For the Attention Span Challenged

Remember the missing 380 tons of explosives taken from the Iraqi nuclear facility following the "catastrophic success" of the initial invasion? (link via Cursor)

The last bit of new reporting we found on the matter was a November 6 Los Angeles Times story by Mark Mazzetti, in which he reported that "a group of U.S. Army reservists and National Guardsmen ... said they witnessed the looting" of explosives from Al Qaqaa "in the weeks after the fall of Baghdad" and that they "could not prevent the theft because they were outnumbered by the looters." Mazzetti also quoted a Pentagon spokesperson, Rose-Ann Lynch, saying: "We take the report of missing munitions very seriously. And we are looking into the facts and circumstances of this incident."

Has anyone in the press since asked Rose-Ann Lynch how the Pentagon's fact-finding mission is proceeding and what's been turned up to date? Or are reporters permitting the entire matter to recede -- because the Kerry and Bush camps are no longer out there trading accusations about it, because the what-will-the-missing-explosives-mean-for-the-presidential-election angle is now moot, and now that every last pundit has weighed in on the question of with hindsight, did Kerry's embrace of the 380 tons story help or hurt his campaign?

A quick check on Google demonstrates that the media--after reporting the story--has lost interest, at least until something horrible happens--and, if it's just an "average day" where a US soldier or two is killed, well, then I guess they no longer consider it such a big deal--just a dead US soldier. I wonder what it WOULD take to get the press off their collective lard asses and look into the story...

However, while searching around for any recent stories on Al Qaqaa, I DID come across this story out of Mosul, which is as clear an indication as any why Operation Go Fallujah Ourselves actually IS a catastrophic success. It seems that just like in Baghdad, we're launching raids on the wrong houses. Call it Keystone Cops meets Depleted Uranium. It'd be comic, except that the potential for things turning deadly increases pretty dramatically when you've got heavy weaponry and you're working at night.