Criminally Incompetent

FRAGGING: assassination of an officer by his own troops, usually by means of a grenade

Those of us who are old enough to remember the Vietnam war remember "fragging" of incompetent officers. If I were Donald Rumsfeld I wouldn't turn my back on anybody in the Pentagon. As first reported by Josh Marshall and now the subject of a front page story in the New York Times, 380 tons of high explosives are missing from one of Iraq's most sensitive former military installations, Al Qaqaa. Before the invasion it had been under lock down by the IAEA because the explosives, HMX and RDX can used to trigger nuclear weapons. According to the Times:

The International Atomic Energy Agency publicly warned about the danger of these explosives before the war, and after the invasion it specifically told United States officials about the need to keep the explosives secured, European diplomats said in interviews last week. Administration officials say they cannot explain why the explosives were not safeguarded, beyond the fact that the occupation force was overwhelmed by the amount of munitions they found throughout the country.

In addition to being used as a trigger for nuclear weapons they can also be used to produce conventional bombs strong enough to shatter airplanes or tear apart buildings. Less than a pound of it was used to bring down Pan Am Flight 103. If it hasn't been used to kill Americans in Iraq already it probably will be.

In a sense it is such a powerful explosive it could be considered a Weapon of Mass Destruction. The U.S. knew where it was and was warned about it but still let it walk off. It is now, in all probability, in the hands of terrorists. The U.S. "was overwhelmed by the amount of munitions they found". Well Donald Rumsfeld, is that because we didn't have enough troops?

Donald Rumsfeld and other civilian officials in the Pentagon should be charged with criminal negligence and treason. Why does Donald Rumsfeld hate America so much?

UPDATE
Atrios reports that the Kerry campaign has jumped on this bombshell as they should.