The latest bad news in the war in Iraq isn’t as gruesome as a videotaped beheading or as graphic as 50 Iraqi soldiers killed execution-style, but it’s a lot more terrifying: Nearly 380 tons of explosives are missing from a former Iraqi military installation that Saddam Hussein used to make conventional warheads. They were probably stolen by insurgents.

These aren’t typical weapons — the stolen explosives, are key components of plastic explosives that brought down Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, in 1988. Only a pound of this material was used. Slightly larger amounts were used to destroy a Moscow apartment complex in 1999 and killed nearly 300 people.

So whose fault is the loss of the explosives? Bush supporters have let the president off the hook, calling the theft an example of the difficulties faced in any war (The Wall Street Journal downplayed the theft as an example of war being “a trial-and-error business”).

Meanwhile, John Kerry points the blame of the weapons disappearance directly at President Bush, virtually telling his supporters that Bush waved insurgents into the weapons facility, one by one, and handed them a gift-basket of explosives. While Kerry isn’t this blunt, he proclaims at stump speeches that “the incredible incompetence of this president and this administration has put our troops at risk, put this country at greater risk than we all need.”

This is a simplified view of the situation, but, unfortunately, it’s not too far from the truth.

In May, an internal International Atomic Energy Agency memorandum warned that if the United States doesn’t keep the bunker secure and terrorists find the weapons, they might be helping “themselves to the greatest explosives bonanza in history,” according to The New York Times.

And the United States didn’t keep it secure. The facility was still being picked over by looters as recently as last Sunday.

Although it’s impossible for the American occupation to keep track of all weapons in Iraq, letting 380 tons of explosives slip through their fingers is considerably more than a mistake, considering that the IAEA specifically told the United States after the Iraq invasion to keep track of the bunker.

In order to fix the situation, the Bush administration needs to do two things. First, it must stop downplaying the weapons disappearance as simple Democratic campaign rhetoric. This is a great security risk.

Second, the U.S. must start heeding the warnings of groups like the IAEA and securing weapons sites. Although the Bush administration has managed to destroy 243,000 munitions in Iraq and secure another 163,000, this is a game that leaves little room for error.