WMDs?

I guess this debate hasn't yet ended.

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.

Senator Santorum and Congressman Hoekstra were instrumental in release a number of Iraqi documents recovered after the war to the public.

It doesn't look like those are the documents the Senator is reading from, but an intellgence assessment.

Why hasn't this information been public for a while?

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."

Hmmm.

I noticed this story because the last 20 hits to SantorumBlog were all "santorum and wmd" related. A little news searching led me to this story.

Update: Captain Ed writes on the political implications.

The political significance will be difficult to calculate without more information on when and where the shells were found, in what condition, and so on. However, their existence in those numbers will at least eliminate the argument that Saddam's WMD existed only in his head, a position that former Saddam henchmen have taken ever since they fell into Coalition hands.

Allahpundit:

When I say political value, I don’t mean just for Bush. Santorum’s re-election bid is on life support, and of course there’s a debate raging on the Senate floor about the war right now. I’ve been meaning to write about it but don’t have much to say except that it’s entertaining to watch Democrats trying to figure out how defeatist is too defeatist for purposes of getting re-elected.

Update: Santorum Office Press Release

The following are the six key points contained in the unclassified overview:

• 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.

• Pre-Gulf War Iraqi chemical weapons could be sold on the black market. Use of these weapons by terrorists or insurgent groups would have implications for Coalition forces in Iraq. The possibility of use outside Iraq cannot be ruled out.

• The most likely munitions remaining are sarin and mustard-filled projectiles.

• The purity of the agent inside the munitions depends on many factors, including the manufacturing process, potential additives, and environmental storage conditions. While agents degrade over time, chemical warfare agents remain hazardous and potentially lethal.

• It has been reported in open press that insurgents and Iraqi groups desire to acquire and use chemical weapons.

Update: Bob Casey's position, for reference.

We now know that the Bush administration's rationale for its rush to war was horribly flawed. The supposedly imminent threat posed by the Hussein regime's possession of weapons of mass destruction did not exist.

Ugh. Imminent threat meme again.

Update: Here's a transcript of the news conference. I got the text in email and converted to PDF. Thank you Mindy!

Update: The Senator will be on Hannity & Communist Colmes tonight on Fox at 9pm. No doubt this topic will come up.

Update: HotAir has video of the press conference.

Update: Hard Starboard

One wonders how long the intel community has been sitting on this piece of paper. Could there be good guys at the CIA who have finally started leaking good news from Iraq that vindicates the President's decision to invade? If so, what the devil have they been waiting for?

I'm guessing that these five hundred chemical shells didn't make it onto the Syrian Express truck. I'm also guessing that the DisLoyal Opposition will say either (1) so what, this stuff is so old it probably pre-dates Saddam, and besides, he still didn't have nukes, or (2) Bush had the military plant the evidence to frame Saddam right as the ex-dictator's trial is nearing the sentencing phase (and right as the 2006 mid-term elections approach, given that Santorum made the announcement).

Update: Matt Margolis at BlogsForBush links to the House Permanent Committee on Intelligence's document.

More: From FoxNews

Hoekstra said the report, completed in April but only declassified now, shows that "there is still a lot about Iraq that we don't fully understand."

Asked why the Bush administration, if it had known about the information since April or earlier, didn't advertise it, Hoekstra conjectured that the president has been forward-looking and concentrating on the development of a secure government in Iraq.

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."

Overhyping this story would be a fatal mistake for the Santorum re-election campaign. He has to deliver.

The Conservative Voice

Other portions of the intelligence report provide a glimpse of what some Iraq experts say is Saddam's attempt to continue to wage war against the US after the first Gulf War ended.

Earlier this year, the New York Times reported that in the days before the US-led invasion of Iraq, one of Saddam's generals, Georges Sada, said he witnessed what he believes were large volumes of WMD being transported into Syria. He also states that members of the Russian military assisted the Iraqis in removing the weapons.

Update: I caught only the tail end (seconds) of Santorum & Hoekstra on Hannity & Colmes.

Right on the Left Coast

If it's true, what excuse will the lefties have then? Let me offer a few we might expect.

"There are only 500 rounds found. That's not enough to invade a country for."
"We probably planted them there to drum up support for Bush's faltering war blah blah blah Bush lied!"
"Took 'em long enough to find them."

Oh, and let's not forget that these are in addition to the weapons that we found that the UN knew to be there, under UN seal. Apparently not all of them had been spirited out of the country in the lead-up to the invasion.

Ok. Last Updated Until AM:

RadioBlogger has a transcript of the Senator on Hugh Hewitt's show.

Audio is also available.

Hugh Hewitt also comments...

The failure to find WMD has had a corrosive effect on the public debate and on some support for the war.
There are only two reasons to have withheld such information.

First, that a political decision was made not to reveal the information until such time as the case could not be rebutted or disparaged except by the nutter fringe. That seems too cautious a move for the Administration.

The second reason is the fear that details of the discoveries would lead terrorists to similarly situated caches, endangering vast numbers of our troops and civilians.

This would be a compelling excuse for the refusal to release the details if in fact the war was carried to a successful conclusion, but ultimately not persuasive if in fact the war effort cannot be sustained because of a loss of support at home.

What we have right now if a very confused picture, and the Adminsitration simply cannot expect the public to be satisfied with the announcement today and the declassified summary provided by Director Negroponte. At a minimum, if more cannot be disclosed, an explanation must be given as to why that is the case.

HotAir has video from Hannity & Colmes.

Michael Ledeen:

Please point out to your readers that Negroponte only declassified a few fragments of a much bigger document. Read the press conference and you will see that Santorum and Hoekstra were furious at the meager declassification. They will push for more, and we all must do that. I am told that there is a lot more in the full document, which CIA is desperate to protect, since it shows the miserable job they did looking for WMDs in Iraq.

Finally, one of my favorites, Blonde Sagacity.

The few left-leaning sites that have acknowledged this report are claiming "they aren't the WMDs we went to war for"... Is there a WMD distinction I am unaware of?

This doesn't "validate the war" for me --I don't need a huge WMD cache to do that. The Clinton Administration, John Kerry, Hillary Clinton, The U.N. and the French, German and British intelligence agencies all made the case before we went in (even if they've since had amnesia about that little fact).

Al Sharpton claims he will apologize for all his "Bush lied" accusations if the document is correct... I wonder how many others would follow? I’m guessing they could find nukes and a diagram of the White House in Iraq and no apologies would be forthcoming…