In the waning hours of the presidential campaign Kerry and the legacy media, particularly the New York Times, alleged that the Administration had failed to guard the sealed IAEA  weapons caches, allowing the insurgents to steal the very dangerous stocks of HMX. Many have argued that it was an error for Kerry to have made this an issue, contending it only focused attention on defense issues, Bush's strong suit. And there was a well—founded suspicion that it was ElBaradei, the head of the IAEA, who had purposely leaked this story to affect the election.
 
New details in today's Independent indicate the whole story may have been false, that the HMX was stolen by Saddam before we had control of these weapons and that, ironically, it may have been used in the attack on the UN headquarters. 
 
As American forces closed in on Baghdad last year, senior members of Saddam Hussein's government devised a plan to send suicide bombers in vehicles packed with devastating high—energy explosives that were under UN safeguards.

The disappearance of the explosive, known as HMX (high melting explosives), in mysterious circumstances at the end of the war caused a few nasty moments for President George Bush's presidential election campaign last month.

A letter to Saddam from Dr Naji Sabri, the Iraqi Foreign Minister, five days before the fall of Baghdad, suggests taking the HMX from underground bunkers, where it had been kept under seal by the International Atomic Energy Agency, and giving it to suicide bombers.

He wrote: "It is possible to increase the explosive power of the suicide—driven cars by using the highly explosive material [HMX] which is sealed by the International Atomic Energy Agency [IAEA] and stored in the warehouses of the Military Industry Departments."

The Iraqi regime took credit for several suicide bombs towards the end of the war. After the fall of Saddam, one of the worst attacks — which killed 22 UN workers and the special envoy, Sergio Vieira de Mello, in August 2003 — had an explosive force that could only have come from military grade explosives.

Clarice Feldman  12 2 04