I know I just can't seem to get enough of this NY Times story on the missing explosives. I really feel deep in my heart that this is going to turn out to be a Dan Rather moment for the Editorial Staff.

Regardless of the information that has been coming out since last night that the U.S. military did go to Al-Qaqaa as fast as they could after the invasion and found nothing, the Times prints this howler.

President Bush's misbegotten invasion of Iraq appears to have achieved what Saddam Hussein did not: putting dangerous weapons in the hands of terrorists and creating an offshoot of Al Qaeda in Iraq.

First of all, the point of removing Saddam Hussein was to reduce the threat of terrorism in America, not in Iraq. Since there have been no terror attacks here since the invasion of Iraq and no proof that any of the missing explosives have been used by the terorists even in Iraq, this is just a scare tactic. There's not even proof that the terrorists have the explosives in the first place and the Times reports it as a fait accompli.

Furthermore, saying that these weapons can be used to trigger a nuclear device to is like saying that an oily rag in my garage could be used to ignite a molotov cocktail. We already know there are no nuclear weapons in Iraq, just like I have no gasoline filled bottles in my garage. Again - another scare tactic.

Finally, the Times does what so many on the Left have done and blown any potential bad news way out of proportion. The fact that we were successful in ridding Iraq of Saddam's government, closed down the rape rooms and torture chambers, and are on our way to establishing Democracy there, pales in comparison to the worry over some explosives that no one can even prove still exist and have never been used.