Allowing terrorists to steal 380 TONS of high explosives is a crime. But as Josh Marshall points up, there's something more here -- not just a crime, but
a coverup:
One administration official told Nelson, "This is the stuff the bad guys have been using to kill our troops, so you can't ignore the political implications of this, and you would be correct to suspect that politics, or the fear of politics, played a major role in delaying the release of this information." ...
But what's possibly the most damning aspect of this is the level of dishonesty, subterfuge and cover-up. What's clear in Nelson's and TPM's reporting is that the administration has known about this for at least a year. But they've gone to great lengths to hide the facts both from monitoring organizations like the IAEA but also, by extension, from the American public. ...
As I've noted, the White House and the Pentagon have known for more than a year that this stuff had gone missing. But the White House, according to TPM sources, has known that this story was coming for at least ten days. Again, not just the underlying facts -- that the stuff had been stolen and was being used against American troops (they've known that for more than a year) -- but the fact that this story was going to break in the not too distant future. And they've been hoping it could be pushed back until
after the election.
As another administration source told Nelson, "What the hell were WE doing in the year and a half from the time we knew the stuff was gone, is obviously a huge question, and you can imagine why no one [in the Administration] wants to face up to it, certainly not before the election."
Another told Nelson, "You would be correct to suspect that politics, or the fear of politics, played a major role in delaying the release of this information."
Let's make sure everyone understands -- it's not just the crime of letting terrorists get their hands on "the largest explosives bonanza in history" -- it's also the attempt by Team Bush to COVER IT UP.