commie plot. I guess Vlad Putin is expendable.

As you might expect, the Russians themselves deny this, noting they had no "official" military presence after 1991. Regardless, I think the sight of 10 ton trucks leaving a known weapons site--whether alone or in groups--would catch the attention of military planners here in the United States. If NOTHING else, our satellites and reconnasiance aircraft would have seen trucks entering and leaving.

As usual, though, blogs are teasing out the real story--Kos notes the window of opportunity for the Russians would have been roughly one month, as the IAEA inspected the site just prior to March 2003. If trucks entering and leaving THE MOST SENSITIVE SITE in the country weren't being observered and/or monitored--why not? Atrios links to this KTSP story out of Minneapolis. The station had embedded reporters traveling with the 101st Airborne, and were at the site in April 2003. Their reporters were shown "bunker after bunker of material labelled 'explosives.'" This was after the Russians supposedly cleared the site.

And, as usual, Juan Cole has some of the best information and analysis:

Despite the new attempt to defend Bush from charges of incompetence over the disappearance of 380 tons of dual-use explosives (which can be used to detonate nuclear bombs) from the al-Qaqaa facility in Iraq, there is really no excuse. The Pentagon's attempt to maintain that the facility was inspected in early April by US troops has fallen apart. It has 1000 buildings, and the troops had no orders to search them exhaustively. Thus, the statement that they did not see the stickers of the International Atomic Energy Commission does not in fact suggest that the explosives were already gone. It indicates that they didn't have time to see much of the facility.

The Bush administration, which touted "personal responsibility" upon arriving in Washington, once again seeks to pawn the blame off on others. David Englin of Ripple of Hope noted that even Rudolph Guiliani has gotten into the act--by blaming the troops themselves. See, it's THEIR fault for following orders--orders which seemed to involve the strategic toppling of statues while ignoring weapons. Ahh, but these weren't THE weapons, you know, the magic weapons providing four more years of absolute power. No, they were just plain old weapons of the variety that kill and maim, and thus of no concern to Bush, who wouldn't get caught dead--no pun intended--in any situation involving danger. No, it's blame the Russians, blame John Kerry, blame the media, blame, blame, lame, lame, lame.

One thing I've noticed--Bush sure is looking desperate--between non-stop campaigning, which shows what he REALLY cares about (hint: not the troops, not his role as commander in chief), and his weird invocation of Democratic icons, it looks like Bush might be envisioning his not-so-triumphant return to Crawford.

Four years too late, if you ask me.