“This is thousands and thousands of potential terrorist attacks … It’s like they knocked off the Fort Knox of explosives.”

— Joseph Cirincione, director of the Non-Proliferation Project at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, speaking about the approximately 350 tons of explosives that have been thieved from the al-Qaqaa military complex in Iraq.

Mohamed ElBaradei, director-general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, informed the UN Security Council of the theft last night. According to ElBaradei’s report, these explosives — which consist primarily of HMX and RDX, crucial ingredients in the types of plastic explosives that have been used to devastating effect in car bombs in Iraq — went missing during America’s watch. It was during the “theft and looting of governmental installations,” that occurred in the days following April 9, 2003, that these explosives disappeared into the ether. Mission accomplished, indeed, Mr. Bush.      

Mimi Hanaoka