Holy Tons of Stolen High Explosives, Batman!!!

A big story's popped up over the weekend about 350 tons of high explosives (RDX and HMX, for those keeping score at home) stolen from a Baathist military compound in Iraq sometime after the war. The explosives, which can be used to blow up vehicles—or trigger nuclear weapons—apparently were hauled away by some large-scale operation. Because these were a classic 'dual use' product, for construction, military and WMD purposes, was the old Iraq permitted to keep such stockpiles. However, the International Atomic Energy Agency had tagged the stockpiles

So, in a sense, they were at least tied to the international system that was supposed to defend us from the anarchy of their widespread distribution. Which is exactly what has occurred.

Josh Marshall at TalkingPointsMemo.com broke the munitions story to the Internet, quoting the Nelson Report. He has followed up the story with several posts. The New York Times has a story out on the munitions now, as well.

Only now has the 'interim' Iraqi government officially notified the IAEA that they disappeared. Apparently the Bush administration was hoping that this could be covered up until after Nov. 2. Unfortunately, the Iraqis are now left carrying the ball of exposing the disastrous occupation policies, and how avoidable the disaster has been.

The Nelson Report writeup has quotes from military people saying that this stuff probably plays a huge role in providing the explosives that rip through American military vehicles and personnel on a regular basis.

This should provide all sorts of flak for the hypercharged political week we're looking at. Hell, it could finally drive home the 'malicious incompetence' meme that just hasn't quite stuck since Abu Ghraib went down the mental Novocain hole of our domestic media environment.

This is only the latest episode in the whole disturbing arms-cache saga. I had a very bad feeling when the U.S. soldiers started running across piles of guns all over the country. Yet now we find that we even managed to lose the tagged explosives.

Honestly, why should I bother trying to avoid losing things when the Pentagon can't even track TONS OF EXPLOSIVES IN A CONQUERED COUNTRY?

Have a happy week, everyone. Try not to visualize how much trouble you could cause with just one ton of this stuff.

Then multiply by three-fifty.