Also Monday, New York Democrat Rep. Carolyn Maloney requested a Government Accountability Office investigation into whether the missing explosives were used in terrorist attacks.

We need to know if Iraq has, in essence, become the world's supplier for terrorist material since the war began, Maloney, chair of the Homeland Security Task Force, said in a statement. "We also need to know if our troops are dying from weapons we were supposed to secure.

Have we created the possibility of a catastrophic bombing here in our homeland that didn't exist before these weapons disappeared from Iraq?

Whether the explosives were looted, a portion destroyed by air strikes during the war or later by U.S. forces during the occupation, or dispersed in advance of the war by Saddam Hussein's forces is not yet clear, a Pentagon official said Monday on condition of anonymity.

Officials at the Pentagon suspect all or some of the material was looted and is now being used by insurgents.

You just can't leave a guard at every place, an official said.

White House spokesman Scott McClellan said Monday securing the site was not a top priority immediately after the war, raising the prospect it was one of thousands in Iraq that was looted.

There were a number of priorities at the end of Operation Iraqi Freedom, McClellan told reporters on Air Force One between President George W. Bush's campaign stops. And munitions... were literally spread throughout the country, McClellan told reporters on Air Force One between President George W. Bush's campaign stops."

Because the explosives were conventional rather than nuclear, chemical or biological, the site was not high on the priority list to protect by U.S. forces or the Iraq Survey Group, a 1,500-strong military and CIA team sent to Iraq on a so-far fruitless search for Saddam's weapons of mass destruction, McClellan said.

The first priority, from our standpoint, was to make sure that this wasn't a nuclear proliferation risk, which it is not, he said. These are conventional high explosives that we are talking about.

A Pentagon official said with more than 10,000 known weapons sites around Iraq -- some of them vast dumps, others single buildings -- it would have taken tens of thousands of U.S. forces to protect them all. There were about 160,000 U.S. forces in the invading party.

Given the number of arms and the number of caches and the extent of militarization of Iraq, it was impossible to provide 100 percent security for 100 percent of the sites, quite frankly, said U.S. State Department deputy spokesman Adam Ereli Monday.

Some of the 70,000 Iraqis in the facilities protective service have been assigned to protect weapons sites, but their effectiveness is doubtful. U.S. military officials warned Congress a year ago Iraqi forces were susceptible to bribery. Moreover, there has been a monthslong intimidation and assassination campaign against Iraqi forces considered to be cooperating with U.S. forces.

The Pentagon says the military has destroyed 243,000 tons of munitions with another 163,000 tons earmarked for destruction. It is unclear how many tons of munitions there were in all of Iraq prior to the war. However, in October 2003, the commander of U.S. forces in the Middle East told Congress there were at least 650,000 tons of ammunition at thousands of unsecured sites around Iraq.

There is more ammunition in Iraq than any place I've ever been in my life ... and it is all not securable, said Central Command chief Gen. John Abizaid to the Senate Appropriations Committee. I wish I could tell you that we had it all under control, but we don't.

That ammunition has been put to use against U.S., coalition and Iraqi forces and citizens by the insurgency in Iraq. Improvised roadside and car bombs have claimed hundreds of lives in Iraq since the end of the war.

The Iraqi government informed the International Atomic Energy Agency, the U.N. nuclear watchdog, on Oct. 10 it could not account for the explosives supposed to be stored at the al-Qaqaa warehouse complex in northern Babil province, about 30 miles south of Baghdad. The IAEA informed the U.S. government of the missing explosives on Oct. 15.

The last IAEA inspection of the site in January 2003 -- two months prior to the war -- noted the presence of some 380 tons of high-melting point explosives, rapid detonation explosives and pentaerythritol tetranitrate, which is used to manufacture detonating fuses, blasting caps, and pharmaceuticals (vasodilators). All are considered dual-use items, which is why they fell under the IAEA's authority.

Exactly what transpired at al-Qaqaa between January 2003 and October 2004 is unclear.

The Iraqi government said the explosives were looted after April 9, 2003, when Baghdad fell to U.S. forces, McClellan said.

Pentagon officials said Monday they did not know the data on which the Iraqi government was basing that information, as it was only recently given the list of sensitive and weapons sites that it needs to secure.

Like many of the more than 10,000 weapons supply points in Iraq discovered by U.S. forces, al-Qaqaa has been looted at some point since the American invasion, a Pentagon official confirmed. What was there to be looted remains unclear.

The official confirmed: U.S. troops have been in there and looked around, and reported what was there, like in any other munitions site.

Coalition forces searched 32 bunkers and 87 other buildings at the facility looking for nuclear, chemical and biological weapons, Ereli said.

Some explosive material at the time was discovered, although none of it carried IAEA seals, and this discovery was reported to coalition forces for removal of the material, he said.

Records indicating what the troops found and when have not yet been publicly released. Another official said the search for those records could take a couple of days, as the military commanders who were on the scene may have to be tracked down before logs can be located.

Ereli and McClellan both downplayed the importance of the missing explosives when compared to the vast amount of munitions in Iraq.

This is 350 tons from a total of over almost 400,000 tons that is unaccounted for. It's important, it's significant, but let's put it in the proper perspective, Ereli said.

News of the missing munitions quickly entered the presidential campaign, with Democratic nominee Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., pointing to it as more evidence the war and occupation of Iraq were mistakes.

This is one of the great additional blunders of Iraq, Kerry said at a campaign stop in Philadelphia. The unbelievable incompetence of this administration step after step has put our troops at greater and greater risk, overextended the American military, isolated the United States, (and) put a greater financial burden on the American people.

McClellan defended Bush's decision to put only the minimal number of U.S. troops in Iraq to win the war, saying he was heeding military advice.

One of the lessons we've learned of history is that it's important to listen to the commanders on the ground and our military leaders when it comes to troop levels, he said. And that's what this president has always done. And they've said that we have the troop levels we need to complete the mission and succeed in Iraq.

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