Thursday, October 28, 2004
Troops not ordered to check for explosives
So that excuse Bush has been using is now MUTE!
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So that excuse Bush has been using is now MUTE!
The first U.S. military unit to reach the site in Iraq (news - web sites) where U.N. officials say 377 tons of high explosives are missing did not carry out a hunt for such material, the unit's commander said on Wednesday.
Col. Dave Perkins, then the commander of the 2nd Brigade of the Army's 3rd Infantry Division, said the immediate concern when his troops reached the Al Qaqaa site on April 3, 2003, was to defeat a couple of hundred Iraqi troops who were firing from the compound as the Americans surged toward Baghdad.
The missing explosives have become a key issue heading into Tuesday's U.S. presidential election, with President Bush (news - web sites)'s Democratic challenger, Sen. John Kerry (news - web sites), saying the administration's failure to safeguard the material revealed the president's "incredible incompetence."
Bush said Kerry was a candidate who "jumps to conclusions without knowing the facts."
The Pentagon (news - web sites) arranged the media briefing as Bush tries to limit political damage from the issue.
The missing explosives had been monitored by inspectors from the Vienna-based International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) until the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in March 2003.
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