NationStates Jolt Archive

Here's the last non-RNC, non-SBVFT, non-PFA, non-whatever, Bush Campaign Ad of the season.. now, I'm not saying, as some are, that the ad will propel Bush from a would-be modest win to a more decisive one, but there's enough people that think so to warrant raising the question, I think.

http://www.georgewbush.com/default.aspx?x=1

Click the green "Play" button and chose a media player.

So here's the question: with the "missing explosives" story falling apart, do you think the "landslide faction" will be swayed in the last week, leading to a landslide by the incumbent, or do you think the ads have been too thick to this point for one more to have any meaning? I'm asking because, being in California, I don't have much of a sense of the ad climate in other states. Which is kinda nice, in some ways. ;)

Here's the last non-RNC, non-SBVFT, non-PFA, non-whatever, Bush Campaign Ad of the season.. now, I'm not saying, as some are, that the ad will propel Bush from a would-be modest win to a more decisive one, but there's enough people that think so to warrant raising the question, I think.

http://www.georgewbush.com/default.aspx?x=1

Click the green "Play" button and chose a media player.

So here's the question: with the "missing explosives" story falling apart, do you think the "landslide faction" will be swayed in the last week, leading to a landslide by the incumbent, or do you think the ads have been to thick to this point for one more to have any meaning? I'm asking because, being in California, I don't have much of a sense of the ad climate in other states. Which is kinda nice, in some ways. ;)
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - 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.

Uhh...falling apart:
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.

Diplomats said the IAEA had cautioned the United States about the danger of the explosives before the war, and after the invasion told U.S. officials about the need to keep them secured.

Perkins said he did not believe that his forces had been informed the IAEA previously had marked and sealed explosives at the site. "This was just another one of those sites that the process was no different. It was no less stringent or more stringent," he told reporters.

Perkins said the key concern at the time was whether there were any weapons of mass destruction, particularly chemical weapons, and that a white powdery substance found at the site proved to be a WMD false alarm.

Bush and Pentagon officials said the material might have been moved from the site before U.S. forces arrived.

Perkins also said it was "very highly improbable" that enemy forces could have trucked out such a huge amount of explosives in the weeks after U.S. forces first arrived there, considering the high level of U.S. military presence and how clogged the roads around the site were with U.S. convoys.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - 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.

Perkins also said it was "very highly improbable" that enemy forces could have trucked out such a huge amount of explosives in the weeks after U.S. forces first arrived there, considering the high level of U.S. military presence and how clogged the roads around the site were with U.S. convoys.

The satellite imaging evidence indicates exactly this.

http://www.washingtontimes.com/national/20041027-101153-4822r.htm

Maybe the NYT will bury it, but we'll see. ;)

Also, to our (and our allies') credit, we've found 640,000 tons of explosives in Iraq, and dealt with 40% of it so far, so we're talking about 377 out of 640,000 tons of explosives that were gone before we got there, which were moved 2 years ago, being raised as a campaign issue 6 days out. The public isn't that stupid. ;)

The satellite imaging evidence indicates exactly this.

http://www.washingtontimes.com/national/20041027-101153-4822r.htm

Maybe the NYT will bury it, but we'll see. ;)

Also, to our (and our allies') credit, we've found 640,000 tons of explosives in Iraq, and dealt with 40% of it so far, so we're talking about 377 out of 640,000 tons of explosives that were gone before we got there, which were moved 2 years ago, being raised as a campaign issue 6 days out. The public isn't that stupid. ;)
Dead link.

Dead link.

The link's fine, it's just that it's the headline at drudgereport still, so there's about a million people (literally) trying to access it right now.