"As a measure of the size of the stockpile, one large truck can carry about 10 tons, meaning that the missing explosives could fill a fleet of almost 40 trucks."

"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."

In the Baghdad attacks, a trio of nearly simultaneous explosions killed three Iraqi civilians and wounded nine others, including six civilians and three Australian soldiers, the U.S. military said.

White House spokesman Scott McClellan played down the threat posed by explosives missing from the Al Qaqaa military installation. He said there was no threat of nuclear proliferation, and preferred to concentrate on weapons destroyed, not those lost.

"We have destroyed more than 243,000 munitions," he said. "We've secured another nearly 163,000 that will be destroyed."

Although she'd initially blamed her band, Ashlee Simpson took full responsibility Sunday for her lip-synching snafu on "Saturday Night Live," saying that her voice was ragged from too much work.

A statement from Simpson's record label blamed a "computer glitch" that triggered "a cut from her album" to play instead of a drum cue.

White House spokesman Scott McClellan played down the threat posed by lip-synching from the Saturday Night Live Perfomance. He said there was no threat from further Simpson siblings, and preferred to concentrate on the beautiful rendition of the National Anthem by James Taylor at last night's World Series instead, not those lip-synched.

All the Monday morning-quarterbacking and armchair-generaling in the world by John Kerry won't make up for the fact that he does not have a vision, a strategy or a plan to fight and win the War on Terror.