This really is breaking news. I've been waiting for the last hour to find word about what Rick Santorum and Pete Hoekstra announced at their
press conference at 5:15 this evening. As
Laura Rozen noted a short time before it started, Hoekstra's spokesman Jamal Ware stated that the purpose of the press conference was "to release the unclassified summary of an Army report on chemical weapons found in Iraq since May 2004." She goes on to comment, "I bet they are going to announce that they found the WMD after all."
That is exactly right, if the first report I've found is accurate. From Hot Air:
He's reading from a document about it right now with Pete Hoekstra by his side. The shells allegedly contained degraded mustard or sarin gas. He says they believe there are other shells inside the country that haven't been found yet.
That is about the extent of my information at the moment. I'll update as more complete reports of the press conference trickle out.
Hoekstra's role in this press conference is pretty clear; he is Chairman of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence. But Santorum? The press release (linked above) states that he was speaking as Chairman of the Senate Republican Conference. I think that indicates the extent to which the release of this information is being used for partisan political gain.
As for the scant information our one source gives us: The existence of degraded mustard and sarin gas shells is neither surprising nor to my mind remarkable. Saddam had lots of such material at one time, and even if his regime assiduously went about decommisioning such stocks in the 1990s, it would not be unusual for remnants to be left over in odd places, perhaps simply forgotten.
What has really been remarkable, and it's worth underlining, is that it has taken years apparently for the administration to find even some relatively insignificant remnants of WMD.
Or has the administration known about these for some time? It will be interesting to see whether reporters discovered when these shells were actually turned up.
I'll update as more information becomes available on this story.
Update [2006-6-21 19:12:22 by smintheus]: The first report on line is from CNS:
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."...
"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."
It appears that Santorum believes this information can be used to help Bush in two ways: (a) because Democrats have said in the past that no WMD were found in Iraq; and (b) by implying that US forces must remain in Iraq for an unforeseeable period in order to secure all the loose (degraded) mustard gas shells.
I find (a) preposterous. How could Democrats be accused of making false statements when they clearly did not have this information? If it's been on hand, why weren't they given it earlier? On (b), I'm not sure the American public is going to buy the idea that old shells that might, or might not, still be found is adequate grounds for leaving our troops in the middle of a civil war. Hell, if you poke around Belgium you'll find degraded and unexploded mustard gas shells from WWI.
Update [2006-6-21 20:0:57 by smintheus]: Good post at Think Progress is now up. It quotes the Iraq Survey ('Duelfer') report from 2004:
While a small number of old, abandoned chemical munitions have been discovered, ISG judges that Iraq unilaterally destroyed its undeclared chemical weapons stockpile in 1991. There are no credible Indications that Baghdad resumed production of chemical munitions thereafter, a policy ISG attributes to Baghdad’s desire to see sanctions lifted, or rendered ineffectual, or its fear of force against it should WMD be discovered.
...as well as Bush's own statement about those findings:
The chief weapons inspector, Charles Duelfer, has now issued a comprehensive report that confirms the earlier conclusion of David Kay that Iraq did not have the weapons that our intelligence believed were there.
As several posters report, who ventured into right blogistan and returned intact, even some of the wingnuts aren't buying the little Ricky show. It was obvious from the start that this "news" was going to be partisan hackery. What was less obvious initially was how badly they were going to bungle the operation. Some depleted shells? As the report now up at Raw Story reminds us, Fox News reported back in 2004 that a stray, depleted sarin shell had popped up in Iraq.
Update [2006-6-21 20:0:57 by smintheus]: The page at Hot Air now has the video up from the Fox News broadcast of little Ricky's show.
Update [2006-6-21 20:0:57 by smintheus]: Here is the press release from Santorum's office on this "critically important information that the world community needs to know".
U.S. Senator Rick Santorum (R-PA), Chairman of the Senate Republican Conference, joined Congressman Peter Hoekstra, (R-MI-2), Chairman of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, today to make a major announcement regarding the release of newly declassified information that proves the existence of chemical munitions in Iraq since 2003. The information was released by the Director of National Intelligence, John Negroponte, and contained an unclassified summary of analysis conducted by the National Ground Intelligence Center. In March, Senator Santorum began advocating for the release of these documents to the American public.
“The information released today proves that weapons of mass destruction are, in fact, in Iraq,” said Senator Santorum. “It is essential for the American people to understand that these weapons are in Iraq. I will continue to advocate for the complete declassification of this report so we can more fully understand the complete WMD picture inside Iraq.”
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.
I post it only for the sake of completeness. There is little specific information here, aside from the fact that this went through Negroponte's hands. I'm not sure that the world community really does need to know this information. The voters back in Pennsylvania, are they clamoring for the release of this information? Well, I'm one of Santorum's constituents and I'd like to see him do one of these press conferences every week. Keep the ammunition coming, Mr. Negroponte; Rick is shooting himself in the foot with it.
Update [2006-6-21 21:49:42 by smintheus]: Two links courtesy of kingsbridge77. First, the document released by Negroponte to Santorum and various other members of the House and Senate. It consists of little more than what Santorum has stuck in his press release. You can practically hear Negroponte yawning as he signs the damned thing. Rather amusingly, there appears to be a flub in the single page report. It's purpose is to provide an "overview of chemical munitions recovered in Iraq since May 2004." It then goes on to say "Since 2003 Coalition forces have recovered..." In other words, the agencies either don't think it's worthwhile to get the details right about when these shells were discovered, or they don't want to be pinned down.
Secondly, here is an article from USA Today that discusses the discovery in May 2004 of a depleted sarin shell near Falluja.
Daryl Kimball, executive director of the Arms Control Association, said it would not be surprising for Iraqi insurgents to accidentally use an old sarin artillery shell in an improvised explosive device.
"If they used this old shell to build bombs, it's not surprising they would use one that had sarin because there were so many of them before the Gulf War," Kimball said. "This does not constitute evidence that (President) Bush, (CIA Director George) Tenet, (national security adviser Condoleezza) Rice and Rumsfeld were right" that Saddam still had weapons of mass destruction before the United States sent troops into Iraq last year.
Update [2006-6-21 21:49:42 by smintheus]: And here is the best indication yet how Republicans will try to play this "incredible" revelation. Fox News has put up a report that wanders all over the map. It does it's best to insinuate that there are further weapons remaining to be discovered. Fox also claims that this shows (i) Hussein was lying when he said all his WMD had been destroyed, and (ii) the weapons inspectors weren't able to locate a stockpile even after years of inspections. Still, even Fox has to admit that this announcement is not all that it's cracked up to be.
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."
But then Fox tries to take some of it back by complaining about the inaccuracy of earlier reports. Towards the end, Fred Barnes is brought on to chew up the carpet.
"We know it was there, in place, it just wasn't operative when inspectors got there after the war, but we know what the inspectors found from talking with the scientists in Iraq that it could have been cranked up immediately, and that's what Saddam had planned to do if the sanctions against Iraq had halted and they were certainly headed in that direction," said Fred Barnes, editor of The Weekly Standard and a FOX News contributor.
"It is significant. Perhaps, the administration just, they think they weathered the debate over WMD being found there immediately and don't want to return to it again because things are otherwise going better for them, and then, I think, there's mindless resistance to releasing any classified documents from Iraq," Barnes said.
It's classic Fox News. Doesn't quite know what the facts are, but determined to say something ill about the Democrats.
Update [2006-6-21 21:49:42 by smintheus]: It's looking pretty bad for pal Ricky, to judge by the Associated Press report, which devotes only a few paragraphs to the allegations and frames them as part of the partisan fight over withdrawing from Iraq. Again, a hat-tip to kingsbridge77 for this link as well.
With some Democrats saying the decision to go to war was a mistake, Sen. Rick Santorum, R-Pa., and House Intelligence Chairman Peter Hoekstra, R-Mich., tried to dispel arguments by Democratic lawmakers that no weapons of mass destruction were found in Iraq.
Santorum and Hoekstra released a newly declassified military intelligence report that said coalition forces have found 500 munitions in Iraq that contained degraded sarin or mustard nerve agents, produced before the 1991 Gulf War.
But a defense official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the weapons were not considered likely to be dangerous because of their age. Also, Democrats said a lengthy 2005 report from the top U.S. weapons inspector contemplated that such munitions would be found.
Now let's hope that Casey has the sense to nail Santorum on this nonsense.
Update [2006-6-21 23:38:12 by smintheus]: Over at my own blog, I have now summed up what can be said about the Senator's excellent adventure: Rick Santorum makes a fool of himself, again
Update [2006-6-22 1:58:49 by smintheus]: I've already begun to get wingnuts visiting my blog pointing out how wrong I am about Santorum's adventure in WMD. They are positively slobbering over the "news" this evening, to judge by my little stroll over on the dark side. Therefore, just to make this point absolutely clear to any visitors here who can't be bothered to think for too long before grasping for those straws:
The most essential criterion for a Weapon of Mass Destruction is that it must first be a weapon. A weapon is something that one can use. These shells were so degraded that they could not be used. Fox News (link above) referred to a "senior Defense Department official" who offered the "official administration response" to the Santorum show: the shells "were not in useable conditions".