Iraq Notebook

Conventional explosives vanish from military site

BAGHDAD - The Iraqi interim government has warned the United States and international nuclear inspectors that nearly 380 tons of powerful conventional explosives - used to demolish buildings, produce missile warheads and detonate nuclear weapons - are missing from one of Iraq's most sensitive former military installations.

The huge facility, Al-Qaqaa, was supposed to be under U.S. military control but is now a no-man's land, still picked over by looters as recently as Sunday. U.N. weapons inspectors had monitored the explosives for many years, but White House and Pentagon officials acknowledge that the explosives vanished after the U.S. invasion last year.

The White House said President Bush's national security adviser, Condoleezza Rice, was informed within the past month that the explosives were missing. It is unclear whether Bush was informed.

Reports that CIA moved inmates alarm senators

WASHINGTON - A report that the CIA secretly transferred detainees out of Iraq for interrogation without notifying the Red Cross drew criticism Sunday from key members of Congress.

"The thing that separates us from the enemy is our respect for human rights," Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., said on ABC's This Week.

McCain was responding to a report in Sunday's Washington Post that as many as a dozen detainees had been moved out of Iraq over the past six months, a possible violation of the Geneva Convention.

McCain said this latest disclosure is "another argument for new bosses at the CIA" and overhaul of the nation's intelligence-gathering operation.

Sen. Joseph R. Biden Jr. of Delaware, senior Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said the disclosure also showed a need for "new leadership" at the Justice Department.

Also...

BRITISH TROOPS: Political opponents of Prime Minister Tony Blair launched a renewed attack on his handling of the Iraq conflict Sunday, as British soldiers prepared to move deeper into the country to support U.S. troops.

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