Bush wants us to believe the 350 ton weapons cache "may" have gone missing from al Qa Qaa before U.S. troops arrived. An Iraqi official responds that is an impossible scenario:

A top Iraqi science official said it was impossible that 350 tonnes of high explosives could have been smuggled out of a military site south of Baghdad before the regime fell last year.

The official is Mohammed al-Sharaa, head of the science ministry's site monitoring department. He worked with UN weapons inspectors while Saddam was in power.

The officials that were inside this facility (Al-Qaqaa) beforehand confirm that not even a shred of paper left it before the fall and I spoke to them about it and they even issued certified statements to this effect which the US-led coalition was aware of."

Sharaa also warned that other nearby sites with similar materials could have also been plundered. "The Al-Milad Company in Iskandariyah and the Yarmouk and Hateen facilities contained explosive materials that could have also been taken out," the official told AFP in an interview.

Who's in charge of the area now? It doesn't sound like we are.

The area in Babil province...is now one of the most dangerous parts of the country rife with crime, kidnappings and attacks. Several headless bodies hav been found in the area, according to marines stationed there.

It may be already too late to salvage many of these sites, which are controlled by bandits and beyond the control of Iraqi forces," warned Sharaa.