I can't lift a ton, so I have no intuitive feel for how heavy that is. But I can lift a pound, so I can at least get my head around the realization that 760,000 pounds is...is...well, hell, it's one big pile of "the strongest and fastest" explosives used in the world.

Say about a pound of high explosive per "improvised explosive device". That potentially puts 760,000 bombs under, around, or thrown at our troops and Iraqis. I'd guess only a fraction that many have been exploded so far to reach today's body count.

I've seen what just a gram of C4 can do. That's about the load in a .22 bullet. 28 grams to the ounce, 16 ounces to the pound...340-some million loads big enough to injure or kill a lot of people in "improvised antipersonnel weapons" or simply reloaded bullets.

And sure, it could be used to detonate nuclear warheads. But who needs to build tens of thousands of nukes? A truckload might've gone to Iran, but that leaves a couple of hundred truckloads probably still in Iraq. Thousands of car bombs waiting for targets.

The reason I mention all this is that as Bush's jihadists throw themselves on this latest grenade, their defense is a lame attempt to minimize the scale of the screwup and claim it's being blown out of proportion. That's easy to do when you bandy about small numbers like 380 tons. But I'm telling ya, 380 tons--760,000 pounds--of "the strongest and fastest" explosives loose in Iraq is really, really, bad news. People will die because of this latest screwup.

So I'd agree with Don's statement that "We have incomptents running this country." And add the question, when does sheer incompetence turn into criminal incompetence?