Drudge has his front page smeared with rantings about a blame-the-Russians
Washington Times piece. John A. "Jack" Shaw, deputy undersecretary for international technology security is quoted as having "reliable information" that Russia is behind the 342 tons of missing explosives from al Qaqaa.
Since trust is an important factor in this campaign season, you should know that John Shaw is not the poster child for trust.
After disguising himself as an employee of Halliburton Co, Shaw urged government officials to fix the alleged problems he found when he got access to a port in southern Iraq, directing multimillion-dollar contracts to companies linked to his friends, without competitive bidding. According to an
LA Times story of July 6, 2004, Shaw has also tried to steer a contract to create an emergency phone network for Iraq's security forces to a company whose board of directors included a friend and one of Shaw's employees. The inspector general's office has turned over an inquiry into Shaw's actions to the FBI.
Knowing that Shaw used the rebuilding effort in Iraq to reward associates and/or political allies makes him less than a credible source, especially in the last week of the presidential campaign season. I think Shaw is doing it again. He's lying again while trying to secure a great job for one of his cronies. This time it's George W. Bush.
At a time when Putin is practically campaigning for Bush, it's interesting that anyone in the Bush administration would make these accusations about Russia. You would think this would be a time when the administration would be particularly sensitive toward Russia. After all, Russia has suspected the U.S. has supported anti-Russian Chechen forces in an effort to keep Russia pinned down. After the Beslan incident, Presidents Putin and Bush could have been holding an anti-terrorism summit and the two countries could have been expanding security cooperation with a focus on anti-terrorism. British prime minister Tony Blair has understood the importance of playing a leading role in developing a strong relationship with Russia after the Beslan terror attack. It is not so with the Bush administration. The Bush campaign has found it politically necessary to accuse Russia of ripping off the 342 tons of explosives. Another Bush International Affairs blunder.
The Russian embassy in Washington has rejected John Shaw's current claims as "nonsense", saying there were no Russian military in the country at the time. "I am unaware of any particular information on that point," said Larry Di Rita, Pentagon spokesman.
The Russian Defense ministry calls Shaw's claims "farfetched".
Russia has called for the United Nations Security Council to discuss the return of UN weapons inspectors to Iraq following the disappearance of the 342 metric tons of high explosives in the country. U.S. Ambassador to the UN John Danforth, did not back new UN involvement in weapons searches in Iraq. Danforth said the most immediate need was to find out when the explosives disappeared and what happened to them. He said this was a job that would be best carried out by the CIA-led Iraq Survey Group.
U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage said he was shocked by the report of the missing explosives, adding: "Looks to me like somehow the multinational force didn't stay on top of this." Mr. Armitage agreed the missing explosives had created a dangerous situation, according to a transcript of his Monday interview with the Arab-language newspaper al-Hayat released by the State Department.
Bush remains mum about the missing explosives. He is concentrating upon publically accusing John Kerry of milking the story in the heat of the presidential campaign, avoiding any accountability, action that has become the hallmark of Bush's lack of character.
This story is the unintended October surprise. I'd been expecting the surprise to come from the other side.
Karl the Goliath Rove has been taken down by a systematic dismantling of the myth he'd created. It was the myth of Bush's great leadership.
The October surprise is simply the truth catching up with Bush's lies, ineptitude, hubris, and secrecy.
IDDYBUD