ABC News is reporting this morning that the Iraqi government may have overstated the amount of missing weapons from the Al QaQaa depot near Baghdad.

The Iraqi interim government has told the United States and international weapons inspectors that 377 tons of conventional explosives are missing from the Al-Qaqaa installation, which was supposed to be under U.S. military control.

But International Atomic Energy Agency documents obtained by ABC News and first reported on "World News Tonight with Peter Jennings" indicate the amount of missing explosives may be substantially less than the Iraqis reported.

The information on which the Iraqi Science Ministry based an Oct. 10 memo in which it reported that 377 tons of RDX explosives were missing — presumably stolen due to a lack of security — was based on "declaration" from July 15, 2002. At that time, the Iraqis said there were 141 tons of RDX explosives at the facility.

But the confidential IAEA documents obtained by ABC News show that on Jan. 14, 2003, the agency's inspectors recorded that just over three tons of RDX were stored at the facility — a considerable discrepancy from what the Iraqis reported.

This sounds more and more like the NY Times, CBS News (this was supposed to be the lead on this Sunday's 60 Minutes in an attempt to trump Bush on the eve of the election), and the Kerry campaign went off half-cocked.

"D'oh!"

Posted by: mhking at 05:17 AM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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