Document Details WMD Recovered In Iraq

Posted on June 21, 2006

Sen. Rick Santorum (R-Pa.) and Rep. Peter Hoekstra (R-Mich.) announced Wednesday the finding of over 500 munitions or weapons of mass destruction, specifically “sarin- and mustard-filled projectiles,” in Iraq.

Reading from unclassified portions of a document developed by the U.S. intelligence community, Santorum said, “Since 2003, coalition forces have recovered approximately 500 weapons munitions which contain degraded mustard or sarin nerve agent. Despite many efforts to locate and destroy Iraq’s pre-Gulf War chemical munitions, filled and unfilled pre-Gulf War chemical munitions are assessed to still exist.”

According to Santorum, “That means in addition to the 500, there are filled and unfilled munitions still believed to exist within the country.”

Reading from the document, Santorum added, “Pre-Gulf War Iraqi chemical weapons could be sold on the Black Market. Use of these weapons by terrorist or insurgent groups would have implications for coalition forces in Iraq. The possibility of use outside of Iraq cannot be ruled out. The most likely munitions remaining are sarin- and mustard-filled projectiles. And I underscore filled.”

Santorum said the “purity of the agents inside the munitions depends on many factors, including the manufacturing process, potential additives and environmental storage conditions.”

While acknowledging that the agents “degrade over time,” the document said that the chemicals “remain hazardous and potentially lethal.”

The media has reported that “insurgents and Iraqi groups” want to “acquire and use chemical weapons,” Santorum noted.

The Pennsylvania senator called the finding “incredibly” significant.

“The idea that, as my colleagues have repeatedly said in this debate on the other side of the aisle, that there are no weapons of mass destruction is in fact false,” Santorum said. “We have found over 500 weapons of mass destruction and in fact have found that there are additional chemical weapons still in the country.”

Captain’s Quarters:

Some will claim that the release is strictly for political purposes. They may have a point, but I doubt it will have anything to do with domestic politics. If Bush wanted to use it for that, he would have done so in October 2004 and not in June 2006. This information changes the picture about our pre-war intelligence in time for the Iranian confrontation — and I suspect that the White House wants to declassify it in order to convince European leaders that our intel actually paid off.

Rumor has it this may just be the tip of the ice berg. Liberals are desperately trying to downplay this. 500 of these is actually quite a lot, and very deadly. D.C. shuts down if an envelope with detergent in it is found, so a find this significant will be a difficult thing to downplay. The truth is that it wouldn’t matter if we found huge stockpiles in underground facilities including a nuke, they would still try to conjure up some kind of countering talking point. See Dubya says: Have a cigar, and smile.

The Real Ugly American:

General Tom Mcinerney is reporting on Fox Hannity and Colmes right now that that the administration has been keeping this low profile to avoid exposing 3 of the 5 members of the UN Security council; Russia, China, and France. McInerney says these weapons will be traced to these countries, and asserts it is well known that Russia helped Saddam move most of his WMD stockpiles out of Iraq before the war.

Big Dog gives us a list of liberal talking points we will be hearing in the next few days:

Santorum is in trouble with his electorate so he did this to help his reelection
George Bush deliberately withheld this information to make the donks look bad. If he did that would be a pretty smart thing to do, especially for a man they all claim is dumber than a box of rocks.
The US planted them there
These are old items and don’t count
500? Is that the best you can do?
This is a trick by Bush. He is also holding bin Laden and will pretend to capture him just before the next election

Allah Pundit has all kinds of information and video.
Rick Santorum’s press release is here.
Euphoric Reality says “I told you so.”
Austin Bay has a good take on the whole thing.
Michelle Malkin has a good roundup.
Gateway Pundit has a good roundup too.
Dan Riehl says this is nothing new. We’ve found WMD several times.
Hot Air has the video of tonight’s Hannity and Colmes.
Expose The Left has video.
MVRWC
The Adventures of Chester has some thoughts.

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Comments

3 Responses to “Document Details WMD Recovered In Iraq”

Constantine on June 21st, 2006 9:05 pm

Santorum must have felt silly when he read this part of the story:

Offering the official administration response to FOX News, a senior Defense Department official pointed out that the chemical weapons were not in useable conditions.

“This does not reflect a capacity that was built up after 1991,” the official said, adding the munitions “are not the WMDs this country and the rest of the world believed Iraq had, and not the WMDs for which this country went to war.”

Don’t fret, though– the President is winning the war on words:

http://youtube.com/watch?v=IKtEqVVlVZs&#38;mode=related&#38;search=stephen%20colbert
steve. on June 21st, 2006 9:30 pm

They will just go back to what they planned to say before the invasion and that is we planted them. That is their talking point. They will say it and the media will do a story on ‘is it possible that the USA planted the WMD’?
kerwin_brown on June 22nd, 2006 10:12 am

I worked in a warehouse and unless they found a significant amount it can be easily excused as misfiled WMD that Saddam did not even know he had.