KSTP News crew may have videotaped al-Qaqaa weapons?

This story was gleefully sent to me by one of my friends in the fever swamp of the left:

Using GPS technology and talking with members of the 101st Airborne Division, 5 EYEWITNESS NEWS has determined the crew embedded with the troops may have been on the southern edge of the Al Qaqaa installation, where the ammunition disappeared. The news crew was based just south of Al Qaqaa, and drove two or three miles north of there with soldiers on April 18, 2003.

During that trip, members of the 101st Airborne Division showed the 5 EYEWITNESS NEWS news crew bunker after bunker of material labelled "explosives." Usually it took just the snap of a bolt cutter to get into the bunkers and see the material identified by the 101st as detonation cords.

. . .

Once the doors to the bunkers were opened, they weren't secured. They were left open when the 5 EYEWITNESS NEWS crew and the military went back to their base.

"We weren't quite sure what were looking at, but we saw so much of it and it didn't appear that this was being secured in any way," said photojournalist Joe Caffrey. "It was several miles away from where military people were staying in their tents".

Officers with the 101st Airborne told 5 EYEWITNESS NEWS that the bunkers were within the U.S. military perimeter and protected. But Caffrey and former 5 EYEWITNESS NEWS Reporter Dean Staley, who spent three months together in Iraq, said Iraqis were coming and going freely.

"At one point there was a group of Iraqis driving around in a pick-up truck,"Staley said. "Three or four guys we kept an eye on, worried they might come near us."

Clearly three or four guys in a pickup truck aren't going to cart away the alleged 380 tons of explosives. But how secure was the facility?

UPDATE: More here.

A 5 Eyewitness News crew in Iraq may have been just a door away from materials that could be used to detonate nuclear weapons. The evidence is in videotape shot by Reporter Dean Staley and Photographer Joe Caffrey at or near the Al Qaqaa munitions facility.

The video shows a cable locking a door shut. That cable is connected by a copper colored seal.

A spokesperson for the International Atomic Energy Agency told 5 Eyewitness News that seal appears to be one used by their inspectors. "In Iraq they were used when there was a concern that this could have a, what we call, dual use purpose, that there could be a nuclear weapons application."

Needless to say, my fever swamp pal is quite giddy about all this.

Further thoughts: I find it quite telling that the left is dancing a jig over the thought that Iraqi insurgents may have made off with tons of weapons. They don't care if it endangers our soldiers. They're just happy that it might help get John Kerry elected.