Shortly after I moved to the Bay Area, my then-girlfriend, mocking my east coast tastes, wanted to show me what real Mexican food was. She took me to a little hole-in-the-wall joint famous for the cooking of some region or another with handwritten menus and, a real rarity, actual Mexicans in the kitchen. Looking over their specials and flexing my high school Spanish, I zeroed in on one of the few vegetarian items on the menu, chile verde. Needless to say, I was more than a bit surprised and irritated when my green chiles ended up surrounded by chunks of pork. My righteous indignation knew no bounds as I tersely explained to the waitress that I couldn’t possibly have ordered an entree consisting of meat. Somehow I managed to reel myself in before a food fight broke out, but certainly not with my dignity intact. After getting schooled by just about everyone who heard the story, I learned a few things: It’s never a good idea to yell at people who make minimum wage, chile verde always contains pork, and if you must get indignant, at least make sure you’re in the right.

On Monday, during a yet another attempt to win the Iraq war with words, the President said:

Earlier this year, a newspaper published details of a new anti-IED technology that was being developed. Within five days of the publication — using details from that article — the enemy had posted instructions for defeating this new technology on the Internet.

We cannot let the enemy know how we’re working to defeat him. But I can assure the American people that my administration is working to put the best technology in the hands of our men and women on the front lines — and we are mobilizing resources against the IED threat.

Bush’s scorn directed at the Los Angeles Times however, was misplaced:

The article said that even though the device had passed a battery of military utility tests, and a prototype had destroyed about 90% of the improvised explosives laid in its path during testing, the neutralizer units had still not been sent to combat units in Iraq.

The delay had angered some in the military, who noted that it had been 10 months since then-Deputy Defense Secretary Paul D. Wolfowitz recommended investing $30 million in research and immediately sending the neutralizer prototypes to Iraq for testing.

The article did not provide specific information about the technology, and The Times deliberately withheld some details about the neutralizers from its report.

The Emperor is often wrong, but on this topic, (where he is clearly not wearing any clothes) the hypocrisy is breathtaking. While trying to puff up his pathetic effort to supply the troops with much needed supplies (armor?) he blames everyone but himself. Including Iran:

Some of the most powerful IEDs we’re seeing in Iraq today includes components that came from Iran. Our Director of National Intelligence, John Negroponte, told the Congress, “Tehran has been responsible for at least some of the increasing lethality of anti-coalition attacks by providing Shia militia with the capability to build improvised explosive devises” in Iraq. Coalition forces have seized IEDs and components that were clearly produced in Iran.

Nothing like using the current debacle to advance the case for the next one. Except

Asked whether the United States has proof that Iran’s government was behind these developments, Marine Corps Gen. Peter Pace, chairman of the military’s Joint Chiefs of Staff, told a Pentagon briefing, “I do not, sir.”

Of course Bush’s words carry more weight than Pace’s, both because of the difference in rank and the ease with which the Iran implication fits the grand narrative. And there’s nothing the lazy, history-and-context-free press corps loves more than a neatly packaged story, ready to print. But hiding in plain sight is the 380 tons of HMX and RDX stolen from the Al Qaqaa weapons depot while it went unguarded due to insufficient troop levels after the invasion of Iraq:

The explosives missing from Al Qaqaa are the strongest and fastest in common use by militaries around the globe. The Iraqi letter identified the vanished stockpile as containing 194.7 metric tons of HMX, which stands for “high melting point explosive,” 141.2 metric tons of RDX, which stands for “rapid detonation explosive,” among other designations, and 5.8 metric tons of PETN, which stands for “pentaerythritol tetranitrate.”
[...]
Experts said the insensitivity made them safer to transport than the millions of unexploded shells, mines and pieces of live ammunition that litter Iraq. And its benign appearance makes it easy to disguise as harmless goods, easily slipped across borders. “The immediate danger” of the lost stockpile, said an expert who recently led a team that searched Iraq for deadly arms, “is its potential use with insurgents in very small and powerful explosive devices. The other danger is that it can easily move into the terrorist web across the Middle East.”

Bush hasn’t fulfilled his duty to supply the troops with what they need to win the war, and his reliance on the incompetent Donald Rumsfeld resulted directly in the unnecessary deaths of many soldiers, and indirectly in the deaths of many more due to the looted explosives from Al Qaqaa. Indignantly blaming the Times for pointing out his failure and deflecting the blame to Iran is brazen even for this President. The press’ selective amnesia assures that he’ll get away with it again. That might be OK for a rude restaurant patron, it’s unforgivable when it involves the most powerful man in the world and those charged with delivering the truth.